It takes a certain kind of obliviousness or belligerence (or both) for a government to look at the situation of Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, who is seeing his sunny political reputation supernova into a galactic garbage fire, and say, “oooh, let’s do that!”

I mean, Trudeau’s situation in a nutshell is that he’s in trouble for a decision to remove someone from their job after what appears to be political interference in a supposedly independent decision regarding legal administration. When the provincial government announced the firing Monday of Deputy Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Brad Blair, it did so in a cloud of questions about political interference from the premier’s office in a supposedly independent hiring process, and created more such questions.

That growing cloud is smoke, and whether there’s a fire or not, it stinks. It smells absolutely foul.

Like everything about the appointment of Ron Taverner as OPP commissioner has from the beginning. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something rotten causing the stink or not, really. The stench itself is a problem.

If you missed the earlier episodes of this soap opera, it began when Taverner, a longtime personal and family friend of Premier Doug Ford was promoted several pay grades past dozens of other higher-ranking and more-likely-seeming candidates into the position heading the OPP.

Since the OPP is the agency that may, at some point if the situation arises, need to investigate the premier and his government — and could also plausibly need to investigate his political opponents — this in itself created the appearance of a likely conflict of interest.

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One former OPP commissioner, Chris Lewis, said on TV immediately that while Taverner was a good officer, this was a case where “the fix was in.”

It looked worse when it came to light that after the job had been initially posted requiring applicants to have a rank of chief or deputy chief, it was rewritten and reposted to lower the qualifications, therefore making Taverner eligible. (Taverner, at age 72, was and is a superintendent with the Toronto police in Etobicoke.)

Then it turned out that one of the men interviewing the candidates was deputy minister Mario Di Tommaso, appointed by Ford to his new job from his old job where he was Taverner’s supervisor on the Toronto police, and all three men were chumming around in the time leading up to the hiring, according to a report in the Globe and Mail.

There were more concerns than even that raised about political interference in this by the premier. One of the people raising them was Deputy OPP Commissioner Blair. He requested the provincial ombudsman investigate, and is pursuing that request (which was turned down by the ombudsman) in court.

Now he’s doing so as a private citizen, since he just got canned from his job at the OPP. Just months ago, he was one of three candidates shortlisted to serve as commissioner. Today he’d out of his job as deputy. And who was responsible for firing him? Officially, deputy minister Di Tommaso. It says right there in the announcement.

Holy hell, the stench of this thing.

Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones, in a press conference dealing with aggressive questions from reporters on Monday about why her ministry had done it, claimed not to have had any say in the matter, other than making it official. She had no answers for how this decision came about — telling reporters to pursue such questions with civil servants because she didn’t know. What she was emphatic about was that neither she nor the premier had anything to do with it. That it was not a political decision.

No? It sure looks like a political decision. The possible political motivations are obvious. That appearance is, in itself, a problem. Because if people can legitimately believe, for good reasons, that it sure looks like the OPP is being turned into a political tool of the premier’s office, run by his friends to cater to his whims (pimping used vans or otherwise), then no amount of protesting about it not being what it looks like helps. A police department cannot serve its function without public confidence.

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This is a case where all the “even ifs” zero out to a different course that should have been pursued. Even if Taverner was the best candidate for the job by some objective measure, his friendship with the premier and long relationship with the hiring deputy minister should have led them to a different decision. Even if a local force superintendent can leapfrog ranks to commissioner, this is not the case where one should. Even if it was now untenable for Blair to continue to serve, having Di Tommaso put the axe to him in the middle of a court process weighing his claims is exactly the wrong thing to do.

All of this signals to the public that, to use Lewis’ words, the fix is in. It signals that whether the fix actually is in or not. Rather than backing down on Taverner’s hiring, those involved have made it worse by firing Blair.

It stinks. Those involved either can’t smell it, or worse, they don’t care that we can. And all that’s at stake is the public legitimacy of the provincial police.

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