There's a reason why Andrew Scheer's calls for the PM to resign met with eyerolls after Wilson-Raybould roasted the governing Liberals in a deposition at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that absolutely dwarfed that of Michael Cohen's down in the States. That is because Scheer knows, just as well as Trudeau and everyone else, that the Liberals tilting the playing field in favour of shady Quebec firms is just another Wednesday in Canada. So is treating First Nations with paternalism, massaging bought-and-paid for media outlets by "lining up all kinds of OpEds", and the PM descending from on high to tread lightly with this little annoyance and remind people that he's protecting jobs for the middle class at his own press conference.
Kady O'Malley says the takeaway from JWR's testimony is that the system works just fine. And she is right. Everyone or, as we'll soon see, almost everyone is playing their assigned part. By next week we'll be smugly wagging our fingers at the United States again and babbling about being a "moral leader" while denouncing Scheer for sharing the stage with a Literal Racist at the United We Roll convoy and chastising Conservatives MP's and senators for inflammatory speech.
It is certainly true that Scheer's pageantry is risible, but it matters not in the long term. What does matter is that, even if he would have done the exact same thing with regard to SNC-Lavalin, and would probably do so again were he PM, he and his party are for once above the fray.
And here is where things went off script, in one fatal instance. The Tories are supposed to screw the pooch by having their hypocrisy/cluelessness revealed i.e., Rona Ambrose tweeting about the Aga Khan from the deck of a billionaire's yacht, or whatever the hell the CPC position on cannabis is supposed to be here. Not this time. This time, Trudeau can't even throw the whole mess on Trump, or "Conservative dark money" networks. As we've seen with Gerry Butts resigning/pursing a new opportunity as the Liberal re-election boss, this is entirely a Liberal family matter. They broke it, now they have to pay for it. Except, as we've seen, they have no intention of paying for anything.
Since the Liberals cannot excuse their own blunders as part of their forever phoney war against the foes of liberalism, every mistake they make and they have been considerable in number and scope reveals how much of a farce their commitments to transparency, to feminism, and to "doing politics differently" were. And if they cannot unite their forces against an enemy since they have met the enemy, and it is them then the enemy will unite against them.
Furthermore, since Trudeau's popularity rested on the voters giving him the benefit of the doubt, even though they kind of knew they shouldn't, it exposes how cynical the entire process of Trudeau's rise to power was. Cynicism regarding Trudeau is not just the province of cranks like me anymore it has been legitimized by consensus-builders like Paul Wells. And when cynicism is the order of the day, populism grows stronger.
The damage here is more than just Trudeau dropping in the polls, an advantage that can be regained as soon as Scheer shows himself again. It is more than the implosion of Canada The Moral Leader, which everyone kind of doubted anyway. No, this is clear and present evidence of the forces of liberalism giving birth to the thing they hate most. They pride themselves on their ability to manage. One problem: they cannot manage their way out of a paper bag.
And when it is clear that the people in charge have no idea what they're doing, that is when voters start rallying around the idea of Prime Minister Faith Goldy. But that's OK. Once she starts running the country, the liberals can continue to talk about "the rule of law" and how "this is not normal."
Photo Credit: CTV News
Written by Josh Lieblein