Apr 16 2025 - Statesman vs Politician

 

Justin Trudeau was interviewed by Valerie Pringle on Canada Files last night.  He said his father was a statesman and not a politician.  I had to look it up. "In most respects a statesman is the opposite of a politician. Politicians are thought of as people who will say or do anything to get elected or to gain power. A statesman is someone who does everything for the common good of the people he or she represents." Pierre Trudeau's entry in Wikipedia says: a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. I had forgotten that Trudeau had a fourth child, a daughter, in 1991.  She wasn't much in the news from a celebrity point of view. I looked her up and found some interesting information.   “It’s known that Trudeau did, on at least one occasion, travel with his young daughter. It was on an outing in Niagara Falls in 1996 that a 5-year-old Sarah had a chance encounter with Jimmy Carter, the former president of the United States.” "It was at her father’s funeral in September, 2000  that the public first caught a glimpse of Sarah Trudeau-Coyne.  Upon entering the church, she nodded assurances to both [U.S. President Jimmy]Carter and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who reached down to embrace her.  She was nine years old at the time of the funeral. " Since then?  Not much in the news, sometimes an article on her low-profile life compared to her famous half-brother, Justin Trudeau.  And not mentioned in the interview with Valarie Pringle and Justin Trudeau.

A model layout today.

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Nov 18 2022 - Tempers Rising

 

Remember the lip readers for the Royals?  Similarly at the G20, there are the news journalists and camera people at the ready for something special.  And it happened.  Xi Jinping got temperamental with Justin Trudeau and scolded him, caught on video.   "At the G-20 summit in Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping chided Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over what he described as a media leak of an earlier conversation. Trudeau expressed the importance of transparency and a desire to work together."  That quote from the Prime Minister's Office/Reuters. That "leak" was the standard readout that the Prime Minister's Office issues after leader-to-leader conversations.   The Toronto Star's comment on this was:  "Getting a lecture on secrecy from the Chinese leader was a little like getting lessons in diplomacy from Trump." Another verb for the interaction was "rebuke".  That was the headline in Wall Street Journal. But the summary paragraph decided it was "chided".  From the Independent, it was "Awkward exchange between Xi and Trudeau caught on camera.  "The Canadian prime minister was seen responding sharply to the remarks by the Chinese president.  The verb in this one was "confronts".  There we are with a relationship that consists of "scolding" "tantrum" or "slams" and "criticized", chided.  And the last part is the real story: "Xi then added that there could be consequences for Trudeau — but he did not say what those might be. The translator did not convey this remark to the prime minister, but Global News confirmed the translation with three Mandarin speakers." “It’s this last phrase which has a threatening aspect to it, the way it was phrased in Chinese,” said Charles Burton, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, who speaks Mandarin and previously worked at the Canadian embassy in China. “He normally leaves those kinds of menacing statements to members of the foreign ministry who seem to specialize in this kind of thing.” The phrase Xi used, Burton added, is the kind of thing “a mafia thug might say to someone to intimidate them.” "The comment from Xi translates to “or else,” or “I don’t know what the consequences will be” of Trudeau sharing the information about his conversation with the Chinese president, Burton said." So there we are with what might seemed to be a straight-forward story. And our picture today foretelling of the darkest day of the year yet to come. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

June 26 2020 - Trudeau Vs Mulroney

Our two favourite political dynasties in Canada have been in the news on the topic of racism.  The most recent is Ben Mulroney.  He made the headlines apologizing for his wife Jessica over her much-publicized 'negative interaction' - a euphemism for 'racist interaction' with Sasha Exeter.   The lead line in one story reads: "Who needs the police force when the Laurentian elite can just abuse you directly?"  And then there's the name dropping - Megan Merkle's name - as she and Jessica were friends.  Jessica is quoted as "having deployed a classic defence: that she had a Black friend. As I told you privately, I have lived a very public and personal experience with my closest friend where race was front and centre,” she wrote in response to Ms. Exeter’s video, referring to Meghan Markle.   Markle has been reported to have 'cast her adrift'.  Editorials consider Ben Mulroney's involvement in his wife's problems to be a strategic one - to be about protecting the "Mulroney brand'.  I think that came from John Doyle of the Globe and Mail who recounted a situation where he was on the receiving end of Mulroney dynasty pressures and complaints related to coverage of Ben.  On the other side of the dynasty ring is Justin Trudeau.  Remember not so long ago - in September 2019 - he apologized for a picture showing him in blackface at a party in 2001.   He expressed "deep regret, declared that his privileged background left a blind spot to such racist acts and insisted he was no longer the man in the photo." That was just before the election, too. It's easier to see privilege and racism way up there.  Makes me nervous to think about Stephen Harper's children, now in their twenties, and what we could expect there.  And then there's the Ford family.   Seeing as there's no easy answer on this topic, let's go on to the image of the day.  What do you think of this water lily?  It seems to be on its side in the water. I would think the water lilies just got placed into the gardens at RBG as they were all lying at the top like this - in tangled messes.  They would have come from deeper water ponds, so their stems are too long.   I went about some photoshop hair-cutting and trimming, to form them into a very nice composition. Then it took some dyeing to make the water consistently black.  Sounds like a COVID-19 hair salon appointment.

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Bill Mason Famous Canoe

I have been in the process of getting a dental implant.  The dentist is Peter Fritz in Foothill.  His office is impressive with a Northern Ontario theme of canoes.  I was there yesterday for one of the final stages in the process.  I was reading his newsletters in the waiting room.  Most of them had pictures of a very big canoe - showcasing it in the newsletters.  I asked about it. Peter told me that this canoe was owned by Bill Mason, famous canoeist and filmmaker.  Bill Mason is known as the patron saint of canoeing. In one of the newsletters was a picture of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and son Justin canoeing in the famous canoe.  I've found it so you can enjoy this great picture.  It is a seventeen-foot aluminum canoe used in 'Song of the Paddle'. It is named the Queen Mary. Peter now owns this canoe and it is coming to Peter's practice in Foothill to be displayed somewhere in the  offices.   There's one in the waiting room at the ceiling - the second picture shows this one. The third picture is of Peter canoeing.  I found this picture at the Canadian Museum site.  It is red like Bill Mason's favourite canoe - a red "Fort" chestnut Prospector, a 16-foot canvas covered wood canoe.  The actual favourite canoe is in the Museum. I included the bottom picture of Bill Mason canoeing in a Fort chestnut canoe as it is such a beautiful image.  And what's next for canoeing?  In 2017, Gerry will be working on the new Canadian Canoe Museum.  This museum has the largest canoe and kayak collection in the world.  It is an exciting project for Peterborough:  It will be 'an elegant, serpentine glass pavilion graced by a two-acre rooftop garden'.

Canada's Star Aligns

CBC is having fun today reporting that Justin Trudeau has taken over the first spot as the sexiest politician in the world according to the UK Mirror newspaper.  It picked up these quotes from well-known national reporters in other countries: "In Canada Justin Trudeau's Liberals elected on a platform of sorry I lost my train of thought he's just so handsome." "For real though, congrats Canada on your hot grown-up-Howarts-student Prime Minister." In the Daily Mail article, they include a Youtube video of the 'time Justin Trudeau stripped for charity". And this quote from Richard Nixon in 1972: 'Tonight we'll dispense with the formalities. I'd like to toast the future prime minister of Canada: to Justin Pierre Trudeau,' said Nixon during a state dinner in Ottawa hosted by Pierre Trudeau. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3280490/Justin-Trudeau-named-Canada-s-new-prime-minister.html#ixzz3pCTMtgTq With the pictures in the article of him with his father in world-famous places with world-famous people, it is pretty impressive.  So I guess with star power like that, some starry flowers are matching pictures for the day.