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Lying to Parliament is traditionally a cause for resignation or dismissal

I have expressed in this space before my reservations about the laws governing the conduct of Canadian businesses in other countries and there is no reason to reopen that subject. The law is the law and if an international company doesn’t like the legal framework in the country where it is headquartered, it should change jurisdictions before it breaks the law in the country of its corporate residence. SNC-Lavalin was obviously very cavalier in its attitude to its home jurisdiction, lobbied vigorously and at the least, with marginal legality at times, to avoid the heaviest possible retribution for its past acts that gave rise to this controversy, and seems to have made a serious effort to make amends and resolve the issue with a hefty fine. The minister of justice was completely within her rights to opt for prosecution rather than a fine, and was following the advice of her department’s chief prosecutor. The facts that I think it is a poorly conceived law, a mistaken decision and that she was an incompetent minister of questionable judgment are all irrelevant to this issue. She committed no impropriety in this case, only poor tactical judgment in not resigning rather than consent to be shuffled to another department.

Photo by Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg

Misleading Parliament on the scale that Trudeau did, with the full support of his caucus, whatever the MPs’ private misgivings, on the heels of the even more scandalous and malicious prosecution of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, all overlaid on a very inadequate general performance in government for the past four years, should place the government as clear underdogs in the election in two months. Unless Trudeau runs the greatest and most persuasive election campaign in Canada’s history, he and his partisans should be thoroughly punished and defeated by the voters for a combination of incompetence and deficient ethics that this country has not seen in Ottawa before. The Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s comments on Wednesday were appropriate, though he was technically not accurate about the absence of a precedent. John A. Macdonald was caught red-handed soliciting and receiving money from backers of the Canadian Pacific Railway for some of his candidates in the 1872 election. He gave the greatest speech of his career to Parliament but was defeated in the sentiment of the House of Commons and then in the general election. Of course he returned for four more consecutive general election victories. But he accepted no money personally, dealt with the matter squarely, and was sent to the penalty box for a term.

Making the case to re-elect this government was never going to be easy, but it has now become extraordinarily difficult.

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