For weeks, we've been enduring the constant faux-outrage over Bill Morneau's assets, and the escalating ridiculousness of the myriad of supposed offences that he has committed. That the Conservatives escalated things to the point of demanding Morneau's resignation last week while not able to provide much in the way of concrete examples as to why he should shouldn't come as a surprise, because demands for resignations are rote and part of the outrage script. And when pressed for a reason, any reason, why Morneau should exit cabinet, the excuses returned to his mandate letter.
You might recall that in his high-minded (and indeed, sanctimonious) manner, Trudeau declared that his ministers were going to ride that white horse of transparency and accountability, and they were going to mean it by observing the highest ethical standards in everything they did.
"As noted in the [Ethical] Guidelines, you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny. This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law," Trudeau wrote.
In other words, you must not only be seen to be avoiding a conflict of interest, but you might also avoid the appearance of such a conflict.
As with so many of Trudeau's well-intentioned but ultimately foolish decisions, this one opened the door to the opposition and critics in the media to abuse the provision to attack them. He handed the cudgel to his enemies and invited them to hit him about the face and neck with it. It was, ultimately, a self-inflicted wound.
We saw it play out for months with the stories over supposed "cash-for-access" fundraisers, which, in truth, were not actually cash-for-access in the abusive way that we had seen in Ontario, where ministers went to people who were trying to get an audience with them and shook them down for tens of thousands of dollars at fundraisers. None of that happened at the federal level, but a combination of mediocre reporting, combined with mendacious framing devices, gave this appearance that the government was for sale for $1500 increments. It's laughable on the face of it, especially when compared to the free-for-all of political fundraising in most of the provinces, and even more so when compared to the United States, but damn it, the Globe and Mail needed a scandal to push.
And as with the requirement that even the appearance of impropriety be avoided, the Globe and the opposition each lined up weak evidence in such a manner as to make it look like there was some shady business going on. And then, as with Morneau now, the allegations were all ridiculous on the face of it someone who wanted approval for a bank attended a fundraiser and it was approved! (Never mind that it's a decision of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, the timing was too suspicious). Or how a Chinese businessman with canola interests attended a fundraiser, and lo and behold, when Trudeau went to China, he got the issue around canola imports resolved. Obviously a quid pro quo err, except that it was the same position that every Canadian farmer was hoping for because the Chinese demands around restricting canola imports were bogus, and it would only have been a scandal if Trudeau had acceded to the Chinese demands.
But throughout that situation, as with Moreau now, we kept hearing the same thing that "this doesn't pass the smell test." Never mind that in any of the cases, the facts couldn't even support the notion that it didn't pass the smell test, which is what Trudeau kept asserting when he answered questions about it. Not that it mattered, because they kept insisting that it didn't avoid the "appearance" of a conflict, and hence, there was a problem.
And this notion of appearances is really where this all rests that Trudeau gave a direction like that was in hindsight fairly boneheaded because anyone can make anything up and say "smell test" or "appearance," and you have an attack that will get traction or print. And it's so easy to do, as we've seen repeatedly with the current Morneau faux-outrages, where mind-numbing headlines would appear day after day, about how Morneau was somehow in a conflict with the Bombardier loan because Morneau Shepell had a contract with them, or how he was somehow in a conflict because the Bank of Canada contracted their services (never mind that the Bank is pretty fierce about protecting their independence), or any of the other departments or agencies. Taking the cake was the manufactured notion that he needed to get the clearance of the Ethics Commissioner to table Bill C-27, never that doing so would violate both cabinet confidence and parliamentary privilege. The fact that the accusations were utterly ridiculous didn't matter all they needed to was say that there was an "appearance" of conflict.
So this is where we are now, and we're likely to keep seeing these kinds of stories once the Morneau outrage finally dies down and we learn that the only actual sin that he committed was forgetting to mention that the villa he disclosed was in a holding company, for which he paid the $200 fine. Trudeau has made a number of ill-thought-out promises, whether it was around electoral reform, making ministers' offices open to Access to Information requests, or these demands around ethical guidelines. And because they're his own poor promises coming around to bite him, he's been especially inept at creating any kind of communications strategy to deal with them. If anything, this may be his Achilles heel, more than any one action his government has taken. But it also means that we'll be dealing with this same pattern of faux scandal, disingenuous examination, and certain media outlets playing along in order to try and score a hit, for the remaining years of this parliament. And all the while, the practice of accountability remains occluded for the sake of "appearances." What a way to run a parliament.
Photo Credit: J.J. McCullough Loonie Politics
