Cheque, please

I would gladly pay you tomorrow for victory today

“Can I buy you a beer?”

Almost everything Justin Trudeau does these days is in part an expression of frustration. Every podcast interview he gives is about the excellent government Canadians don’t realize they’re getting. Really very much at the vanguard of human progress. Future generations will weep. But today’s generations remain ungrateful, so if Trudeau finds himself, after nearly a decade in Canada’s prime minister, chipping in to shave a few bucks off your beer tab, please do not think he feels good about it.

If you had gotten properly excited about the $2.4 billion for AI that he announced in April (“a major investment in the future”), or the $76 billion defence policy update, or the capital-gains tax class war that Trudeau sought and got when Pierre Poilievre voted against the government, or the school lunches or all the other properly future-oriented policies the government has been pushing out the door for months, years — well, if you knew what was in front of you, if you could spot the future when it was right there waiting for you to reach for it, then he would not have to stoop to retail gimmicks like a holiday GST vacay and a bulk mailout of cheques.

He tried to be progressive and elegant and wonky. It didn’t move a vote. So he will be blunt. It’s a mighty long way from Great Reset down to Great Rebate, but a guy’s gotta pay the bills, amirite.