https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-drop-the-poses-trudeau-you-owe-this-country-a-real-explanation
Rex Murphy: Drop the poses Trudeau. You owe this country a real explanation
Don’t talk fatuously of the 'bigger picture.' There is no bigger picture than whether you are morally entitled to govern
Rex Murphy
March 5, 2019 6:08 PM EST
Fortuna, the wayward goddess, has abandoned her dalliance with Justin Trudeau. What he wins from here on, if he wins at all, will be on his own work, not her flippant favour.
The socks and the selfies are inert now, those props are dated, all their quaint magic gone. Even the rolled-up sleeves and the loosely knotted tie (his let’s-all-get-to-work look) come over now as a parody of the posing politician, the silk-vest patrician at the steel plant vainly affecting to identify with the sweating hard hats on the shop floor.
None of it is working anymore. The familiar gestures are all too self-conscious, the slogans dated and flaccid, the whole play-acting schtick is dead and worse - boring. And the speeches! Monday night’s in Toronto (to launch the election-year global-warming roadshow during a -19C cold alert ) verged on the manic; parts of the opening in particular were something you might have heard in the ancient Sunday morning revivalists’ broadcasts back in the Dark Ages of early television, Jimmy Swaggart or Garner Ted Armstrong raging against the darkness. It was eerie.
The two-minute concessionary acknowledgment of Jane Philpott’s resignation was insultingly perfunctory, swaddled in all the usual pompousness of “diversity” and “listening to other views,” utterly out of touch with the gravity and import of her departure, and the moral indictment of his government in which she framed it.
Here’s where we are. After these two key resignations, on a principle as central as the rule of law, after accusations that he and his administration wished to bend or break that rule of law, Mr. Trudeau has either to drop out altogether, or, start acting like the full man, and directly, without intermediaries, face the challenge that confronts his government.
Drop the poses. Choke off the slogans and pieties. Leave the jacket on. Sit down and speak to Canadians in detail on the moral and legal questions these two most serious ministers have put to him. Cut the theatricals. Don’t talk fatuously of the “bigger picture.” There is no bigger picture than whether you are morally entitled to govern.
Drop, too, the jobs cloak. There are too many unbuilt pipelines and an entire region that has been shedding jobs by the tens of thousands, while your government was writing Bill C-69, dancing at global-warming summits aimed at shutting down the oil industry, and writing new hymns to job-killing carbon taxes, for you now to pose as a job creator, and to shamelessly posit that saving SNC-Lavalin’s jobs was worth mauling the rule of law.
Ms. Philpott’s exercise of her choice is, in its way, even more explosive than Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould’s. The latter was harassed over months; she was the focus and centre of the pressure campaign to desert her responsibilities as attorney general. The impact on her was direct. All that pressure, the special pleading and the veiled threats could understandably colour her judgment. Not to say, actually, that they did - but as a postulate, let us consider that.
But then we come to Ms. Philpott, arguably (pace Chrystia Freeland) the most adult, accomplished, unabrasive minister in Trudeau’s entire cabinet, welcomed in the early days as a lustrous ornament to his “new way of doing politics” and regarded since her arrival and service in many portfolios as singularly efficient and superbly competent.
This is the woman who resigned yesterday. Not some whining, marginal backbencher, with far less talent than ego, nursing a grudge over getting passed by.
Ms. Philpott, in one manner of speaking, was outside the contest, but being in cabinet, having been there when Ms. Wilson-Raybould presented to it, and to caucus - we may presume she’s heard the full tale. And having heard it, both sides, she concludes she has to resign; that the price (too high) for staying in this cabinet after what has been done to Jody Wilson-Raybould, is the sacrifice of her personal integrity and a scar on her conscience.
Philpott’s resignation, intrinsically linked to the case made by Wilson-Raybould, is a bolt of winter lightning to the central nervous system of the Trudeau government.
Does anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office now actually believe that hauling out the knackered horse of climate change, placing Catherine McKenna in its tendentious, preachy saddle to tag-team with Justin, is going to - in that woeful cliché - change the channel?
If they do, they are delusional. They haven’t just drunk the Kool-Aid, they’ve poured it in the hot tub first, had a full splash-bathe-and-back-rub, and drunk the leavings.
I have a thought. Seeing what remains of their commitments to changing the voting system, abandoning omnibus bills, being open and transparent, remaining dedicated to the rule of law, unlocking Alberta’s oil - seeing where the Trudeau government is on all of these abandoned/mismanaged files - why should anyone think that even on its golden child of an issue, climate change, it is really any more serious or committed than on any of the others? Climate change might just be the last big pose.
A word on Gerry Butts’ longed-for appearance Wednesday morning: Why is Gerry Butts appearing? He doesn’t even work there anymore. Why all this drama for an ex-employee when the CEO is still on the premises - and he’s the one, the only one, who has all the answers.
Gerry is of course welcome to come by later. Enough for now though with the surrogates and deputies. Two serious women of unsullied integrity, who committed their fortunes to joining your government, have told the public that morally they could stay no longer.
Mr. Trudeau owes them the courtesy of an answer, and the country of which he is the prime minister, a candid and complete accounting.
https://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-other-guys-suck-is-not-a-campaign-platform/
The SNC-Lavalin affair has reduced the Liberals to a risky strategem: betting their opponents are a bigger turn-off than they are
by Jason Markusoff Mar 5, 2019
Monday afternoon’s cabinet resignation by Jane Philpott plunged Justin Trudeau deeper into the most rapidly festering crisis of his government’s term. On Monday evening, Trudeau sought refuge by time-travelling back to the fall of 2015, when he was pluckily racing from third place to first, and when SNC-Lavalin was still a bribery-marred infrastructure giant that at least didn’t help create existential problems for his political career.
Here was slightly retro Trudeau, now Prime Minister but still with red tie loosened under an open collar button, white sleeves rolled up just so. He offered platitudes about hard work in a voice that was home-stretch hoarse. He even ended his rally speech the same was as in days of yore: “Let’s go knock doors because we know better is always possible!”
Sure, Trudeau touched the fresh departure of a second cabinet minister, and even laid hints at a strategic change of tone in his scattershot defence of this messy affair. But he quickly dispensed with those lines in favour of a nascent stump speech. “At the same time, my friends, we need to keep in mind the bigger picture behind this fantastic movement we have built, and continue to build.” At this event, his focus was mainly on the Liberal climate change plan as a point of sharp contrast with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, whose approach to climate change remains unknown. “The first thing he’d do as Prime Minister is make pollution free again,” Trudeau said, cuing up the partisans’ boo-hiss-shame.
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They may try to wave off this political quagmire and transport back to a time when Trudeau lacked such grim ethical baggage. They may prefer a straight head-to-head with Scheer on policy (and dismiss Jagmeet Singh’s NDP entirely, in part to depict 2019’s election as a binary choice).The Liberals did, after all, survive the first election after the sponsorship scandal with a minority (2004) and were leading in the polls through much of the second one (2006) before losing to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. But that was only after Paul Martin had replaced Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister who presided over that ugly bout of grift-and-graft. In today’s scandal, barring future developments, the person at the top of the Liberal ticket has been personally fingered as responsible.
Trudeau is clearly aiming to make this election heavily about the planet’s future and climate change. But on its face, this strategem also seems fraught. First, because the Conservatives seem content to make this fall’s vote a referendum on the carbon tax. Second, because voters who will think first and foremost about the climate might also gulp anxiously about a political party that bought an oil pipeline project. Third, because the most slogan-like line from last night’s speech - “It’s 2019, and if you don’t have a plan for climate change, then you don’t have a plan for the economy and you certainly don’t have a plan for Canada’s future” - may last only until Scheer actually brings forth some sort of plan. And then, Trudeau might be reduced to debating details, not putting his own imperfect plan up against a void.
Trudeau’s team also seems to want to shrug off ethical choices on their leader’s part yet hammer Scheer on his. His speech at last month’s multi-purpose rally of western truckers who want pipelines and, toxically, don’t want certain immigrants seems to now be at the centre of that argument. “There are a number of people who are incredibly worried that we are going to lose the progress that we have made and we are going to see a government that is led by an individual who has coddled Yellow Vesters,” Toronto MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith told CBC on Tuesday.
Certainly, problematic links to xenophobes and problematic trampling over prosecutorial independence are separate, hard-to-compare concerns. But these are, it seems, the alternatives voters will have to reckon with.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/justin-trudeaus-rise-to-power-seemed-charmed-now-he-faces-a-fight-for-his-political-life/2019/03/05/19db9ae0-3f60-11e9-85ad-779ef05fd9d8_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f078abaf008d
Justin Trudeau’s rise to power seemed charmed. Now he faces a fight for his political life.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose to power as a press-whispering, selfie-snapping progressive icon who promised transparency and went viral for promoting women.
But after four years in the spotlight, Trudeau’s government faces accusations of shady brokering and backroom bullying, of sexism and hypocrisy. Though Trudeau has tried to defend his government’s actions, he seems, suddenly, at a loss for words - at least the right ones.
Former members of his cabinet are speaking out. The press is having a field day. Maclean’s, a national magazine, ran a cover with picture of a grinning Trudeau and the words, “The Imposter,” in all caps. Foreign Policy asked whether Canada’s “golden boy” has lost his shine.
The scope of the scandal is such that many Canadians are wondering if he will hold on to his majority government in the upcoming election.
Whatever happens, Trudeau’s rock star status seems like a thing of the past.
“The problem is that this particular scandal goes to his carefully crafted image,” said Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
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Nik Nanos, a Canadian pollster, said it was unusual to see Trudeau’s usually savvy team struggle to reshape the narrative. “They have been on the defensive almost daily,” he said. “We have only really heard one side of the story, plus little snippets from the prime minister.”
That may change. On Wednesday, Butts will deliver testimony, giving the government a chance to lay out what happened on its end.
His challenge, analysts said, will be to defend Trudeau’s handling of the case without appearing to undermine two highly respected women.
If he takes a combative rather than a conciliatory approach, Butts risks alienating the voters who helped Trudeau win office.
Sands said Trudeau’s treatment of Wilson-Raybould, particularly the demotion, made him look like an “angry male boss.”
To survive, he will need to set a new tone, he said. “I think he grovels his way out of it, maybe.”
http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/2930/fed-horserace-march-2019/
Conservatives Leading Over Liberal March 4, 2019 @ 4:54 PM
If an election were held today, Conservatives would secure majority
Toronto, March 5th - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by The Forum Poll™ among 1301 Canadian voters, with those decided and leaning, 4 in 10 (42%) say they would support the Conservatives, with a third (33%) saying they would support the Liberals.
1 in 10 (12%) say they would support the NDP, with a few (5%) supporting the Green Party, BQ (3%), or the People’s Party of Canada (4%), or another party (1%).
Respondents most likely to support the Conservatives include those who live in the Prairies (Alberta 69%), males (53%), between the ages of 35-44 (47%), and the most wealthy (49%).
Respondents most likely to say they support the Liberals include those who live in the Atlantic region (55%), those between the ages of 45 to 54 (36%), 55 to 64 (36%), and 65 and over (37%), females (41%), those earning $20k-$40k (38%) or $40k-$60k (41%), and those with post-graduate degrees (43%).
If an election were held today, these results suggest the Conservatives would win a majority government of 185 seats. The Liberals would serve as the official opposition with 129 seats. The NDP would secure 18, the BQ 5, and the Greens 1.
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When asked if Canada is doing better or worse than it was 4 years ago, over half stated it was worse (BTM2: 59%), with a third (35%) saying it’s much worse. 4-in-10 respondents (TOP2: 41%) say it is better, with about 1 in 10 (13%) saying it’s much better.
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