The Foundering Ship Of State: A Followup

Following up on last evening's post, I am adding the comments of Gyor, who listed several more failures of the Trudeau government thus far:

You forgot Trudeau's attempt to increasingly centralize power in Parliament.

Many parliamentary posts still go unfilled 2 years in, the filling of which Chantal Herbert called the governmental equivant of tying ones shoe laces.

His questionable trip with the Aga Khan.

Minister Joly's Netflix boondoogle pissing off Quebec and the RoCs TV and Movie industry.

His MMWI is a mess, and should have included FN men, who are murdered and missing more often then FN women and who cases go unsolved more often.

Morneau's Villa in France in the name of a Corporation.

Trudeau's idea of boosting Foreign Aid was to take it from a general pool for all in need to give to only women, leaving men in need to die.

Lying about the combat role in Iraq, remember the Sniper shot that set a record.

Boosting military spending massively to appease Trump, while mismanaging the C-18 procurement.

NAFTA negiotations, period. Disaster.

The infrastructure bank he never promised, that will transfer wealth to the rich.

Oh and recently ambushing the Premiers recently with the idea for a special weed tax that they were not prepared for especially when the stated goal was to underprice criminal organizations.

Meanwhile, both the optics and the 'ethics' of Finance Minister Bill Morneau's situation continue to reverberate. Martin Patriquin offers this withering assessment:

Morneau, a multimillionaire banker married to a multimillionaire heiress, owns a villa in southern France. He also owns millions of shares in Morneau Shepell, the pension services behemoth founded by his father. Let us peruse how our finance minister has handled these particular assets.

Morneau’s French villa is owned by a holding company in which Morneau and his wife Nancy McCain are partners. Morneau neglected to mention the existence of this corporation to Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson until after the CBC’s Elizabeth Thompson started asking questions about it. Such corporations are particularly useful in France, where the inheritance tax is an expensive burden for the country’s wealthy landowners. Using a corporation to avoid said taxes is entirely legal — much like the loopholes Morneau wishes to close for a certain class of Canadian tax-avoiders.

Next, there is the matter of those shares. Morneau’s shares, which earn upwards of $2 million in yearly dividends, are owned by a corporation controlled by Morneau and his family. This set of circumstances, unearthed by CTV News, allows Morneau to deke the federal conflict-of-interest ethics laws. Because they are owned by a corporation, not a human being named Bill Morneau, the finance minister didn’t have to get rid of them when he took office. Again, it’s perfectly legal. It’s also a loophole to hold onto extremely valuable assets he otherwise would need to sell.

Finally, Global National gives us some insight into Morneau's conflicts of interest/hypocrisy:



In today's Star, Chantal Hebert blames much of the Liberals' misfortune on rookie ministers like Morneau. I would say that the problem with the Trudeau government runs much, much deeper. Platitudinous rhetoric, arrogance and ethical blindness do not make for government people can trust and respect.