EDITORIAL: Parliament isn’t a priority for Trudeau

For someone who called the Sept. 20 federal election the most important since the Second World War, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sure taking his sweet time recalling Parliament.

He’s not doing that until Nov. 22, starting with a throne speech.

Following that, according to the parliamentary calendar, the Christmas break will begin on Dec. 17 and continue until Jan. 31, 2022.

That flies in the face of Trudeau’s post-election comments that the results gave his Liberal government the mandate “to move even stronger, even faster on the big things that Canadians really want.”

Get ready to hold on to your wallet.

It also raises the question of why Trudeau needed to call an election, given that all of the parties returned with almost the same number of seats they had when he called the vote on Aug. 15.

Then again, this is all typical of Trudeau, who likes the pomp and pageantry of Parliament — see the throne speech delivered by the Governor General — as long as he’s the star of the show and not being questioned on his decisions by the opposition parties in Parliament.

As for Trudeau’s priorities in the coming parliamentary session, he said they’re addressing climate change, finishing the fight against COVID-19, reconciliation and bolstering the economy and the middle class.

Of course, he said all those things were his priorities before the election as well.

To be fair, not all of this is unique to Trudeau.