Clearing The Air with Smokescreens: My Thoughts on the Conservatives’ Condemnation of Justin Trudeau’s Pot Admission

“Adore me, fellow Canadians! I am your Saviour, the Son of Pierre, and now devoted beatnik pot smoker!”
(Image stolen from The Star)

Now let me make it clear from the start: I am no major fan of Justin Trudeau. In fact, I consider him to be rather goofy and Americanized in all the wrong ways. Like his father before him, he tends to ride on a crest of charisma rather than an agenda of well-defined policies. (Of course, this can be said of the federal Liberals in general in recent decades.) True, either Trudeau would be slightly less embarrassing to have in office than a Stephen Harper or a Kim Campbell; but Dear saintly Justin has never struck me as anyone ideologically sound or sociopolitically astute.

Having said that, I consider his recent admission of illicit marijuana use to be as refreshingly bold and honest as what it is pragmatically foolish. So when the likes of Peter MacKay says that Trudeau is setting “a poor example for Canadians, particularly young ones”, I take it as an indirect insult. Here’s the comment I left in the wake of the story at CBC.ca:

“Peter McKay says that Justin Trudeau is setting a bad example for the youth of this country. That’s really rich coming from the new justice minister! Mr McKay’s party hasn’t been setting any sort of example at all for us young people of Canada—the Conservatives have been too busy attempting to jail and subjugate us with hideous new sex, drug, and internet downloading legislation. On top of that, we still can’t vote for the oppressive jerks who write the laws until we're 18!

“I know my history: Never has there been a government in Canada which has displayed such animosity towards the nation’s youth. I’ve turned 18 within the last year, and I can’t wait for the next federal election so I can help vote such bigoted scum out of office. I’m not a cannabis user, nor am I a particularly big fan of the Liberal Party, but give me Mr Trudeau any day over the anachronistic old duffers that currently rule over us.”

Wow!  Isn't he ‘grunge’!

Obviously, judging from the old photo that Rick Mercer posted to Twitter, Mr MacKay has not always been an exemplary pillar of sobriety and restraint for us youth of the nation. Of course, the argument has also been made—by former Reform/Alliance MP Stockwell Day, and others who regret their prolonged virginity and think the world is 15,000 years old—that Mr MacKay was doing nothing illegal by ‘bonging’ booze. That’s very true; but the same can be said of 18-year-old porn stars who ejaculate and urinate over each other’s mouth and face. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s hiding hypocrisy behind a wall of convenient legalities.

Occasionally, a story of Conservative indiscretion will break like a bubble to the surface. Accounts of Rahim Jaffer and his cocaine and drunk-driving charges, Maxime Bernier’s open briefcase and dubious biker-girlfriend, and—in the halcyon days of Reform/Alliance goodness—Jack Ramsay’s sexual assault of a Cree teen while serving as an RCMP officer in the late ’60s should immediately come to mind. A veneer of white-picket fences, ankle-length skirts and Sunday roast-beef dinners is maintained, nevertheless. The transgressors are passed off as regrettable yet inexplicable anomalies—like flash floods and unruly sasquatches. Still, when it comes to matters of drugs, sex and corruption, one cannot help but surmise that there’s so much more going on behind the scenes, behind closed doors. Methinks the horny, drunken old white man doth protest too much.

So how do we expose these perceived/closet perpetrators? What I propose we do is offer monetary rewards in exchange for any tip that leads to a criminal investigation of a Conservative MP or any of their associates, past or present. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If Harper Conservatives like former MP Vic Toews can envision instigating quasi witch hunts with his proposed internet surveillance scheme, then we can do the same. I wonder if we could launch such a project through Kickstarter or a similar website. The desire to see Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack brought in close to two-hundred grand at Gawker, keep in mind. We could even raise money by selling gag t-shirts emblazoned with, “I’m a Proud Canadian—of course I’m with the Child Pornographers!”

To quote Public Enemy, let’s get it on.

Keep on toking, Mr Trudeau. Keep on dreaming about your 11-year-old daughters and granddaughters naked on a desert island, Harper Conservatives.