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As the furore over the nomination of Madeleine Meilleur for the position of Official Languages Commissioner enters into its third straight sitting week, we are reminded of the pattern that outrages follow in this parliament.  The fact that this is playing out in rote fashion is starting to get mighty tiresome, and yet here we are, and it's like none of the parties can help themselves.

The pattern begins with the Liberals deciding that they've had enough consultation and making a move, whatever it may be, and it blowing up in their faces.  It was with trying to get government business (and most especially the assisted dying bill) passed last spring with Motion 6, the Electoral Reform committee's composition and eventual report, Bardish Chagger's "discussion paper" on modernizing the practices of the House of Commons, and now Meilleur's nomination for the post.  To an extent, it's also played itself out with other scandals-du-jour, like the allegations of so-called "cash for access" fundraisers (which really wasn't cash-for-access in any recognizable sense where it has been a legitimately abusive practice in many provinces).  Usually these moves happen with some manner of ham-fistedness, such as not having actually had a legitimate conversation with the opposing parties about it, but rather deciding that whatever discussions had been done were enough and they were going to take action.  That was certainly the case with Motion 6, or the way that the Liberals on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee decided to prioritize the discussion paper, or with Mélanie Joly not really consulting the party leaders opposite about the short list for a new Commissioner just asking them about Meilleur.

From there, we get the opposition outrage.  The government spends weeks giving banal talking points about how great the idea is, and frustrating the issue without actually addressing any of the problems or perceived problems.  They don't come up with some actual or effective responses until weeks into the outrage, by which point it's too late.  The opposition meanwhile manages to torque all of the issues beyond all semblance of logic or reality, spinning vast conspiracy theories based on the most disjointed threads and coincidence that build the finest tinfoil hats that Parliament has ever seen.  At the same time, they start in on the procedural rulebook with dilatory motions, interminable privilege debates, and play out the theatre of the absurd (recall Niki Ashton's complaints that Justin Trudeau created an unsafe working environment for women in the wake of The Elbowing that stemmed from juvenile gamesmanship around the Motion 6 debacle, or David Christopherson's concern trolling that the RCMP would hold MPs hostage in their offices in order to ensure that they  missed votes, as articulated during the latest round of privilege debates made in protest of the discussion paper).  Throughout it all, the particular hypocrisies of the Conservative positions are exposed, their own time in government having usually done far worse, but this is a parliament where irony has long-since died, and there is no shame on either side in how each and every imbroglio inevitably unfolds.

In the end, weeks of the sitting calendar are consumed, nothing gets done, and Parliament as a whole looks worse for it all.  And the Liberals?  They eventually climb down from their position after suffering through weeks of trying not to look weak on it.

Every.  Single.  Time.

So with this pattern now having firmly established itself in the 42nd Parliament, what strikes me is that the Liberals have consistently brought these issues on themselves.  The fact that there is this constant need to try and bring these issues to fore in the most ham-fisted manner possible, whether it was either Dominic LeBlanc, Bardish Chagger, Maryam Monsef or Mélanie Joly at the centre of it, seems to imply that there's a bigger problem with the party's leadership that is driving these particular unforced errors.

A good part of the constant wailing and gnashing of teeth is the fact that there is a need to pounce on the Liberals' high-minded promise to "do politics differently."  The reality, however, is that most of the changes any government can make are really at the margins.  Because politics is partisan at its core, there is only so much that one can do to try and work around it, and the Liberals, for as much as they may try to show that they are doing things differently than Stephen Harper's Conservatives, are limited in just what they can do.  That the opposition is cynically looking to "prove" that the Liberals aren't living up to the promise of doing things differently has nothing to do with the fact that they are being utter hypocrites in criticizing the very things that they themselves did the Liberals promised to be different and that's all that matters.

There is also an issue that Paul Wells raised last week over Twitter, which is that there is growing evidence the Liberals don't see other Liberals as partisans, so when they bully through an issue like Meilleur, this particular cognitive dissonance that they suffer from can help to explain why they are so tone-deaf to why there could be a problem in the first place.  That they rationalize and prevaricate without actually acknowledging the concerns that are raised (before those concerns spin out into conspiracy theory territory) and their digging in their heels drives the whole situation into the same outrage cycle which they could stop at any time if they played their hands differently, but they don't.  And while the politicization of Meilleur's nomination (by both sides, mind you) will taint the position of Language Commissioner and the "open, transparent, merit-based" appointment process, we will see whether they have their inevitable climb down when the tumult reaches toxic levels.  Regardless, in a few weeks, we seem doomed to repeat this all over again with the next Liberal blunder, unless a grown-up somewhere can talk some sense into them.  But I'm not holding my breath.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


When people ask me if I think Premier Kathleen Wynne is toast in the 2018 election campaign, I readily reply "no".  Why?  Patrick Brown.  He's on a roll lately, but his support is a mile wide and an inch deep.  Who is he?  Well… buckle up.

Patrick Brown is a panderer.  He is willing to say whatever you want to hear in the hopes you will vote for him.  He is a weathervane.

On three key issues — sex education, political fundraising and climate change — we've seen in recent months how the relatively unknown politician has flipped and flopped so many times, it's a wonder he can keep his current positions straight to himself.

As a backbencher under former prime minister Stephen Harper, Brown bragged about his perfect rating from the Campaign Life Coalition.  He voted to repeal equal marriage legislation for same-sex couples.  He voted against trans rights.  He voted to reopen the debate over a woman's right to choose.

Then he ran for leader of the Ontario Conservatives.  Brown spoke at rallies featuring homophobic epithets, and celebrated the endorsement of the most right-wing members of the Conservative caucus at Queen's Park to court social conservatives.  But then, once he became Conservative leader, he decided to march in the Toronto Pride Parade.  He claimed he now supported same-sex marriage and sex ed.  It was a welcome evolution — I praised him for it.

But then, his chief of staff was caught working up an open letter for his boss promising to repeal the sex-ed curriculum as a means of pandering to so-con constituents in a by-election.  Suddenly, it seemed Brown hadn't evolved on issues of LGBTQ equity.  He's stonewalled press enquiries on the matter ever since.

This winter, another former leadership campaign co-chair boasted behind closed doors that social conservative issues would be a priority, but only once in government.  Again, Brown admonished him.  But when your tenure as Conservative leader is defined by flip-flops on the major issues, taking a professed change of heart on human rights at face value is a risky leap of faith.  It happened again — he just turfed his former leadership campaign co-chair, Jack Maclaren, from the party, for admitting to a secret so-con agenda on tape.

Not convinced?  Well, take the months-long scandal on political fundraising.

Brown admonished Premier Kathleen Wynne for her fundraising practices repeatedly — even as Wynne sought to amend the legislation and forbade her MPPs for engaging in "cash-for-access" and declined to capitalise on the "by-election loophole" whereby corporate and union donors could essentially reset their donation limit to give even more to the Party.

Yet, as Adrian Morrow from The Globe and Mail noted, "Mr Brown has regularly criticized the Liberals over cash-for-access, but has maintained it is not wrong for him to engage in it".  In fact, just check Brown's twitter timeline: he seems to have held a fundraiser a day all year, where a handful of well-connected insiders, corporate interests and Conservative partisans could buy access to the man they expect will be premier in a little over a year.  He boasted that he raised more money than the governing Liberals last week, but he did it through cash-for-access practices he'd decried.  It seems what's wrong for the Liberals is A-OK for Brown.  So, where does Brown stand on political fundraising?  Depends when you asked him.

Likewise, on climate change, Brown ran as a Harper Conservative in 2006 and 2008 on a plan to introduce a cap-and-trade system.  We forget about this fact, but the Conservative platform in both elections was expressly for cap-and-trade.  Brown ran on this platform.  (Aaron Wherry traced the Tory's stances on pollution pricing here.

In other words, Brown was presumably in favour of cap-and-trade from 2006 to sometime around 2015, when as Ontario Conservative leader he came out against Premier Kathleen Wynne's cap-and-trade plan in concert with Quebec and California.  Conservative MPPs had petitions up on their websites decrying cap-and-trade, conflating it with a carbon tax, arguing against pollution pricing at all — right up until a few days after Brown suddenly announced at a party conference that he now supports a pollution penalty.  He was booed.

In summary, then: Patrick Brown was in favour of cap-and-trade before he was against it, and against a carbon tax before he was for it.  Just like he was against LGBT rights before he was for them before he was maybe against them before he was for them…

On these three issues — three of the main issues debated at Queen's Park of late — Brown has shown something worse than being an empty suit.  He's shown a dizzying inconsistency.

Love Premier Wynne or hate her, you know where she stands.  Even the far right acknowledges as much: "Liberal politicians like Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau are actually more honest than the weasel-y Brown, who is willing to adopt virtually any position he can and promise any group of people whatever they want", writes the Campaign Life Coalition.

With Brown, you have to wonder if Brown knows where Brown stands.  The man is a human multiverse.

The next Ontario election is not until spring 2018.  I for one will be counting how many more contradictory positions Brown chooses to take on the issues that matter.  Ontario voters should too — the premiership is too important a role to risk on a politician who doesn't know his own mind.

Photo Credit: Global News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.