Video: A kinder, gentler Justin Trudeau highlights income inequality with a cartoonist's help

by Charlie Smith on February 19th, 2014 at 12:19 PM

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Here's the latest video from the Liberal Party of Canada on how the middle class is being squeezed.

It shows how Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is trying to reinforce that he has sufficient gravitas to become prime minister.

It also reveals how the soft-spoken and sunny Trudeau is creating contrasts between himself and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's command-and-control regime.

Near the end, Trudeau mentions how cities must become "incubators for innovation".

The conspiracy theorist inside me wonders if there's any connection between this federal Liberal theme and the City of Vancouver's handling of the former police station on Main Street.

The Vancouver Economic Commission—headed by former Liberal Party of Canada national director Ian MacKay—appears gung ho to turn over the building to a California-based landlord for high-tech companies.

He's not the only VEC staff member with federal Liberal connections.

The VEC's marketing and research director, Tania Parisella, acted as the "main link" in 2004 between the Liberal cabinet's political staff and public servants in the communications department, according to her Linked-in profile.

Handing over the former cop shop to NestGSV appears to be underway even though a local group has proposed a multifaceted social-innovation centre that would open the building up to the Downtown Eastside community.

Of course, if Mayor Gregor Robertson were planning to run as a Liberal candidate in the next federal campaign, it would explain the decision to turn an ugly building in the Downtown Eastside into a high-tech zone just in time for some Justin Trudeau photo opportunities during the 2015 election.

But keep in mind that these are only the meanderings of a conspiracy theorist.

The mayor has already said that he's intent on seeking reelection in Vancouver in 2014.

And when asked by the Straight last year if he had any federal political aspirations, Robertson replied: "I can't imagine that happening right now."

Besides, it would be pretty churlish for a journalist to suggest that the mayor would turn over a nearly 100,000-square-foot city asset to a U.S. high-tech landlord simply to advance the political interests of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada.