Friday, July 21, 2017

Open And Transparent, Eh, Justin?

While no one would argue that the government should conduct an open-house on their impending NAFTA renegotiation, the cone of silence that has characterized Mr. Trudeau's approach to the talks is disquieting, especially given his pre-election promises to conduct an open and transparent administration.
The Liberal-dominated House of Commons trade committee has quashed a move to invite the prime minister and other high-ranking cabinet members to answer questions about Canada’s NAFTA renegotiation priorities, as calls continue for more transparency about how the government plans to handle upcoming talks on the deal.

The committee, instead, approved a Liberal plan to hear from Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is the lead member of cabinet for NAFTA and Canada-U.S. relations. She is slated to attend a meeting on Aug. 14, two days before negotiations are set to begin in Washington.

NDP MP Tracey Ramsey...is “not happy” with the result of Friday’s meeting, especially after Trudeau said this week that he would be willing to share Canada’s strategy on NAFTA with the opposition.

“We’re not asking for the specifics on how they’re going to negotiate every item, but we can clearly see from the 18 pages of priorities with the U.S. that they’ve made public — we could do the exact same thing,” Ramsey said.



Like the secret study he has commissioned to study airport privatization, one must ask an unavoidable question: Exactly what is Mr. Trudeau hiding from the voters?

6 comments:

  1. Ter gap between promise and performance gets wider, Lorne.

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    1. As time goes by, I hope that people demand an accounting of the growing disparity. Owen.

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  2. If you're putting something over on the Canadian public Lorne, then the last thing Trudeau would want is transparency.

    Almost all of his neoliberal policies are pretty well implemented behind closed doors. Consulting with Canadians about the alledged value of these policies could lead to questions being asked, whose lack of answers lead to the realization, that even though Canadians incur the cost of sustaining these policies, they hold no real benefit for us.

    Trudeau, being the first PM to attend the Gay Pride parade in Halifax, is what he wants Canadians to focus on. He wants us to think of him as being progressive. It's all a show.

    The powers that be, think that Trudeau's personality alone will be enough to assuage the grumbling masses.

    His policies and decisions once implemented, violate a number of our rights under the Charter. Serious rights, like privacy, freedom of speech, freedom to peacefully protest and even more fundamentally our right to freedom itself.

    What Canadian in their right mind, who became aware of our PM's sovereignty destroying policies, would allow these policies to be implemented. None I'm guessing. So Trudeau and his neocon buddies, must be very careful to keep these policies out of the publics sight and thus out of mind.In other words no transparency.

    But Trudeau has revealed his summer song choices on Spotify and has marched in the Halifax Gay Pride parade.The neocon, PR frontman, doesn't miss a beat.

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    1. There is no denying Trudeau's deftness when it comes to public relations, Pamela. As long as that satisfies the curiosity of far too many Canadians, his destructive neoliberal policies will continue apace and largely unnoticed.

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  3. Trudeau is more worried about his own image then policy or public opinion. Everything from NAFTA to Khadar deal has been done behind closed doors and well hidden from opposition parties and public. Transparent my butt.

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    1. There is little doubt, Jeff, that there is a wide gap between Trudeau's promises and his reality. I think efforts by our political 'leaders' to conceal things from the public justify our suspicion and skepticism.

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