News of the World (Canada Edition) Liberals Bet on Gaslighting, Vibes, and Friendship Bracelets

Not totally true, but pretty close

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Punch Bowl Politics

Inside sources report that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau summoned an emergency election-strategy session on Friday at the Fairmont in downtown Ottawa, joined by a weary gaggle of Liberal MPs, consultants-for-hire, and the few journalists who hadn’t yet defected to Substack. Mark Carney’s poll numbers were beginning to sag, and Trudeau’s old reliables — the tearful apology, the trembling lip, and the photo-op clutching of plush toys — were tricks that Carney, a man of spreadsheets and scorn, couldn’t quite pull off.

As usual, the consultants had insider connections. According to reporters who caught Trudeau on the way into the meeting, the preference was for MPs to help out their immediate family. For this meeting, the consultant, who had never taught anything other than forklift operator safety but had qualified by being a relative of Mary Ng, would teach the art of gaslighting.

Trudeau then unveiled his bold new fairness doctrine. Since everyone was always pressuring him about contracts for friends, relatives, and assorted hangers-on, he decided he’d no longer be accused of favouritism. Instead, he would put all MPs’ names into a punch bowl and do a random draw to decide which consultant or software developer got the next taxpayer-funded gift.

As Trudeau tottered around the room with the bowl, Chrystia Freeland cautioned him not to attempt manual labour at 52. Thunder Bay MP Patty Hajdu quickly suggested that a friend could design a virtual punch bowl app.

Freeland nodded gravely, and chaos ensued, with every MP but Defence Minister Bill Blair insisting they too had friends who could build apps. Blair sheepishly tried to toss his business card into the bowl, explaining he didn’t know what an app was but would happily form a committee to consider forming another committee to study apps — provided he could first hire a consultant.

Meanwhile, MPs whispered excitedly about cornering Trudeau for personal financial advice.

After all, he’d taken his modest $1.2 million inheritance and spun it into a reported net worth of $95 million. The math, whispered in awe, worked out to roughly 30 percent annual growth — year after year, as if Warren Buffett himself were moonlighting in Rideau Cottage.

“Sure, he spends like a drunken sailor and still puts away half his after-tax income,” one MP marvelled, “but clearly, Justin must be the greatest investor the world has ever seen.”

The room buzzed with MPs eager to know how they too could parlay modest trust funds into dynastic fortunes while presiding over a country living on credit cards and food banks.

At this point, MP Adam van Koeverden, in his usual fashion, chirped that his favourite punch flavour was pineapple.

The Gaslighting Tutorial

Standing with his hands in his pockets behind the podium, the consulting team leader was a young man in his late twenties wearing a Carhartt hoodie. He took the stage, held up a Bic lighter, and turned the flame to its highest. He asked what would happen if this flame came in contact with natural gas, and the room went silent.

“What is this, high school?” asked Bill Blair, furrowing his brow like a man struggling with grade-ten history. He still hadn’t recovered from the parliamentary fiasco of inviting a Nazi veteran and then forgetting which side had actually fought the Russians.

“We got that whole ‘Russians fighting Nazis’ thing wrong, okay,” he muttered defensively, “but you need to let it go.”

The consultant pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, ex-Minister, that’s not what gaslighting means.” He launched into his explanation with the strained patience of a kindergarten teacher. “Gaslighting is about manufacturing a political explosion—convincing voters that the reason they lost their job, or that the unemployment rate is soaring, isn’t because of the ‘stay-home civil servant economic growth plan’ but rather because Pierre Poilievre once ate an apple too aggressively in front of a reporter.”

“What matters is not that politicians run the country effectively, but if they seem like they would be empathetic if you lost a pet.”

The young man paused, clearly proud of his metaphor, before adding with a flourish: “It’s a Maple-brand gaslighting. You tell people they’ve got the greatest healthcare system on earth, the best economy in the G7, and if they argue, you don’t debate them—you just insist they’re suffering from a vibesession.”

Blair asked if he should disconnect the stove and try it out, but they soon discovered it was electric.

After the group pushed the stove against the wall in the corner of the kitchenette and returned to their chairs, the consultant jumped in, unsure if he had their attention.

“I’m sorry that opener flopped,” he said, nervously wiping his palms. “But I wanted to make it real and show you how gaslighting can be the key to overcoming the Conservatives, now holding only a slight lead over Mark Carney’s Liberals.”

He continued.

“I know an election is still some distance off,” he began “, but permanent campaigning — and never bothering with the grubby business of implementation — has always been the secret sauce of Liberal triumphs.”

“The task now is simple: persuade Canadians that they are themselves emotionally and mentally defective, which is why they cannot perceive the shining truth that the Carney government are master economists, and that Canada, under their management, is the most advanced and prosperous nation on earth.”

Anita Anand giggled.

The interns from the Liberal PR team, who had just arrived from the hotel pool, said they could brainstorm ideas with CBC journalists.

CBC journalist Rosemary Barton, leaning up against the caterer’s cart, complained that they had been doing the heavy lifting for Liberal Party PR for the last nine years and that she didn’t see any point in bringing in Trudeau’s PR interns at this late point.

This was not well received, but Trudeau calmed the waters by assuring the PR interns that they were still important and could help him make more friendship bracelets for the 38 teenage girls he had met at the Taylor Swift concert, as well as helping him with new Instagram filters. Trudeau passed the beading kit to the three irritated PR interns.

Policy Brainstorming

“The best gaslighting method is to accuse the Conservatives of what we are guilty of,” said Blair, “I was talking to that Ukrainian soldier they brought to parliament a while back.”

“The old guy?” MP Patty Hajdu asked.

“Was he talking about Goebbels?” Anand muttered.

Freeland pulled in behind the hotel podium, the consultant giving her space, and suggested they continue to expand their reach by coming up with poor ideas that anyone with an attention span of more than nine seconds and any critical thinking skills would see through.

“Our stupidest ideas have always been our biggest hits. In Covid, we gave out $4 for every $1 in labour income lost, and they loved us for it.”

“Like taking money from taxpayers’ children and giving them gifts?” inquired MP Anthony Housefather.

“Yes,” said Trudeau, now standing next to Freeland. “For example, if the Conservatives complain about this gift, we will say they don’t understand that getting money helps the economy. They will never understand that it’s their own money.”

Blair paused and continued, “We should make these ‘You can do anything you want, and we never arrest you’ cards for demonstrators. And then call people racist when they object.”

Trudeau raised his hands to stop the grumbling, “Earth to Bill. That was my idea,” he said, waving his hand toward a stack of cardboard boxes in the back of the room.

Housefather suggested that Jews should get the same cards.

“No, no,” Trudeau dismissed him. “Since you guys are always peaceful anyway, you are good. We just need you there to have someone to arrest when the Palestinian hoodlums start getting out of hand. Your arrest is like an emotional safety valve.”

Guest Carolyn Parrish, the Mayor of Mississauga, was sitting in the front row and chimed in that the cards should be clear that they can’t be arrested until any Jews in the area have been arrested.

“Even if they are walking their dog,” asked Housefeather.

“Especially walking the dog,” responded Parrish.

Freeland nodded approvingly and gave her a thumbs-up.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh suggested that Khalistanis get the same deal, and all agreed.

“But don’t interrupt us again during meetings,” said Freeland, pointing to the bucket Singh was carrying. “Our cars aren’t going to wash themselves.”

Former Environment Minister Stephan Guilbeault suggested that they should visit Alberta and give oil and gas workers caps that read, “We Love Oil.”

“Stop with the barfing noises,” Trudeau said. “Just because someone mentioned Alberta and Randy and Other Randy aren’t here doesn’t mean we have to go back to this,” he said with a laugh as he gave the offending MPs a cheery thumbs up.

Guilbeault explained that if the Conservatives complained about the emissions cap, people could just say, “What’s wrong with giving them a cap that says, I love oil?” And then look at them and say, “No emissions cap, stop lying, Cons.”

“That makes no sense, but is so stupid it could work,” Trudeau quipped, making an awkward devil’s horns sign in approval.

“Did you learn that horn thing at the concert?” Anand asked, regretting her sarcasm instantly.

The Vibes Strategy

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland jumped to fill the silence and said that she had been hanging out with some of the teenagers Trudeau had met at the Taylor Swift concert and that “vibes” were the new thing.

“Let’s make a bank of vibes and give them to Liberal voters,” Freeland said.

Atlantic MP Joanne Thompson said that, since she was the only one in the room representing a district that included Liberal voters under 80, she would have to handle that. The next time she returned home, she said she could visit the senior homes in St. John’s.

When one of the young blonde servers tried to pull the dessert tray off the table in front of the podium, Freeland resisted.

“Vibes are feelings and attitudes, not tangible objects,” the server explained.

“Like hugs?” Freeland asked.

“Not really.”

Trudeau pulled up his sleeve and showed a forearm covered with friendship bracelets. The girl cringed and ran back to the kitchen with the tray.

Freeland raised her hand and began, “The core of this gaslighting proposal should be to accuse anyone unhappy because at 47, they are living with their parents or that they miss fresh produce and real meat and hate the canned stuff at the food bank, that it’s their fault and that it is always simply a case of them having bad vibes.”

She raised a finger knowingly. “Those people were having a ‘Vibesession,’ like a recession without the re,” she stressed.

MP Adam van Koeverden said he liked pineapple juice again.

The group agreed, and it was decided that from that point into the election, the Liberal strategy would be to distract the populace with talk about vibes.

Everyone was on board, and it was agreed that when people got confused or said that they didn’t think they were having a ‘vibesession’ and that they wondered if Fortinos or Esso would take vibe payments, the direction was the following: snap your fingers, point one finger at them and smile and go, “You is having a vibesession.”

“Don’t you mean ‘are’?” Freeland said.

“No,” Trudeau replied, “The kids are using ‘is’ these days. I know.”

The Riots Outside

MP and Defence Minister Blair asked what they should do about the Palestinian and Antifa rioters outside their hotel who were now burning cars. Anand moved over to the window, called down to Singh, and told him he didn’t need to do the rims and could just focus on putting out the fires.

A rioter objected to a man from Rebel News standing nearby with an Israeli flag. The rioter said the man’s presence was making him feel unsafe and that the journalist had gotten in his way while he was trying to pour gas into a car after smashing all the windows.

The police listened carefully, apologised to the rioter with hugs, and arrested the reporter.

Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly raised her hand in the front room as Anand pulled back beside her.

“I just wanted to clarify that we no longer refer to the Conservatives as ‘Redneck moron MAGA whackjobs,’ as Donald Trump had told me that every time he heard this, he was going to raise random tariff penalties on Canada by another percent,” she said.

“But when we are not talking about vibes, we still need something to replace the MAGA insults,” Joly continued, drawing a heart on Trudeau’s palm, who had taken the seat on his other side.

Trudeau ducked as Freeland threw one of the rocks that had recently landed in the room from the riot.

“I think we need to go back to abortion,” he said. “It is our go-to move.”

Freeland nodded sagely.

When Barton bitterly explained that the Conservatives weren’t going to do anything about abortion, Blair suggested that they should use the gaslighting technique and accuse the Conservatives of trying to ban fourth-trimester abortions.

“Like when the kids are in the crib?” Housefather asked.

“No, no,” said Trudeau, “Just say something pompous about never restricting a woman’s right to good abortion vibes, and if they object, just start huffing, and if they get really bad, just start waving a coathanger around and scream, ‘Is this what you want?’”

Anand, looking out the window, said that the rioters had taken away Jagmeet’s skateboard and were hitting him with it.

“Throw down the new cards,” Trudeau shouted, hurriedly running over to grab a box and getting the server to open it. Blair grabbed a handful and threw them down.

Everyone gathered at the windows. They laughed as they saw Singh desperately grabbing the cards off the parking lot floor and handing them to advancing rioters. After he ran out of cards, Singh ran past the RCMP and local police, who were eating kebabs and roasting marshmallows over the flames coming off an overturned Volkswagen.

Back in the room, the young blonde server laughed and said those cards needed a snappier title.

Parrish put on her keffiyeh and went out to join the demonstrators.

Pronouns and Dessert

In other news, Chrystia Freeland changed her pronoun to ‘bunself.’ She will accept Bun. She said that she wants the entire cabinet to adopt neopronouns.

As she left the meeting out the back door, she argued with the caterer, as Freeland apparently wanted to take the leftovers from the dessert cart home.

“I am not just adopting the pronoun ‘bunself’ because I want to get the non-binary vote of all those who identify with bunnies,” she said. “Have you noticed the way I am always twitching? It is not, as rumoured to be, too much Adderall or cocaine; it is just my inner bunny coming out. They twitch, too.”

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