The Blindness Of Some

Were Bill Morneau the Conservative Minister of Finance, you can rest assured that 'progressives' would be howling for his political blood. However, because he is part of Team Trudeau, some choose to entirely ignore his massive conflict of interest and instead distort my views for their own twisted purposes. One such misrepresentation is the claim that I have said Trudeau is worse than Harper, a complete fabrication.

Were I another sort of person, the offending blogger's many libelous comments about me would result in legal action. But I am a self-assured person who can take criticism; what I steadfastly reject, however, are outright lies about me, the only reason I am making any reference at all to his overwrought posts.

I also realize now that there is likely something quite pathological in his rants and attempts at online bullying, and he is more to be pitied than rebuked. I will speak no more of him or his screeds; he is not worth more than the two minutes it took to write these opening paragraphs.

Those who are willing to examine the facts of Bill Morneau's ethical mess clearly see the damage he has done to his and his government's credibility. Tim Harper writes:

One is left with the unmistakable sense that he got caught by some enterprising reporting. What if the Globe and Mail had not found that Morneau’s substantial holdings were not in a blind trust?

One could easily believe that Morneau would have continued on his path, using a loophole in the conflict-of-interest legislation that allowed him to hold shares in the family company through an arm’s-length holding company.

When Morneau introduced Bill C-27, legislation to make it easier for federal employees to move to a targeted benefit pension, a move that would benefit Morneau Shepell, the company’s stock went up 4.8 per cent within days, Cullen says. Morneau, he said, would have made $2 million in five days from that jump. But it’s not known if Morneau was holding or selling stock at that time.

And Justin Trudeau's 'defence' of Morneau was to attack those with legitimate questions.

A day earlier, Trudeau seemed to wilt while taking 30 questions on Morneau, falling back on familiar tropes — referring to opposition questions as “mud-slinging,” accusing Conservatives of trying to sully Morneau’s good name, of “shrieking,” and playing “petty politics.”

Accusing opponents of getting down in the mud doesn’t work here. The charges against Morneau were sufficiently serious that they deserved more substantive answers.

This entire fiasco makes the Liberal government look very bad and has seriously undermined whatever agenda it has, as pointed out in today's Star editorial:

Over the last week, Morneau has retreated from the small-business tax-reform fiasco that no doubt ruined his summer. In an effort to quiet the uproar over the initiative, the government will drop or scale-back several of the proposed measures and significantly cut the small-business tax rate.

The result is that the push for reform will have had the opposite of its intended effect. The government started out with at least two important aims: reduce incentives for professionals to incorporate as a way to pay less tax on income; and increase government revenue at a time of rising debt. But in the end, Morneau will have, on balance, increased the incentives to incorporate and cost the government significant revenues.

Finally, last night's At Issue panel discussed both Morneau and the larger record of the Trudeau government thus far. It starts just after the one-minute mark:


Engagement with the political process is crucial for a healthy democracy. Willful blindness to its shortcomings is in no one's best interests.