Last weekend's incident where a sitting MP was broadcasting conspiracy theories containing well-worn anti-Semitic tropes quickly fell out of the news cycle alarmingly so as mainstream Canadian media instead felt the need to instead focus on polls and fuelling the speculation of a potential fall election.  Most outlets didn't accurately portray what it was that had been tweeted, and focused on a half-assed apology that disingenuously portrayed what had taken place, and almost nobody put this incident into a broader perspective that the mainstreaming of this kind of conspiracy theorism has been on the rise, particularly (but not exclusively) in Conservative ranks as they latch onto anything that they hope will "own the Libs," and the full-on embrace professional shitposters who spread these corrosive memes into their ranks.

To recap, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, MP and one-time Minister of the Crown, was broadcasting QAnon and anti-Semitic New World Order conspiracy theories in an attempt to discredit new finance minister Chrystia Freeland.  The tweet that Findlay quote-tweeted contained a video clip of Freeland in her journalist years interviewing financier George Soros about globalism, to which Findlay added the phrase that "The closeness of these two should alarm every Canadian."  This was then retweeted by several Conservatives including Pierre Poilievre, and later in the day, apparently after Liberal MP Anthony Housefather reached out to Findlay did she delete the tweet and offered that half-assed apology that didn't include any explanation of why anyone should be "alarmed" by Freeland interviewing Soros.  This after she tried to defend the tweet saying that it was "about economics."

It should be noteworthy that new Conservative leader Erin O'Toole did not actually comment on the incident (even though Findlay actually tagged O'Toole in her original quote-tweet).  When pressed by journalists during his press conference when he announced his new leadership team, he said that he called leaders from the Jewish community, but didn't say whether he spoke to Findlay about the issue.  It wouldn't really matter, however, because we need to remember that one of the people that O'Toole hired as part of his leadership campaign staffers was Jeff Ballingall, who runs those Ontario Proud/Canada Proud shitpost accounts, who is also actively involved in The Post Millennial, a hard-right "news" site that has actively promoted conspiracy theories in the past.

This has been building for a while.  During the previous leadership race, the debate over Motion 103, which tasked the Commons heritage committee to look at ways to combat Islamophobia, was treated by some of the leadership candidates as an "singling out Muslims for special treatment," and was falsely billed as creating "blasphemy laws" and would impact freedom of speech.  While the Interim party leader, Rona Ambrose, did repudiate those claims, the direction that the party was headed in was pretty clear, considering that many of the leadership candidates were onboard with demonizing a benign non-binding motion.

When Andrew Scheer became leader, the broadcasting of outright conspiracy theories began with his official imprimatur, most notably around the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, where Scheer proclaimed repeatedly that this was about surrendering the sovereignty of Canada's borders to the UN, when it did nothing of the sort.  Scheer was also amplifying the messages of the so-called "Yellow Vest" movement, which rapidly attracted white supremacists to the cause as one of the grievances was about the flow of irregular migrants across the border, in addition to complete falsehoods about carbon pricing, and the bizarre notion that prime minister Justin Trudeau needed to be tried for treason a theme that has since been amplified by QAnon and other conspiracy theories.  (It also took Scheer weeks to denounce those white supremacists, for what it's worth).  During the election, Scheer's constant lies about fictional plans that the Liberals were alleged to be hatching around a capital gains tax continued the trend of being willing to say anything, no matter how far-fetched, so long as it discredited the Liberals.

Also recall that as part of his bitter farewell speech on the night of the Conservative leadership results, Scheer urged people to forego mainstream media in favour of hard-right outlets like True North Initiative and The Post Millennial, which have also been involved in broadcasting conspiracy theories, including the M-103 and UN Global Compact falsehoods.  One of True North's contributors was very recently trying to spread the falsehood that the government's COVID-19 contact tracing app would allow the government to track Canadians' movements, even though the Privacy Commissioner explicitly stated that it didn't, and it was safe enough that even he would download it.  And it was certainly noted after Findlay's quote-tweet that MPs were certainly leading by example in amplifying the messages of these outlets that trade in dishonesty, disinformation, and conspiracies.

With this in mind, it would seem to me that O'Toole has not exactly been keen to tamp down on this kind of talk from his caucus in part because he's in bed with Ballingall, whose professional shitposter activities actively amplify this very material.  All of it is thinly sourced and quoted out of context in order to present false portrayals of what the Liberals have done or are supposedly planning to do mostly unnecessarily because there is plenty that the Liberals have done can be legitimately criticized (particularly aggravated by their inability to communicate), but there is an inherent willingness to say anything, no matter how ludicrous, in the hopes of scoring points.

There is a dangerous precedent being set by O'Toole's tacit silence on his party's part in broadcasting these conspiracy theories, especially as it's being alleged that the Canadian Ranger member who stormed the grounds of Rideau Hall was likely radicalized by QAnon conspiracies.  There is no way to have a rational discourse in Canadian politics if it becomes mired in the filth of these kinds of conspiracies, replete with their anti-Semitic overtones that date back to the propaganda text "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."  Clearly O'Toole has hitched his wagon to the shitposters who are willing to amplify these messages and to muddy the waters around what is and is not true in politics, but no good can come of following this road to its conclusion.

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While the investigations into the WE Imbroglio are slowly burning themselves out, the opposition parties starting to turn to conspiracies as the lack of a smoking gun presents itself, the Liberals have nevertheless managed to step on yet another rake in the process of trying to control the damage to them and their brand.  Prime minister Justin Trudeau may preach full transparency, but it's not what he's practicing, and ever so slowly, he and his party are becoming everything they used to hate.

The release of pre-redacted documents to the Finance Committee as part of their investigation into what transpired around the Canada Student Service Grant was the latest self-own in a series of escalating self-owns by this government, but this one has a particular gravity that dwarfs the simple embarrassment that most other self-owns have tended to generate because it is flouting the will of parliament.  The committee order was for the complete documents to be presented to the Commons' Law Clerk to do any necessary redaction so that they could be assured that there was a neutral third party doing it and not the government trying to cover its ass and yet that order was ignored and the documents showed up with redactions already in place.  Even the Liberal committee chair, Wayne Easter, has been critical of the government disrespecting the will of the committee and has called on the government to release the unredacted documents as swiftly as possible.

It seems that blame has been attached to the bureaucrats, who do this sort of thing regularly with Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) releases, which have become increasingly problematic as time goes on, and the Liberals' promise to fix the system have largely been for naught.  Once again, it's a case of being all talk and little-to-no action in this case, they did pass a very flawed bill that has done nothing to remedy the situation.  "Transparency by default" and "proactive disclosure" have become hollow buzzwords that have resulted in little meaningful action, and the inertia in the civil service around disclosures continues to be unabated.  The thing with inertia is that a significant external pressure needs to be applied to force it to change course, but that remains elusive under the Liberals as they have not exactly been diligent in applying it.

So why does this matter?  Who cares if there were some extra redactions?  It matters because the government didn't respect a committee order to turn over documents, and accountability is the raison d'être of our committees and Parliament itself.  Governments who try to evade accountability and not respect committee orders particularly in a hung parliament like we currently find ourselves in may find themselves to be in contempt of Parliament, which is a Very Big Deal.

It was in 2011 that Stephen Harper's government found itself to be in contempt of Parliament  a determination found by the Procedure and House Affairs committee after they refused to turn over documents related to the costs of their law-and-order agenda, their corporate tax cuts, and the planned procurement of F-35 fighter jets (which continue to haunt us still).  This was a big deal the first government in comparative Westminster parliaments to have been found in such contempt.  An election was fought over it.

The unfortunate part is that the electorate didn't end up caring that Harper was found in contempt, whether it's because their visceral dislike of Michael Ignatieff was too strong to counter Harper's misdeeds (especially among traditional Liberal voters who stayed home instead of voting), or because there was already a fatigue around the fact that absolutely everything that happened under Harper's watch and there was a hell of a lot that happened was treated as a giant scandal, and voters reached the point where if everything was a giant scandal, nothing was a giant scandal.  In either way, the contempt charge didn't stick, and Harper went from a hung parliament to a majority one.

I am certainly not advocating that Liberals treat this as permission to do the very same thing and hope for the same result that people will be so inured to the constant cries that everything is a giant scandal and that they won't punish the government over this, or that they would punish the opposition instead.  Lightning rarely strikes twice, and Trudeau's government has made so many mis-steps and stepped on so many rakes that they shouldn't count out the possibility that the voting public has tired of the rake-stepping and want to get rid of Trudeau in order to get a break from it all.  Rather, I am warning the Liberals that they are starting to turn into the thing that they hated most.

It's like the closing scene in Animal Farm, where the pigs have started morphing into the very same humans that they displaced, once they declared "four legs good, two legs better."  The tendency of this government is to say "Yes we did it, but we meant well and we're sorry," hope that all will be forgiven, and hope that it differentiates them from the Harper Conservatives.  After all, the impression was largely that Harper didn't mean well, and he continues to be treated like a Bond villain because of it and Trudeau could never be perceived the same way, right?

Trudeau promised he would be different when it came to respecting Parliament, and sure, returning to the practice of have ministers make speeches inside the Chamber and not off of Parliament Hill in front of a branded piece of vinyl backdrop as a good change, but it was the bare minimum.  Respecting parliament means more than just using the Commons as a backdrop it's about giving MPs the tools they need to do the jobs that they were elected to do, and if Trudeau finds that to be too much of problem, then he may find that he too has morphed into the very thing that he displaced.

Photo Credit: CBC News