Some time ago, while my car was parked on the street in downtown Thorold, another driver failed at parallel parking so spectacularly that they ended up crashing into my car. Then they sped off.
My bumper was pretty mangled, the headlight cracked open; it was a mess. I filed a police report, and to my great surprise, the cops actually did real police work. They pulled security camera footage from a nearby store and got the make, model, and license plate of the offender.
A few days later, they called me up and said they’d tracked down the guy who hit my car. They also explained that the driver was currently homeless, and was living out of his van, the same van he used to crash into my car.
“Would you still like us to pursue charges?” they asked, noting that charges would likely mean he would lose his license, and his van, and thus, put him on the streets.
Naturally, I was a bit conflicted. For insurance purposes, it was in my best interests to have him charged. But as a human being with empathy, I obviously didn’t want to ruin this guy’s life.
As I often do when I’m struggling with a decision, I looked to my dad for advice. I called up my old man and told him the situation.
“Son, you don’t kick a man when he’s down, and if this guy is living out of his van, he is most certainly down,” my dad told me. “Pay for the damage yourself and let him be.”
Which is what I did, somewhat reluctantly, even though deep down I knew it was the right thing to do. It was good advice, and it’s something that has stuck with me ever since: don’t kick a man when he’s down.
Which is why I won’t be kicking Justin Trudeau this week. Because he is most certainly down.
If you watched his resignation press conference this week, as I did, you saw a very different Trudeau from the one we’ve seen for the past decade. Where usually Trudeau has the smug overconfidence of a mid-grade nepotist white guy, this week we saw genuine contrition from a humbled man taking his licks. Where usually he responds to questions by not even attempting to address the question, but rather consulting his mental rolodex of stock slogans, instead we saw a man give real, off the cuff answers.
It was astounding. If we had seen more of this Trudeau over the past decade, people might not loathe him so vociferously.
If we had seen more of this Trudeau over the past decade, people might not loathe him so vociferously
But this is not the time for loathing. Trudeau is done, cooked, headed off into the sunset, which is why I found it so incredibly tacky that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh used the opportunity to release such a slimy, self-serving statement. It should have been so easy. When Trudeau resigned, all Singh had to do was put out a generic, “Thanks for your years of service, blah-blah,” statement, but instead he took a dozen ill-advised pot shots at the departing Liberal leader. Kicking a man when he’s down. Shameful stuff.
I’m not a fan of Trudeau, but watch how easy it is to just not be a dickhead.
Trudeau did some great things while in office. He legalized cannabis, sparing a generation of teenagers from needless criminal records, shuttering a lucrative criminal network of weed growers and dealers, while opening up an entire cannabis agriculture industry to economic prosperity. The Conservatives would have never, ever in a million years, legalized weed, and that’s something worth remembering going into the next election.
Trudeau also brokered child daycare deals with the provinces that saved struggling parents thousands upon thousands of dollars. The child daycare subsidy program is far from perfect, but as Voltaire said, perfect is the enemy of the good, and the daycare program is a damn good start. Before the program was implemented, daycare was costing me a bank-busting $52 per day; after the daycare deal was signed, my daycare bill dropped to a much more manageable $22 per day. We’re not quite at the promised $10 per day, and there are a lot of complicated logistical problems with the program that are boring and not worth getting into here, but again, it’s a fine start that has helped a lot of families find affordable daycare.
See how easy that was? See how easy it is to not kick a man when he’s down?
Speaking of going down, if there is one issue I have with Trudeau’s resignation, it’s the fact that he resigned at all. He’s condemning whichever poor sucker takes the job of Liberal leader next to a near guaranteed beating in the next federal election.
He should have stuck it out, called an election, and took his beating from the voters.
Because like my dad always told me: the captain goes down with the ship.
James Culic feels bad for the guy who has a warehouse full of thousands of “F**K Trudeau” flags that he won’t be able to sell now. Find out how to yell at him at the bottom of this page, or parallel park into his bumper with a letter to the editor.
