Many are calling 2016 the worst year in recent memory.

Aside from the death of several celebrities and cultural icons, 2016 was also a year plagued with escalating global conflicts and deadly Islamist terrorist attacks.

While Islamists boasted about infiltrating the flow of refugee coming into Europe, Western leaders naively insisted that the violent attacks had nothing to do with the refugees and nothing to do with Islam.

Wars across the Middle East expanded and Syria became a proxy war for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia to flex their might as would-be global superpowers.

Lots went wrong in 2016. But the year wasn’t all bad. 2016 was also the year that average people sent an undeniable message to elites.

It started with Brexit. Everyday people in the UK rejected the Eurocrat elites in Brussels, despite the best wishes of the elites in London.

The people of Great Britain had never been given a say about the growing EU bureaucracy, and were never consulted in the decision to throw open their borders to mass, unchecked migration from war zones and hotbeds of Islamist terrorism.

Following this trend, the American electorate surprised the world by electing Donald Trump. Americans rejected the corrupt, establishment candidate, despite her having the endorsement of elites from Washington, New York, Hollywood and the Silicon Valley.

Hillary Clinton was so stunned by the results that she couldn’t compose herself enough to deliver a concession speech on election night.

Americans instead opted for a man so profoundly hated by establishment elites that many still refuse to accept that Donald J. Trump was actually elected President.

Trump himself embodies a repudiation of corrupt US politics and a biased mainstream media; his victory highlighted the increasing hostile divide between coastal elites and hardworking Americans.

Electing Trump was the ultimate act of rebellion. It was a moral victory for the American public, despite all of Trump’s flaws.

No matter how Trump or Brexit work out, the fact that the people had their say and took back some power is a positive sign of a functioning democracy.

But global elites aren’t going down without a fight.

At the United Nations, once the throne of international cooperation, global leaders focused their attention on condemning Israel rather than fighting terrorism.

The global community, led behind the scenes by the Obama administration, passed a foolhardy resolution condemning Israel for – get this – allowing Israeli Jews to build homes on land that is supposedly reserved for Muslim Palestinians only.

The resolution, of course, failed to mention that Israel has offered – and Palestinian leaders have rejected – countless land concessions and peace offers. It failed to mention that Palestinian leaders refuse to recognize the state of Israel and its right to exist.

That is the greatest obstacle to peace in the conflict. Despite the appeasement from elites at the UN.

In Canada, our own Justin Trudeau is following in the steps of his global elite compadres.

Rather than condemning terrorism and championing Western values, Trudeau befriends radicals and praised a communist dictator.

Rather than focusing on the needs of hardworking Canadians, Trudeau is bringing in the largest federal tax in decades. He continues to put style over substance and international interests ahead of Canadian interests. He pretends Liberal donors, party insiders, and cabinet ministers are above the law.

If Trudeau wants to avoid his own populist uprising in Canada, he’d be wise to learn from 2016, and focus on everyday Canadians in 2017.