Well, Trudeau Jr., even before officially becoming Canada’s new Prime Minister, was already reneging on his key platform promise to spend infrastructure money to help out Canada’s middle class.
It is old the bait and switch, sports fans.
And the Quebec voters — and all the idealistic, starry-eyed Canadians who voted for the Liberals thinking that their middle class lot in life will improve — fell for it, once again, hook, line and Liberal stinker politics.
Bowing to the worst form of NIMBYism (I call them “SWADEs”: Smug, White, Arrogant Downtown Elitists), the new Trudeau government kiboshed efforts by Toronto-based Porter Air and the majority of Toronto City Council to expand the already successful downtown Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.
The plan was to extend both ends of the Billy Bishop runway by 168 metres, to allow Bombardier C Series airplanes to safely take off and land. That way, Porter Air could offer longer flights from Toronto to western Canada, the United States and even the Caribbean.
Currently, the Billy Bishop airport accommodates two million visitors to Toronto. Expansion would double that,, giving Toronto and the GTA a much needed economic shot in the arm.
And studies show that the continued success of Porter Air benefits all Canadian air travelers. Air Canada and West Jet are forced to lower their prices and improve their service in order to compete with Porter Air. The expansion of Billy Bishop would only increase this healthy competition.
Porter Air has agreed to buy 12 C Series Bombardier planes, with an option to buy 18 more. Such an order is worth $2.3 billion at 2013 list prices. However, this order is conditional on the three parties — the federal government, the city of Toronto and Ports Toronto — approving the airport extension.
So this is where things get really interesting.
The Quebec provincial Liberal government has already committed $1 billion to Bombadier to assist with C Series plane development, and Quebec’s Economy Minister Jacques Daoust said he will ask the Trudeau government to match that amount.
(Recall the federal Liberals were decimated in Quebec in the 2011 federal election. In this recent election, the Trudeau Liberals secured 40 Quebec seats.)
It would be financially foolish for Trudeau to agree to a $1 billion lifeline to Bombadier, then killing Porter Air’s $2.3 billion order of Bombardier C Series planes.
On the other hand, for Trudeau to both kill the Porter Air Bombardier order and refused to extend a financial lifeline to Bombadier could be politically fatal for Trudeau and the Liberals in Quebec.
You can bet your sweet poutine that the Quebec Conservatives, Mulcair and his NDP fellows and the revived BQ would be all over Trudeau for lying to the Quebec people about creating jobs.
Just ask the BQ and the NDP. What goes up in one Quebec election in Quebec, comes crashing down the next.
The lefty loony lunatic Adam Vaughan, elected Liberal MP of Spadina-Fort York, and representing Toronto’s “SWADE” element, seems to be pulling the strings of the puppet Trudeau.
Recall that Trudeau never specifically campaigned on the platform of killing the Porter Air expansion.
But the out of control Vaughan is claiming such a public mandate.
And the stupid, clueless and weak Trudeau seems to going along, in effect telling middle class workers in Montreal and Toronto to go frack themselves.
Because at this stage, with Vaughan claiming an end to an expanded Porter Air, the Trudeau Liberals do not seem disposed to help either Quebec Bombardier workers or Toronto citizens.
Remember: We conservatives warned you about these incompetent, anti-business, anti-private sector and anti-jobs Liberals.
Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian 