FIRST READING: The Trudeau parody topping Amazon's bestseller list

© Provided by National Post It may not surprise you that author Derek Smith seems to have some conservative leanings.

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TOP STORY

The number one book on Amazon Canada right now is a parody children’s book slamming Justin Trudeau’s response to Freedom Convoy.

How the Prime Minister stole Freedom – modelled loosely on the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch stole Christmas – follows the trials of a Trudeau-esque leader who is tortured by freedom-loving truckers invading his capital city.

The titular “prime minister” is depicted as a dim politician (“his brain was three sizes too small”) who schemes to seize the freedoms of the Canadian citizenry in a manner similar to the Grinch scheming to steal Christmas from Whoville. In true Seussian style, it’s written in anapestic tetrameter.

“From coast to coast the truckers drove through the snow and their small fringe numbers continued to grow. Then one day a trucker appeared in the town, with thousands behind them from miles around,” reads a passage describing the arrival of Freedom Convoy.

What do you guys think, should we roast @theJagmeetSingh next? Maybe we will land another #1 book on #Amazon lol! #cdnpoli #sorrynotsorry #Canada #BestSeller #TrudeauIsDestroyingCanada pic.twitter.com/3yryBj4s7T

— Realmaxpowr (@therealmaxpowr) June 6, 2022

It’s written by Derek Smith, a Calgary-based full-time father of three previously best known to the internet as a vintage video game streamer.

As of Tuesday afternoon, How the Prime Minister stole Freedom was the number one top-selling book on Amazon Canada.

In a recent interview with Maverick Media, Smith credited the ranking to a review on the conservative Canadian YouTube channel Clyde Do Something, which sparked enough of a rush on the book to drive it past the bestselling incumbent, a novel by the author Colleen Hoover.

“I figured we’d hit number one in our category, but I didn’t think we’d hit number one in Canada,” he said.

Smith told Maverick Media he makes it a point not to discuss politics around his children, but was a big supporter of Freedom Convoy, the anti-mandate protest that established a weeks-long blockade in downtown Ottawa. Smith said he was “heartbroken” at the protests’ final denouement, which saw many organizers jailed or financially ruined, and conceived the book in their defence. But he said he tried to write it without “malice,” and wouldn’t necessarily recommend reading it to children.

Trudeau is never mentioned by name, and that may be for legal reasons. A lengthy disclaimer on the book’s opening page assures readers that “the views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the characters only and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions held by individuals on which these characters are based.”

A second disclaimer is then included to ward off lawsuits from the Dr. Seuss estate.

But Smith certainly did his homework; all the usual Trudeau slams are here. The prime minister can be seen sipping from a “drink-box, water-bottle sorta thing.” He uses the word “peoplekind.” He is briefly pictured in blackface. On one page, the prime minister gazes lovingly at a framed portrait of Winnie the Pooh — an obvious stand-in for Chinese President Xi Jinping (and a reference to Trudeau’s infamous 2013 remark that he admires China’s “basic dictatorship”).

How the Prime Minister stole Freedom is Smith’s second foray into politically inspired faux children’s book writing. Let’s Go Brandon, published in October, follows the travails of a hapless child named Brandon who represents U.S. President Joe Biden.

The book joins a thriving online cottage industry of anti-Trudeau merchandise. On Amazon, this is best represented by the dozens of hats, flags, bumper stickers and shirts bearing the slogan “F–k Trudeau” with the “u” artfully replaced with a maple leaf.

© TikTok/Tammyandtwins This may well be the most famous Canadian in the world right now. An Ottawa-area TikToker known as Tammyandtwins, she went viral for a two-minute video in which she claimed that recruiters such as herself are actively scouring social media to deny employment to anyone expressing sympathies with anti-mandate protests. “Recruiters are watching, HR is watching … and we hate you, we hate you so much,” she says. The woman’s strangely glowing eyes, meanwhile, are likely the result of a digital beauty filter.  

IN OTHER NEWS

An Ontario school district has kicked out its only black trustee reportedly because he wasn’t sufficiently politically correct. On Monday night, the Waterloo District School Board voted to block trustee Mike Ramsay from meetings until September 30 in what Ramsay told CityNews was an attempt to “silence” him. The June 6 vote said only that Ramsay breached the trustee Code of Conduct and has not publicly released the details of the complaint, although Ramsay said it was related to his somewhat heterodox social media activity, which has included criticisms of the district’s move to introduce “anti-racism” training into the curriculum. “They pretend to advocate about diversity, inclusion and equity. But the irony of all of this is that when a Black person disagrees with them, they’re quick to put me in my place,” Ramsay told the Waterloo Region Record.

Canadian military aircraft stationed in Asia keep getting buzzed by Chinese fighter jets in what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called an “irresponsible and provocative” act. Last week, an RCAF CP-140 Aurora operating out of Japan was buzzed so closely by Chinese jets that pilots had to swerve out of the way to avoid a collision (“quickly modify their own flight path” is how the military put it). China makes it a point to harass foreign militaries operating in their general vicinity, and this is far from the first time that the tactic has targeted Canada. In 2019, HMCS Regina had Chinese fighters pass within 300 metres of its bow while operating in the East China Sea.

© Buckingham Palace With Platinum Jubilee celebrations now over, Queen Elizabeth II wrote up this quick note to her subjects. A word of note to Canadians who may have overlooked the 70th anniversary of the reign of their 96-year-old Head of State; the British festivities were helped along significantly by the fact that Brits got a four-day weekend out of the event.

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