1) This is a right-wing/centre-left issue. The Conservatives are looking for a hammer to hit the Minority Liberal government and decided the truckers were it. Most provincial premiers are Conservative or conservative, so they agreed with this approach and sorta disappeared when the truckers appeared. Unfortunately for this plan, the truckers decided to close the border and hurt Ontario (and Canada) pretty significantly. This goaded our premier to wake up and take some steps as he faces an election later this year. They also fear losing supporters to the PPC which is far-right which is one reason they tossed their former leader a few weeks ago.
2) The Bloc, the Federal version of the Quebec separatists, probably could not give two sh*ts about the truckers as they don't represent a problem for Quebec. I feel quite strongly that they welcome any Federal failure as proof that Quebec can go it alone. The LAST thing they ever want is to end up relying on them...
3) The left-centre (Liberals, NDP, Greens) oppose the mob. And it's a minority government propped up by some party voting with the Liberals. While they identified with the Indigenous folks who blockaded stuff just before Covid, they opposed the methodology and result.
So it's quite similar to much of the Western world, with the added spice of the Bloc being present.
Maybe I am missing something but why do they interpret this joke as being about the Holocaust?
IMHO, it seems more about Canada's skyrocketing deficit and debt with a quip that even Hitler had to contend with a budget (in general, not specifically to conduct the Holocaust) whereas Trudeau seems not to.
> IMHO, it seems more about Canada's skyrocketing deficit and debt with a quip that even Hitler had to contend with a budget (in general, not specifically to conduct the Holocaust) whereas Trudeau seems not to.
Few things to unwrap here. First, Hitler didn't contend with a budget - his country invaded, annexed, pillaged, stole, used slave labour at will to prop up their coffers. And the economy was already in a death spiral by the time of 1939 due to excessive spending on rearmament and vanity projects resulting in skyrocketing deficits.
Second, the way i interpret the "joke" is that Trudeau is compared to Hitler on their actions ( tyrannical actions). Many people have this crazy notion that being forced to get a vaccine is absolutely the same as the persecutions Jewish people faced in Nazi Germany, hence the Holocaust reference, because this "joke" isn't in a vacuum.
My first connection when I see a photo of hitler is the holocaust, not budget committee deadlocks or whatever. It may be a stretch but I think my immediate association is going to be pretty close to average for most audiences.
The fact that you had to go so far out of your way to explain why it shouldn't be interpreted that way communicates a bit by itself too.
I did not go far out... I just described what I thought when I saw the picture of the joke, and that was not the Holocaust, which is not mentioned or suggested. On the other hand, "Budget" is the key word in the joke...
Arstechnica explicitly says that the joke is a reference to the Holocaust and I just don't understand how they can based solely on the tweet.
Hitler goes quite beyond the Holocaust (I think everyone in Europe at least is well aware of that). The joke in fact makes more sense when looking at Hitler's deeds as dictator in general, especially the invasion of most of Europe (I'm assuming Musk knows his History here)...
Worker to non-immediate Boss: "you're an asshole!"
Immediate Boss to Worker: "How dare you! Apologize for that!"
Worker to non-immediate Boss: "I'm sorry you're an asshole."