Jason Kenney, the leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, delivered a withering attack on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Wednesday in a Calgary Sun column.
Asked if he stood by the remarks, Kenney said them again.
Kenney is furious that Trudeau continues to allow the province of British Columbia to block the construction of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.
“I know Justin,” Kenney stated. “He doesn’t support pipelines. He doesn’t believe in this project. If he did, he wouldn’t mouth empty platitudes and cliches. He allows a provincial government to thumb their nose at the Constitution while doing the square root of nothing to respond.”
Kenney, who was known as “Mr. Fix-It” as a cabinet minister in the previous, Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, says he was never impressed with Trudeau’s grasp of policy.
“The guy was my critic in opposition for three years. I don’t think he has the foggiest idea what’s going on.”
“He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing,” he continued. “This guy is an empty trust-fund millionaire who has the political depth of a finger bowl.”
“He can’t read a briefing note longer than a cocktail napkin, OK.”
Asked later by Global News if he thought he had been too personal in his dismissal of Trudeau, Kenney claimed to have “worked with dozens of MPs in Ottawa, including [opposition] critics who were thoughtful, intelligent, engaged people with whom I had a constructive relationship. He wasn’t one of them.”