“I Don’t Think About Monetary Policy” Is The Biggest Gaffe Of The Campaign So Far

InsightSpencerFernando

With voters putting the surging cost-of-living as their top issue of concern, Trudeau demonstrates incompetence and detachment from what is impacting Canadians the most.

As they like to say, ‘campaigns matter.’

In 2011, the Conservatives went into the campaign with a lead, but nobody could have predicted the NDP would surge to second place, win over 30% of the vote, and dominate in Quebec, relegating the Liberals to also-ran status while the Conservatives won a majority government.

In 2015, the Liberals jumped from third to first, pushing the Conservatives out of government, and taking most of the NDP’s seats.

In 2019, the Liberals barely held on, with Trudeau’s blackface ‘revelation’ pushing the party to have to scratch and claw their way to a narrow, strategic victory, even losing the popular vote to the CPC despite having won it by nine points four years prior.

As the 2021 campaign began, the Conservatives got off to a terrible start, running one of the worst ads of all time (the Willy Wonka parody), an ad so bad that some CPC MPs even publicly distanced themselves from it.

Polls also show the Liberals with a lead, though that lead has been narrowing as CPC support rises a bit, and the Liberals lose some to the NDP.

Further, the shocking collapse of the Liberals in Nova Scotia (some polls showed them with nearly a 30 point lead when the campaign started), will certainly put some chilling thoughts into the mind of Liberal strategists, who would probably rather not see a fellow Liberal government be punished by voters for calling an early election.

And that all brings us to the biggest gaffe of the 2021 election so far, a gaffe that far outweighs the terrible CPC ad.

Here’s Justin Trudeau sharing his thoughts – or lack thereof – on monetary policy:

“Inflation control by The Bank of Canada is one of the most important issues in this election.

We cannot re-elect a Prime Minister who asks us to “forgive him” for not thinking about monetary policy.”

And, as Darshan Maharaja noted on Twitter, Trudeau is clearly ignorant of the responsibility of the federal government:

“He also doesn’t know the responsibility of the federal government (or doesn’t care):

“First introduced in 1991, the target is set jointly by the Bank of Canada and the federal government and reviewed every five years.”

That year is 2021.”

Poilievre responds

In a video posted to his Twitter account, Pierre Poilievre – former CPC finance critic and the person who probably most accurately represents what Conservatives think about the economy – responded to Trudeau’s ignorance:

“Big Trudeau gaffe: he says he doesn’t “think about monetary policy”—even though whoever is PM this fall will sign off on the central bank inflation mandate, setting the cost of living for the next 5 years.

If he gets in, he’ll let inflation go wild without a thought.”

Inflation continues rising

Despite the government and Bank of Canada constantly attempting to downplay inflation – and trying to get us to ignore what we can see in terms of prices going up and up and up – inflation continues to rise.

As noted by BNN Bloomberg, the Bank of Canada is still trying to claim rising inflation is ‘transitory’:

“Canadian inflation accelerated to match its highest reading in almost two decades, threatening to become a political headache for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an election campaign.

The consumer price index was up 3.7 per cent in July from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday in Ottawa. It last hit that level in 2011. Canada hasn’t recorded inflation above above 3.7 per cent since 2003. Economists were anticipating the rate to increase to 3.4 per cent, from 3.1 per cent in June.

While this marks the fourth straight month inflation has come in above the Bank of Canada’s 1 per cent to 3 per cent control range, policy makers are still likely to view prices pressures as transitory. Governor Tiff Macklem, whose latest forecasts show inflation creeping up to 3.9 per cent in the third quarter before easing at the end of the year, has warned against overreacting to the “temporary” spike.”

Here’s the thing:

Even if inflation is ‘temporary’, it still has a huge impact on the cost of living.

Further, everything is temporary on a long enough time scale. Using that as a way to avoid a real discussion of inflation is a clear evasion by the Bank of Canada and the federal government.

Whenever inflation goes back to a lower level, it will be doing so from an already-inflated height, meaning the rise in the cost of living will be baked in.

Trudeau’s arrogant elitist disconnect

As I said early in this article, Trudeau’s remarks are the biggest gaffe of the campaign.

To start with, they give the CPC the chance to put together a devastating ad against him:

“Clip Trudeau’s comment saying he doesn’t think about monetary policy. Show a family saying they can’t afford not to think about the rising cost of living & inflation. Then say ‘Trudeau isn’t thinking about you,’ he’s only thinking about himself.’ A quick and easy devastating ad.”

https://twitter.com/SpencerFernando/status/1428082881889509383

This is why Trudeau’s remarks are such a big danger for him and the Liberals:

They feed into already-existing perceptions both of Trudeau’s ignorance, and his elitism.

Many Canadians see him as an arrogant and vapid individual, who has mastered the art of projecting an image, but with nothing of substance beyond that image.

Many Canadians also see Trudeau as an elitist, who is disconnected from the financial struggles many have faced.

Trudeau, having been born into a financially privileged situation, has the luxury of not worrying about monetary policy, since he never had to think about how to scrounge to pay bills, what he could and couldn’t buy, or how to make ends meet on a regular basis.

Inflation, and the rising cost of living have never been issues he really had to worry about personally.

Justin, Of course you don’t think about monetary policy… or fiscal policy… or anything else. You know who does think about these things? The working class people whose cost of living you are ballooning with inflationary deficits.

You can see this when it comes to his view of the economy, which is to simply print as much money as possible and spend as much as possible, assuming that more money sent out by the government magically generates better results.

Of course, we know that if you print a bunch of money, and send out a bunch of money as a government, in an economy where no comparable productivity increases are taking place, all you are doing is debasing the value of your currency, rather than generating real wealth.

Trudeau will now spend time on the defensive, having to answer why he is so ignorant and uninterested in something that has such a massive impact on the lives of Canadians.

Spencer Fernando

Photo – Twitter

***

If you value my independent perspective, you can make a contribution through PayPal, or directly through Stripe below. Thank you.

[simpay id=”28904″]