It may just have been buffoonery

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The Group of Seven (G7) industrialised countries meet annually for an over-publicised summit. The seven leaders and their invitees pose for photographs, and issue a communiqué prepared by bureaucrats well in advance, occasionally amended by minimal tweaking. This year’s summit was a little different as leaders morphed into the Seven Dwarves when Ukraine’s President flew to Hiroshima, Japan, to fulfil the role of Snow White.

Watching this extravaganza on television, the iconic Beatles song Baby, You’re a Rich Man was playing in my cranial jukebox. The opening line “How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?”, followed by “You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside a zoo, What a thing to do” seemed to fit this political circus perfectly – with President Zelenskyy headed home with more billions to prolong the conflict, now being viewed by many Americans and others as President Joe Biden’s proxy war against Russia.

Far more interesting was an email received a few days later with a YouTube video of a meeting at the summit between the longest-serving G7 leader, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and the newest participant, Giorgia Meloni of Italy. Canada’s PM took it upon himself to admonish his Italian counterpart for her country’s position on LGBTQ rights — now there’s a community that really needs to buy a few vowels from Wheel Of Fortune letter-turner Vanna White.

But I digress. As a newcomer to the international stage, Ms Meloni proved she was no pushover, telling Mr Trudeau that he had been listening to fake news. Italy’s media reported the meeting very prominently, noting that Canada was a great nation led by a buffoon. Pictures of Mr Trudeau’s former gaffes, like appearing in ‘blackface’, were emblazoned all over Italian front pages. Canadian mainstream media has kept eerily silent about this latest international embarrassment, but it can be easily accessed online at : ‘G7 Fiasco Trudeau Damaging International Ties – Again’, attributed to Street Politics Canada.

Ironically, the same day this eight-minute YouTube arrived in my inbox, Canadian media reported that the household debt in Canada is the highest of all G7 countries, at 107 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). House prices and huge mortgages being a major factor, while the country with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio was Italy, at 44 per cent. With Mr Trudeau’s mishandling and mismanagement of the latest domestic scandal, concerning Chinese interference in Canada’s elections, there is a widespread opinion that he may well be a buffoon indeed.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada