While it can be convincingly argued that Justin Trudeau has done many good things during his tenure as prime minister, it is usually the shortcomings of leaders that are remembered. The following letter attests to that fact:
Trudeau has earned his political enemies
.
Current polling indicates Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is nosediving the Liberal party toward a devastating defeat in the coming election, possibly to third party status. Trudeau’s long record of loose promises — his admitted duplicity on proportional representation elections in 2015, his refusal to tax the financial and market assets of the wealthy the way Canadian homes are taxed, his refusal to redirect $18 billion per year in oil and gas subsidies into clean energy, his anemic energy transition support for ordinary Canadians, his willingness to see average Canadians crushed by dizzying interest rate hikes “to fight inflation” rather than regulate the price-gouging corporate executives whose record profits are actually driving the inflation — have all earned him a united front of enemies from across the political spectrum.
It’s telling that Trudeau still refuses the one thing in his power that would prevent a Conservative majority from sweeping in this coming election: enacting Proportional Representation elections (equal representation for every vote, with no vote splitting). Trudeau would rather let Poilievre win absolute control of government with only 40 per cent of the votes, than give up Liberal/Conservative disproportionate control of the political system . It is well past due for the Liberals to call an emergency leadership review and replace Trudeau and his luggage with a progressive team player, like MP Nathaniel Erskine Smith, for 2025. The coming months will tell where the Liberals’ real priorities lie — with the corporate aristocracy, or with the rest of us.
The seeming public consensus is that the end times beckon for Justin Trudeau and his party. Althia Raj writes:
The Liberal party has the support of about just one in five Canadians, and more than eight out of 10 Canadians say it’s time for a change, according to Abacus Data. Polls suggest the Tories are headed for a massive majority government.
On doorsteps and in meetings across the country, Liberal MPs report a crescendo of dislike for the prime minister. “They disliked him in 2019, they hated him in 2021, and now they despise him,” one MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Star.
“I do not have a meeting or a conversation with a business, a constituent, a stakeholder, a non-profit where Justin Trudeau really supersedes the conversation,” said Wayne Long, the outgoing Liberal MP for Saint John—Rothesay. “When people are telling me consistently that, ‘You know, your party’s done some great work, Wayne, but the prime minister needs to move on.’
While I don't really understand the personal animus that so many express for Trudeau, I do understand their disaffection. It is one I have felt for some time, not because of the prime minister's style of leadership, but because he so quickly fell into perpetuating the party's tradition of arrogance.
There was, as I have written before, his early betrayal of his promise of electoral reform. While the proposal itself was modest, a form of ranked ballot that was easy to understand and might have encouraged more voter participation, it became a step too far once the party had regained power under the FPTP system. Canada's 'natural governing party' had regained its rightful place, and all was once again well in the Liberal world.
Scandals ensued, too numerous to recount here, each chipping away at the "sunny ways" the earlier Trudeau had promised. Perhaps the biggest one was the SNC Lavalin debacle, which I wrote about in 2019. Here is an excerpt:
The latest allegation is that Trudeau tried to influence former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal prosecution for bribery of Libyan officials in order to secure business contracts.
And so, an old pattern re-emerges. Coupled with Trudeau's stout defence and dismissal of allegations regarding his good friend and fundraiser Stephen Bronfman over what was revealed about offshore accounts in the Panama Papers, as well as the CRA foot-dragging in going after the big corporate cheats who operate such accounts, one can justifiably wonder whose interests the Prime Minister really is protecting.
But perhaps the biggest fault of this government I can cite is its absence of a coherent vision. I am aware that many may disagree with such an assessment, but saying that you want a more fair and equitable society is far easier than working steadily toward one. Some may counter with such nascent programs as dentalcare and pharmacare, but despite what Mr. Trudeau may assert, they were not Liberal initiatives as much as they were forced upon the party thanks to the leverage that Mr. Singh and the NDP exerted upon them. Parenthetically, that leverage has earned Mr. Singh no credit, the media narrative being it was a mistake to enter into the supply and confidence agreement, a view with which I heartily disagree.
The Liberals, were they who they claim to be, could have done much more, in a much more methodical fashion, had they possessed real vision as opposed to a propensity for expedience that achieved little. One case in point would be the housing crisis that confronts us. Instead of empowering the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation to get back into the home-building business, as they did post-WW11, Trudeau was content to throw money at the provinces to give to private builders to achieve decidedly uneven results. However, as I have said before, Mr. Trudeau worships at the altar of private enterprise, the result being that many, many more people cannot ever hope to own a house.
I could go on, but allow me to end by noting that my dismay with the Liberals does not mean, as it does for so many others, a vote for that repository of bilious, belligerent rhetoric, PP. When voters go to the polls at the next election, they should ask themselves whether or not their perceived cure for their disaffection is worse than the disease itself.
As I tried to suggest in my post the other day, rich people really are different from us, and people like Justin Trudeau, part of that rarified group, have no desire to really disrupt their status quo.
While it might seem reductionist, in my view that fact goes a long way toward explaining the inability of the Canada Revenue Agency to recoup taxes that have been sheltered in off-shore havens. If you believe that the CRA acts without political interference, you need only remember how Harper sicced them on non-profits that were active on environmental issues, often embarrassing the prime minister in the process. The same thing is happening under the Liberal administration; it is just taking a different form.
And people are noticing the CRA's apparent impotence:
Five years, 200 audits, zero charges, Oct. 5
Aside from hearing how the wealthy continue to evade paying taxes in this country, what is even more infuriating is reading about how the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) does very little to recoup this money or charge these people for this kind of criminal activity … all the while charging hundreds, even thousands of dollars in penalties and fees to small businesses or average citizens for filing our taxes late or not making our payments on time.
Heidi Bigl, Toronto
Heidi Bigl is not the only one. Writes Terry Glavin:
As for Canada’s diligence in capturing tax revenue — it’s not much to boast about. It was only after the ICIJ’s Panama Papers bombshell in 2016 that the CRA dropped a court fight intended to prevent the Parliamentary Budget Officer from releasing estimates on how much the treasury was being effectively bilked out of revenue by individuals and corporations resorting to secret offshore accounts. That was just one minor impact the Panama Papers had on government policies worldwide, but Canada remains a laggard in corporate transparency.
And the same laxity seems to apply to money-laundering:
For years, Transparency International Canada has been campaigning against what it calls “snow-washing,” a kind of money-laundering that allows foreign investors to hide dubiously sourced capital in Canadian assets, notably real estate. It was only earlier this year that the federal government promised to introduce a searchable “beneficial ownership” registry in the House of Commons.
The adverse impacts of snow-washing in real estate is most noticeable in British Columbia, where a provincial expert panel reckoned in 2018 that in that year alone, money-launderers had sunk $5.3 billion into real estate investments, mostly in Metro Vancouver. It’s a racket that’s been going on for years, causing dramatic distortions in the city’s house prices, and it has spurred B.C. to introduce a beneficial ownership registry of its own.
The promise of a federal registry to identify the real owners of corporationsinvesting in Canada was made in the Liberal budget that was introduced in the House of Commons last April. The registry is supposed to come into effect within five years. But a federal election has since come and gone. So will Ottawa finally act to clean up Canada’s reputation and start collecting taxes on the super-rich with the same rigour the CRA applies to the rest of us?
We’ll see.
The view from Olympus can be dizzying, and it is a great height to fall from. Hubris and nemesis, anyone?
Justin Trudeau has rightly earned severe criticism for his holiday in Tofino on National Truth and Reconciliation Day. However, in my view there is another very important story here as well, one that imparts a lesson we would all do well to bear in mind, especially in light of the new revelations made in the Pandora Papers.
My contention is a simple one. When you have friends in high places, when you associate and identify with them, you are likely to handle them with especially soft kid gloves and certainly be wary of offending them by tax measures that may capture a scintilla of their wealth.
What does any of this have to do with our prime minister? Justin Trudeau is of the financial elite, and those he considers friends breathe the same rarified air as he does. One remembers his ill-fated holiday on the private island of close family friend, the Agha Khan. Then there was his impassioned defence of his good friend and major fundraiser Edgar Bronfman over his unsavoury involvement in an offshore scheme. As well, although perhaps a minor example, consider where he stayed during his B.C. sojourn, an abode called Surfer's Paradise, which is currently on the market with an asking price of $18,750,000. While I do not know what rental he paid for the house, it would likely be beyond the budget of most.
Does the fact that Trudeau can afford such an indulgence impugn his leadership? Of course not. But it is yet another reminder that the truly wealthy are different from the rest of us, and that the filter of wealth is often an impediment to being in touch with the rest of us or seeing us on the same level of humanity as they are. In other words, empathy is compromised, one of the subjects Chelsea Fagan addresses in her video, 6 Secrets I Learned Working For Rich People, which I recommend you view as time permits.
Accompanying the video are some very useful links to articles she cites in the video:
Articles on rich people and empathy can be accessed here, here, and here.
An article on rich people and philanthropy can be accessed here.
Now, it would clearly be an offence to the ideal of critical thinking to suggest that any of this directly indicts the sensibilities of Mr. Trudeau. But, as they say, actions (or in this case inactions) speak louder than words, something I shall return to in a moment.
I am thinking anew of the financial elites in light of the release of The Pandora Papers, a kind of successor to the Panama and Paradise Papers, all of which reveal the off-shore dodges the rich use to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Those using these tax avoidance measures range from world leaders to prominent Canadians, and it is estimated that there is more than $14 trillion squirrelled away by the entitled.
Now, I am not suggesting for a moment that Mr. Trudeau or any of his family makes use of such havens. However, as I expressed in a series of posts in 2017, I am concerned that his identification and affiliation with the truly wealthy has prevented any meaningful reforms that would close the loopholes that allow for such selfish behaviour. Particularly damning is the fact that since the 2016 release of the Panama Papers, which showed the magnitude of off-shore tax-avoidance havens, not one Canadian has been charged, and it appears no money has been recovered. This stands in sharp contrast to his campaign avowals in 2015 to close such loopholes. And in the 2021 campaign, he made similar promises which, even if some were to be enacted, would result in mere tinkering around the edges and would do nothing to advance lofty goals such as pharmacare and $10 a day childcare.
Mr. Trudeau is very well-known for talking a good game. His rhetoric even soars at times. But it is absolutely essential that Canadians demand more than words if we are ever to become the country that history shows us we are capable of becoming.
I am one of those people capable of holding two opposing notions in my head. I think the federal election is an unnecessary expense and risk during this pandemic, and blame Trudeau for it. I also, however, sympathize with his having to contend with the rabble intent on following him around to disrupt his campaign and threaten him.
In this post I shall only deal with the first notion.
My immediate thought when the election was called was that Trudeau would be facing a cranky electorate, and the polls are bearing that out. Although I probably follow politics more than the average person, I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing this early election as a reassertion of traditional Liberal arrogance. As Canada's 'natural governing party', it was time to right the wrong of 2019 by returning with a majority government was the likely thinking.
My objections to this mentality are many, but here are just two:
That Trudeau would call an election in the midst of a fourth Covid wave suggests prioritizing political power over people's health and lives, surely a perception that undermines his claim that he "has our backs."
All of the spending and new-program announcements preceding the election call were pretty transparent attempts at manipulating the electorate. That we as citizens are reduced to an impersonal group to be messaged and massaged offends me deeply. To be so deeply disrespected is not consistent with a healthy democracy.
What do others think? Rosie DiManno offers some observations:
… there was nothing of urgency on the Liberal agenda they couldn’t have achieved anyway with the support of the NDP in a minority government... we are in the midst of a pandemic fourth wave that is expected to worsen when students go back to school next week.
There was only a craven grasp for power, majority muscle, mounted on a global plague that the Liberals clearly expected to exploit on their vaccine distribution record, benevolent billions dispersed to those who lost their jobs, their businesses, and Trudeau’s bracing steadiness at the helm.
Perhaps Trudeau's greatest liability, according to DiManno, is the same perceived by many.
… I don’t need pollsters to tell me that Trudeau hasn’t made a cogent case for himself and his party’s apparent God-given right to govern with majority chops.
It didn't have to be this way. Had he not dissolved Parliament, Trudeau could have continued with his agenda, supported by willing opposition members. And if he had fallen on a non-confidence motion? Then an election would have ensued, of course, but the miasma of negativity and cynicism permeating today's march to the ballot box would likely have been minimized.
September 20 is barely three weeks away. The die has been cast, and we await the results.
Justin Trudeau's increasing propensity for talking the talk but not walking the walk has been noticed by the anti-poverty organization One Campaign, led by Trudeau's good 'friend,' U2's Bono, in a rather unflattering video:
Stuart Hickox, One’s Canada director, said the decision to “poke” Trudeau wasn’t taken lightly. But One and other organizations are worried that Trudeau’s gender agenda will fail because his government isn’t coming up with a firm plan that he can sell to his fellow G7 leaders in time for their meeting.
“It’s a missed opportunity if we get through the G7 with a just mere declaration or more framing language or more aspiration,” Hickox said in an interview.
Hickox said One is an activist organization that tries to end extreme poverty by providing options for government, and that’s what it is trying to do with Trudeau so he can “own the space that he has claimed for himself.”
Seasoned observers of our peregrinating prime minister will realize that the issue raised by the One Campaign is but one of many in which his rhetorical flourishes and promises have far outpaced his actions. This gross disparity between appearances and reality, one hopes, is something increasing numbers of people will be able to discern as time goes on.
My late father-in-law, a man of deep conviction and integrity, was fond of this saying: "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor."
Although he did not originate the adage, he felt it firmly described the thinking of those who control the levers of power, our governments. And now that his mask is slipping away, it seems an apt description of Justin Trudeau's true sentiments and the policy decisions he is making.
As preliminary evidence, sauce as it were to the great corporate feast, consider his Canadian Infrastructure Bank scheme, about which I wrote last year. While its ostensible purpose is to raise private capital to fund various projects to rebuild our steadily decaying roads, bridges, etc., it can also serve as a neat little package of corporate welfare:
Federal investments doled out through the government’s new infrastructure financing agency may be used to ensure a financial return to private investors if a project fails to generate enough revenues, documents show.
What investors have recently been told — and what the finance minister was told late last year — is that if revenues fall short of estimates, federal investments through the bank would act as a revenue floor to help make a project commercially viable.
Experts say the wording in the documents suggests taxpayers will be asked to take on a bigger slice of the financial risk in a project to help private investors, a charge the government rejects.
All of that perhaps palls, however, now that Kinder Morgan has issued a May 31 ultimatum to the feds, threatening to suspend construction on the Trans Mountain Pipeline twinning project unless the impasse between the B.C. and federal government ends. As a remedy, a strong dose of socialism is now being considered to protect Trans Morgan's nervous shareholders:
Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the federal government will act on the Trans Mountain pipeline project in “short order,” sending the strongest signal yet that it will move to financially backstop the project to reduce the risks for its American-based backer.
[Rachel] Notley has already said her government is open to buying the Trans Mountain pipeline — meant to move Alberta oil to port near Vancouver for shipment overseas — to ensure the expansion goes ahead.
Morneau, who has been in touch with Kinder Morgan officials, said earlier in the day that Ottawa is “considering financial options” to ease those concerns. Speaking later, he wouldn’t provide specifics but said there was a need to “derisk” the project so it can proceed.
Significantly, but not surprisingly, the Finance Minister
framed the issue as an economic one, talking about the need to enhance opportunities and good jobs while saying nothing about the concerns around the environment or rights of Indigenous Peoples raised by the project.
As usual, his boss, Justin Trudeau, continues to speak out of both sides of his mouth, claiming his environmental vision is bound up with an economic one, insisting there is no contradiction between the two.
Mr. Trudeau likes to talk about what Canadians know and understand. I suspect he is speaking of those Canadians who go through life blithely and willfully unaware of the immense peril our world now faces thanks to climate change, not those of us who understand that a drastic reordering of our priorities is crucial if we are to survive what lies ahead.
I don't know how many of you remember the 1983 Wood Allen film, Zelig, in which Allen plays an individual with the uncanny ability to take on the characteristics of those around him. The only problem, as I recall, was that there was no real individual at Leonard Zelig's core, just a skilled chameleon whose power was imitative and derivative, not original.
I'm beginning to think of Justin Trudeau as our version of Zelig. You may recall, for example, that he certainly supported Finance Minister Bill Morneau's comments last year that precarious work and job churn are here to stay, and that young Canadians will just have to get with the program. A short time later, however, when Trudeau was addressing politicians and elites in Germany, he had this to say:
“No more brushing aside the concerns of our workers and our citizens,” the prime minister said in prepared remarks. “We have to address the root cause of their worries, and get real about how the changing economy is impacting peoples’ lives.”
He even adopted some of the language of anti-trade movements. [Emphasis added.]
“When companies post record profits on the backs of workers consistently refused full-time work — and the job security that comes with it — people get defeated,” he said.
Trudeau said the anxiety of working people is turning into anger, and politicians and business leaders must take heed and take “long-term responsibility” for workers, their families, and the communities in which they operate.
“For business leaders, it’s about thinking beyond your short-term responsibility to your shareholders,” Trudeau said.
“It’s time to pay a living wage, to pay your taxes. And give your workers the benefits — and peace of mind — that come with stable, full-time contracts.” [Emphasis added]
Note the last sentence's jarring contrast with what Morneau/Trudeau told young people in the fall.
Why the change of tone? Perhaps it was due to the fact that Canada had just finished signing the CETA deal, and the neoliberal prime minister fears there will be few others unless the illusion of progress for workers is perpetrated. As well, his audience was really a world one, and we know how the man likes to bask in the reflected glow of his 'sunny ways' and international press adulation.
Which brings us to his latest Zelig move, which mirrors that of the Orange Ogre to the south:
Canada is going to put off for three years its plan to regulate cuts to methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
The move comes less than a month after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that hits the pause button on matching American commitments to methane cuts -- and the timing is no coincidence.
Using lines only too familiar to us from the Harper era, we are told that the delay is so as not to put our businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
Dale Marshall, national program manager with Environmental Defence, told the Star that curbing methane gas is one of the easiest ways to reduce emissions that cause climate change. The fact that the government is putting off action on this low-hanging fruit in the climate fight demonstrates a “total” lack of leadership, Marshall said.
He accused Ottawa of showing “no backbone” on the issue.
Despite the government's protestations that they will still remove the same amount of methane over time, those who study such matters dismiss such self-serving rhetoric:
Andrew Read, a senior analyst with the Pembina Institute, called the new methane timeline a “real blow” that could hinder Canada’s goal to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Read said that, even if the government still cuts methane emissions by 45 per cent, the delayed timeline translates to an estimated extra 55 megatonnes of the gas that will get released into the atmosphere. He added that methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
So there you have it - a prime minister as elusive a character as was Zelig, and sharing with him, apparently, one other 'quality': a complete absence of a moral and ethical core.
A few days ago I posted a letter by Star reader Cathy Allen in which she discussed what it would take for her to regain her pride as a Canadian. It was outstanding, and if you haven't read it, click on the link before proceeding.
In yesterday's Star, Randy Gostling of Oshawa offered some of his own thoughts on the subject, contrasting Canada's past leadership with its current incarnation:
Re: What it will take to restore my pride, March 17
On behalf of what I would expect to be thousands of like-minded war babies, I want to sincerely thank Cathy Allen for so eloquently presenting the concerns of “we the forgotten” in the lead letter of March 17.
It’s equally nice to be reminded that much of what is right in this nation today began with Pierre Trudeau and “we the young” who believed in him. But as Ms. Allen suggests, our faith is gone.
I honestly believe Pierre Trudeau’s motivation was essentially a commitment he made to himself to do something special with his life. His son talks as if he has a similar commitment, but instead sings it like a tune while doing the beggar’s waltz for the “bigs” and next to nothing for or about indigenous grievances, refugees escaping the U.S., the environment, unemployed youth, election reform, Bill C-51 vs. constitutional rights, a corrupt Senate, child poverty, housing, child care for single moms or the CRA’s reluctance to enforce laws against or even expose or punish wealthy and corrupt citizens, corporations and banks.
Pierre created Petro-Canada to resist Big Oil, while Justin approves pipelines and further development and transportation (through pristine areas) for some of the dirtiest, most destructive oil on Earth, even as the world is running out of clean air and water. Pierre delivered on promises while Justin chose to simply make them long enough to get elected.
Cathy Allen speaks for many in saying we are disappointed. We miss who and what we were and what our nation used to be. It’s still held in esteem by the world — but it seems because the world has gotten worse, not because we got better.
Like Allen says, at least we’re not American. But that’s not nearly good enough for us or Pierre.
Two posts I recently wrote were highly critical of both Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair for their apparent embrace, for political purposes, of Bill C-51, the bill that will serve only to further erode our civil liberties in the chimerical hope of containing terrorists threats to Canada. I expressed my disgust over the fact that both leaders seem ready to abandon the broader interests of Canada for the sake of their own quest for power, fearful of being labelled by the Harper machine as 'soft on terrorism.'
I may have been too quick to judge Mr. Mulcair.
According to Tim Harper in today's Star, Mulcair is preparing to diverge from Trudeau's acquiescence:
Voters will decide whether Opposition leader Tom Mulcair is brave or foolhardy, but the official Opposition is preparing a case to oppose the bill — not simply by working around the fringe on oversight or sunset clauses, but by questioning the guts of a bill that gives the country’s spy agency radical new powers, allows longer and easier preventive detention and would criminalize the “promotion” of terror from a naif in a basement.
The oppositions leaders' non-performance on this issue thus far has bothered me for a number of reason, their refusal to safeguard our liberties being only one of them.
Their timidity also bespeaks a jaundiced view of Canadian voters, one that says we are easily fooled and manipulated, a contemptuous philosophy found at the core of Harper strategies these past nine years. And while I have frequently expressed genuine concern on this blog about the general level of political engagement of my fellow citizens, political leaders who capitulate to the lowest common denominator essentially preclude the possibility of establishing vision and real leadership.
It would seem that Mulcair is mindful of this to some degree:
Mulcair will likely announce his opposition when the House returns later this month.
Is he filling an opening left by the Liberals? Yes. Is he ensuring he responds to his base? Surely.
There may be cold feet in the caucus, but opposition MPs must raise the questions, provide the skepticism and, ultimately, oppose a law if that is their view. They’re not supposed to flee from a wedge issue.
Mulcair will have to stand and explain that keeping Canadians safe does not mean sacrificing civil liberties. He will have to fend off the inevitable attacks that he is a weak-kneed terrorist-hugger.
But he will stand and oppose a bill he believes is flawed, meaning we will have one opposition leader doing his job.
To me, an opposition leader doing his job, despite the inherent political risks, commands respect; playing it safe, as is Justin Trudeau, does not.
Yesterday's post dealt with the profound reluctance of Messieurs Trudeau and Mulcair to oppose Harper's latest incursion into our civil rights, Bill C-51, lest they be accused of being 'soft on terrorism' ("Oh, the horror!"). Better, in their minds, to betray the interests of Canadians than to be stuck with that taint, I guess.
Today's Star reports Justin Trudeau speaking with some enthusiasm about the bill, again carping around the edges about the need for more parliamentary oversight:
This bill can be improved but on the whole it does include measures that will help keep Canadians safe,” Trudeau told reporters.
But he conceded that his party will back the new law even if their suggestions are ignored by the Conservatives, adding that a Liberal government would bring in “robust” oversight and review if elected in the October election.
This seems hardly an adequate response to such an onerous bill, given that
it would give agents working for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service a broad new mandate to directly intervene in and “disrupt” emerging terror threats at home and abroad, even if it meant breaking the law.
In the same paper, Thomas Walkom writes about how even the parliamentary oversight called for by both Trudeau and Mulcair would not prevent or address the intrusions the bill makes possible:
In fact, most legislative oversight committees have limited authority. Those with greater powers, such as the U.S. Senate and House intelligence committees have, in many cases, given their imprimatur to dubious security practices. Walkom cites the use of torture by the C.I.A. While the Senate produced a report about it, it was years after the event, demonstrating the failure of oversight.
Or how about this?
In 2005, the New York Times broke the story that, in apparent violation of American law, the country’s National Security Agency was engaging in warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens. In this case, the chairs of both legislative oversight committees had known of the program since its inception in 2002. But they had done nothing.
Similar failures abound in other countries with supposed legislative safeguards:
Australia’s parliamentary oversight committee is barred from examining either operational methods or specific operations. It is not permitted to make public any information that the intelligence agencies want kept secret.
New Zealand’s oversight committee is subject to similar constraints. It is also specifically barred from inquiring into whether the country’s intelligence services are breaking the law (an appointed inspector-general does that).
In Britain, that country’s parliamentary oversight committee can look at past operational matters (if the prime minister agrees) as well as other matters that the prime minister wants it to examine. The government can deny the committee any information it deems sensitive. The committee’s annual reports to Parliament are subject to censorship by the prime minister.
What does all of this demonstrate? In my mind it is a piercing indictment of both Trudeau and Mulcair, who, in hiding behind the accountability mask, are revealing themselves for what they really are: political opportunists whose only real passion is for power, not public service.
Reaction continues to be mixed on Justin Trudeau's decision to boycott Sun News following resident madman Ezra Levant's tirade against his entire family. Pollster Bruce Anderson is now the second pundit to support the decision, as he makes clear in his inaugural digital column for The Globe and Mail.
His has several reasons for taking this stance:
First off, if a competing politician uttered the things that Mr. Levant said about Justin Trudeau, we would expect an apology or a resignation, or both. If we wouldn’t tolerate such shameful behavior among political competitors, what would it say about how low we are willing to see media standards fall, if there were no consequences.
Second, maybe someone can explain why any of us should have to answer to anyone for the sexual habits of our parents. I’ve never heard a voter in a focus group say “I’d vote for candidate x, if his or her parents had been more sexually conservative.”
Anderson also points out, in addition to the distasteful content of the Levant screed, it is inaccurate:
Watch Mr. Levant’s description of events, and then read the account of how the bride’s father saw the same moments. I suppose it’s possible that the father of the bride was lying, but I think another explanation seems more likely.
Labelling the unhinged Levant's performance an embarrassment to journalists, and to those in conservative politics that he is normally aligned with, Anderson feels that Trudeau's response was a reasonable one, since he is simply
holding the publisher to account and using what leverage he can muster. His goal seems not to end or disrupt or manipulate media relations in a permanent or pervasive way, but to say this isn’t normal and it shouldn’t be treated as such.
In the instances of such scurrilous attacks one can either ignore the insults or speak out against them. In Anderson's view the latter is the more noble choice:
I fielded one call from a conservative who said that Mr. Trudeau was taking the coward’s way out by refusing to engage with Sun. I tried hard to understand that logic.
But in the end I couldn’t help but think that cowardice in that situation is doing nothing to defend your honour, and that of your parents.
I certainly get the need to protect professional journalism. But this week anyway, it needs more protection against what Ezra Levant would do to it, than what Justin Trudeau would.
It has been my observation that, like the bullies they are, extreme right-wingers are quite happy to mete out abuse, but cry like babies when held to account. Expect no agreement with Andersen's defense of Trudeau from that quarter.
When I wrote a brief post the other day on Ezra Levant's disgusting and puerile tirade against the Trudeaus the other day, I had no intention of revisiting the issue, but two columns calling into question the decision by Justin Trudeau to boycott the organization leads me to further comment.
Writing in The Globe, Simon Houpt, while fully agreeing that the attack was just the latest in a series of outrageous nonsense from the mouth of the perpetually angry Levant, says that
when a politician cuts off access to select media, it is an affront to everyone. Sun Media has hundreds of dedicated professionals who work hard every day on behalf of millions of readers (and a few thousand viewers of Sun News). Trudeau’s impetuous move signals a disdain for them all, and carries an implicit warning that he might bar other media outlets who run afoul of him. We already have a Prime Minister obsessed with controlling the message. Trudeau does himself, and all Canadians, a disservice.
The Star's Chantal Hebert, in today's Star, offers similar criticism of the Trudeau decision.
The temptation to shut out all Sun Media journalists in protest over Levant’s grotesque commentary was probably irresistible. From a human standpoint, it is certainly understandable. But it also sets the party on a slippery slope familiar to most veteran parliamentary correspondents.
Liberal insiders who argue that it is too much of a leap to think that an opposition party that shuts out an entire news organization over the comments of one commentator would, once in government, expand its black list based on more political criteria are whistling past a cemetery of good intentions.
She adds,
If there is a debate to be had over the Levant commentary, attributing guilt by employer-association is hardly the way to go.
Questioning whether those who run major news organizations have a social responsibility to ensure that minimal journalistic standards are maintained by their organizations would be a better place to start.
My own response to these objections is quite simple. Sun News, by virtue of its continued employment of Levant, despite the numerous times he has disgraced both himself and his employer, means that the entire organization is complicit in his slanders, his racism, and his absence of balance.
Both Houpt and Hebert's critique of Trudeau's boycott are premised on Sun News being a legitimate news organization. Based on its tolerance and encouragement of people like Levant, it is an assumption with which I suspect many thinking Canadians would profoundly disagree.
UPDATE: The National Post's Jonathan Kay breaks breaks ranks with his fellow scribes and asserts that Trudeau is morally justified in his boycott decision.
And apparently Justin Trudeau has reached him limit with Sun News. His decision to boycott the network, I'm sure, will send the foaming right wing into a howling frenzy.
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