Liberals go beyond the pale with their threat of a snap election

I, like so many other Canadians, used to be almost completely indifferent to the so-called WE "scandal" in which Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government embroiled themselves this summer. It was a very Canadian scandal, i.e. not very scandalous, and frankly we have much bigger fish to fry at the moment. The opposition Conservtives seemed to be largely going through the motions of expressing outrage and characterizing the issue as way more important than it really was (that's what opposition parties are expected to do). It would all have blown over in time, just like the SNC Lavalin "scandal".

But then came the Liberals' prorogation of parliament for several weeks, ostensibly to "reset the approach of this government for a recovery to build back better", but effectively to close down the finance and ethics committees that were investigating the whole WE contract. Then, when parliament was finally allowed to reconvene, the investigating committees faced Liberal stonewalling and filibustering, hugely redacted documents, and a general unwillngness to help.

And now, unprecedentedly, the Liberals are making the Conservatives' attempt to set up a new "anti-corruption committee" with less Liberal control to study "allegations of misuse of public funds by the government" into a confidence vote, giving the opposition the choice of a snap election that neither they nor the coutry as a whole want at the moment, or the status quo (i.e. no special ethics probe). The official line is that the government is just way too busy doing big things and saving the country to be messing with nit-picky, tin-pot committee hearings, and that any such investigation would effectively paralyze the government at a time when the country can least afford it. Unspoken, is the fact that the Liberals have a healthy lead in opinion polls and would actually quite like an election to consolidate their power, and perhaps extend it into a majority.

With the help of the NDP, Greens Md Independents (who REALLY don't want an election at the moment), the Liberals managed to win the vote and stave off an election, just today, so status quo it is. In a game of election chicken, Trudeau stared down the opposition, but he does not look any more trustworthy than he did before; the opposition Conservatives look petty and ineffectual, and are probably breathing a sigh of relief that their own little exercise in brinkmanship failed; the NDP look, well, like a third party with no real options; and we will probably never get to know any more details about the WE controversy (which I'm OK with).

But all this leaves a really bitter taste in the mouths of we, the people, and I'm sure that a lot of people who might once have been sympthetic (or at least apathetic) towards the Liberals are no longer. I know I fall into that category. A party that goes to such lengths to prevent scrutiny MUST have something pretty horrible to hide. And, whatever that might be, I'm just tired of the Liberals' (and Trudeau's in particular) secretive nature, and their apparent willingness to transgress against rules and norms, in the knowledge that they do so with impunity. 

Trudeau has overstayed his welcome. Then again, the alternatives are either improbable (NDP and Greens) or unthinkable (Conservatives), so in reality we are stuck with the Liberals, at least for now. And with the Liberals leading in the polls, we can probably expect them to force the hand of the opposition again, and soon, and this time the NDP may not feel obliged to prop them up or hold them back. All we can do is tell ourselves, with a shudder, that at least we are not America.