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For a government so focused on its image, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are stupefyingly blind to the damage caused by their dawdling on tough political files.

Exhibit A: the government’s protracted stumble on small business tax changes.

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We’re now into Month 4 of punishing headlines on this file, which is deeply impressive when you consider that two of those months covered the dog days of summer, where all news usually goes to die.

Can anyone remember when Finance Minister Bill Morneau, the frontman for the tax changes, was the putative heavyweight in the relatively unseasoned Trudeau cabinet? Yeah, well, neither does Morneau, such is the thumping he’s taken on the small biz file from Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative finance critic.

The opposition-generated heat on taxes forced Morneau into issuing a Thanksgiving weekend armistice, in which he dropped several large hints of an impending retreat.