Justin Trudeau congratulates Boris Johnson on winning a landslide victory in the UK on the slogan “Get Brexit Done” and says he looks forward to working with him on… “the climate crisis”. Frankly one doubts that Boris Johnson looks forward to working with our Prime Minister on anything including “global security around the world.” Especially when Trudeau’s idea of “working on the climate crisis” remains mostly a matter of lofty speeches and trifling actions.

Trudeau also issued instruction letters to his ministers, new and old, in which he says “People have been clear that they want progress on the issues that matter most, from fighting climate change” to blah blah blah. Of course part of us doesn’t want the PM to “do something significant” here since we do not think Canada faces a climate crisis and frankly Trudeau reminds us of what Harry Truman once said about Franklin Pierce: that he “didn’t know what was going on, and, even if he had, he wouldn’t have known what to do about it.” On the other hand, the tendency of political rhetoric to be decoupled from actions, or ideas, has a paralyzing impact on this as in many areas. So if the PM is so sure there’s a crisis, and that everybody wants him to do something about it, he really ought to do something meaningful rather than trivial or vapid.

If he did, we could have a real discussion about policy options and scientific logic. And we could also vote on those who impose massive pain on us over a largely imaginary problem.