Living in the people’s republic of Trudeaupia you’re often told that you live in the greatest place on earth. From its bovine media to its placid middle class the inhabitants of the nation are one contented lot. Now they have the added bonus of an alliance between a party leader going nowhere (NDP) and a party leader going anywhere he can but Parliament (Liberal).

We speak, of course, of the Liberal/ NDP Grand Alliance cast this week with the goal of making sure never is heard a discouraging word about the PM. In fact, one of the organizing principles behind the Grand Alliance is creating new laws that allow the government to better police pushback from those who cause Trudeau dismay. Like Truckers.

This new legislation has emerged from Trudeau’s faculty lounge… er, caucus… and has caused almost zero perturbation from sea to to sea to sea. Yes, the usual cranks like Jordan B. Peterson have pointed out that Bill C-38 etc is totalitarian in tone, but they’re always on about something. Just listen to PM Skippy: Canadians are the most envied people on earth. They have me.

Except if you choose not to take his vaccine that sorta’ works on days that don’t end in Y. Then “they are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?” These comments—made in French— only seemed to upset truckers and their like at the time. In the urgency of the Convoy coverage it was more important to find KKK members or alt-right militias, not the Where’s Waldo PM.

Which is probably why dozing Canadians are a little miffed to see the rude welcome afforded the PM at the European Parliament where he came to drop pearls of wisdom about freedom and democracy. Seems a few at the MEP have caught Trudeau’s vaxx vituperation and were less than happy to see his smug countenance in their midst.

Even if Canadians don’t mind, the EU members saw his suspension of liberties, his use of police tactics, his manipulation of state media and his freezing of bank accounts as something un-Canadian. One after the other they got up to denounce the effrontery of a man who had fabricated a political coup coming to lecture them on liberty. A Croatian member tweeted, “Trudeau, in recent months, under your quasi-liberal boot, Canada has become a symbol of civil rights violations. The methods we have witnessed may be liberal to you, but to many citizens around they seemed like a dictatorship of the worst kind.”

“He's exactly like a tyrant, a dictator. He's like Ceaușescu in Romania,” said a Romanian speaker. “Trudeau is terrified by the fact that populism is taking root in Canada and giving ordinary people a voice. He ignores the fact that he and the Liberals have driven Canada into the gutter. Populism is only a reaction to our elites who have lost the plot.”

“Spare us your presence here,” added a third. The invitation to Trudeau, noted a fourth EU member, is to someone “who’s been trampling on human rights.” (Naturally Canadian media on the payroll concentrated solely on PMJT;s speech, not the condemnation.)

Even more embarrassing, no one in EU high office stood up to denounce the battering Canada’s PM was taking. Let’s just say that this is not the sort of thing that happened when Lester Pearson went abroad to represent the country. Remember, too, that these were representatives of nations where democracy was—and is— still hard-won and costly. As opposed to the price paid by the trust-fund PM and his Woke acolytes who’ve lived charmed lives.

Just as telling as the barbs thrown at Trudeau was the repudiation of the coverage he’d received from his own purchased media back home during the Truckers Convoy. We made the point at the time that the images from the streets would stain Canada internationally. All the PM’s calls for order would be lost.

Yet the media of the time played the PM’s tune. They praised police. While Trudeau hid in his bunker they concentrated their wrath on the truckers, building them into a swastika- waving subversive group bent on insurrection— as opposed to a rowdy group democratically protesting in the nation’s capital. The real victims, according to the Liberal media, were the poor condo dwellers of Central Ottawa, their sleep interrupted by honking horns.

This week’s EU Parliament fiasco (who does Trudeau’s advance work?) exposes the game going on in Ottawa. The World can see. Canada was only fooling itself. Now the world mocks the PM and Canada. And that will now go on for another three years.

Speaking of media party games, you’d be a brave person in Canada to also express a negative thought about Ukrainian PM Vladimir Zelensky these days. Such is the Western reverence for his defiant performance in the current Russian invasion of his country that he’s been compared to Churchill or FDR.

Certainly no one in modern military history since that pair has made a more compelling cause for his cause. Using video, photo ops and Congressional/ Parliamentary addresses to politicians in Canada, the U.S. and U.K. Zelensky’s been called a Titan of democracy, the best friend the West could have. A bulwark against Russian terror.

All this laudatory media outpouring comes from fanboy press that seems to take Zalensky love as a loyalty oath. “The Western intelligence apparatus won the information war in Ukraine before a shot was fired” tweeted Pedro L. Gonzalez. If this were simply a battle for minds, the Russians would be TKO’d already.

The reality is less commendable. Zelensky is not simply the former comedian-made-good. Elected as a reformer, Zelensky set about enriching himself and sidelining his enemies. Even as Canadian war hawk David Frum gushed that Zelensky’s Ukraine was “the first example in human history of a country that under the pressure of war is becoming *more* tolerant and *more* liberal” the PM suspended 11 opposition parties, merged all TV channels into one controlled by him and imposed censorship.

Hey, it’s a tough neighbourhood. The point is not whether Zelensky is too toxic to justify his Western support . The U.S. is used to dealing with the devil they know. Clearly the West will support him in the face of the cruelties imposed on his nation. The question is why does legacy media need to promote a false image of Zelensky as a democrat and reformer when the facts don’t support it?

Yet the Media Party has made any recognition of Zelensky’s foibles into Putin love. Here’s Frum trying to put dissenters into line: “I'm trying to recall a single instance of a resignation of conscience at Fox News over the network's support for Putin's war.” (Fellow Canadian John Roberts had to remind Frum that FOX had had two employees killed and another seriously wounded on the job in Ukraine. “You used to be better than this.”)

You get the drift. Too many people are invested in the Zelkensky Method to back down. The same overwhelming desire for Canadian media consensus that led Trudeau to his EU humiliation is now also at work in sanctifying Zelensky. As he old expression goes, when faced with a choice between the facts and the legend, print the legend.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

EU To Canada: Next Time Try Sending Your Best