Canada’s Liberal government is in trouble. Two cabinet resignations, plus potential obstruction of justice. The prime minister is being called to resign. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/philpott-resignation-trudeau-snc-lavalin-1.5042411 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snc-lavalin-wilson-raybould-trudeau-wernick-1.5030928
Oh yes, LavScam. This is the perfect illustration of my problem with Canadian politics. I'm center-left and generally agree with Liberal positions. Yet, Liberal Party as an institution attracts entitled out of touch clowns. In this case, everything they could do wrong, they did wrong. Also, when Harperites said Mr. Sunny Ways was "just not ready", they were on to something. As much as it pains me to agree with Harpercons.
Centre-right I am, but not too much different from your centre-left within the Canadian context. I got frustrated with the Conservative so I was not disappointed when the liberal won. But as always, It never takes that long to get greatly disappointed with liberal lip service to core values, and downright duplicity.
It's a bit ironic from where I sit. Seemingly just yesterday Justin Trudeau was being promoted as the great progressive hope, the northern 'anti-Trump'. Handsome boyish good-looks, a celebrity from a famous family, and all of the trendy social views that the Canadian Liberals love so much. So I can't deny feeling a bit of schadenfreude at his current difficulties. That being said, I'm inclined to think that perhaps it shouldn't be that big a deal. SNC Lavalin apparently paid some bribes to Qaddhafi regime figures in order to get some contracts in Libya approved by the then-government there. That's just how business is done in places like that. It is technically against Canadian law, I guess. So the Canadian Justice minister did her thing, essentially enforcing morality. And the PM's office seems to have tried to exert a little pressure for her to back off and to let SNC Lavalin off with a slap on the wrist. That looks like pragmatism to me and I can't really get too aroused about it. Of course if Canadian law was violated, it needs to be taken seriously and shouldn't be ignored, so there's that side of it too. Being an American, I'll leave it to the Canadians to sort it out. It is interesting to watch though.
"Trudeau threatens Scheer with lawsuit over SNC-Lavalin comments" https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-threatens-scheer-with-lawsuit-over-snc-lavalin-comments-1.5088175 I call on any Canadian with longer perspective (I only came in 2008). Is this how Canadian politics normally look, or did Trudeau just mined new levels of dumb? Context: Andrew Scheer is the Conservative leader. So Trudeau is threating to sue because Scheer was mean to him. To sue a fellow MP, who is also the Leader of Official Opposition (so being mean to Justin is not only his Constitutional right but is actually biggest part of his job description). The leader of Government suing Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition for political speech. What is this guy thinking? Justin Trudeau has country's highest name recognition, supposedly the most experienced team possible, and came in with huge goodwill. Oh, and a perfect foil south of the border in Trump. With all this, he is on track to lose elections to Scheer, the guy most Canadians still can't pick out of a lineup. Not because the economy is weak, oh no, or any specific major policy failure. No. Just because he is tone deaf and smug. Good grief. P. S. according to article, Harper also did this, and nothing good came out of it. They need to check the air in Parliament for IQ-lowering pollutants.
Well...one might argue that "tone deafness" is a significant part of what finally propelled Donald Trump to the White House.
