Wednesday, August 05, 2020

Trudeau/Morneau investigation turns into a witch hunt

It has probably not escaped your notice that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau are both under investigation for conflict of interests due to their, and their families', dealings and connections with WE charity.
The two main opposition parties are making a big production of the public inquiry. Pierre Poliévre and Charlie Angus in particular seem intent on dragging the charity through the mud, as well as scoring a few cheap political points against the Liberals. Poliévre - "the Tory pit bull", as I have seen him described - in particular has been really aggressive, disrespectful and downright nasty in his questioning. Luckily, thumbscrews are not politcally acceptable these days. Charlie Angus has been just his usual dogged, doctrinaire self.
Should Trudeau and Morneau have recused themselves from the cabinet vote on the program? Possibly, although a billion dollar contract in which neither the Prime Minister nor the Finance Minister were integrally involved would be a very unusual situation, and really neither they nor members of their families would obtain any financial advantage from the contract, and neither minister has any social ties to the Kielbergers (again contrary to what opposition politicians are alleging).
Thus far, though, the bottom line is that WE has not been shown to have done anything illegal or even immoral and neither have the politicans involved. So far, WE's evidence has not given Poliévre and Angus much satisfaction at all: everything the charity has done seems to have been above board and for the right reasons. As witch hunts go, it has been a pretty dismal affair (not to mention expensive and a huge distraction from the pressing matters all around us).

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