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Voters may never find out whether Scheer offers meaningful policy alternatives to the Liberals

Original allegations of conflict of interest, bolstered by higher-voltage charges of insider trading, are already on the brink of backfiring. Even Ottawa’s political reporters, usually keen to pounce on even the faintest hints of financial wrongdoing, are having a hard time connecting all the dots scattered by the Conservative and NDP opposition activists.

The attacks on Morneau’s ethics are beginning to look unethical in themselves. Tory finance critic Pierre Poilievre has been particularly aggressive in suggesting Morneau’s investment decisions were motivated so as to avoid the impact of his first financial moves as minister in late 2015.

The Tory claims do not hold up. Morneau personally (and apparently his father, the founder of Morneau Shepell) sold some shares in the company days before announcing changes in Canadian income tax rates. The argument is that the shares were sold at a high price relative to where they traded in the days following the fiscal announcement.

The price changes are fractional, and cannot possibly be related to the policy move

The price changes are fractional, and the reasons the shares declined cannot possibly be related to Morneau’s tax policy move. It’s even possible the shares lost value because the Morneaus sold. Another factor is that stock prices were in general decline during the same days.

If the Tory/NDP allegations were true, the Morneaus would go down as the worst insider traders in the history of the market. Confounding matters is that by selling when they did in late November 2015, the Morneaus missed out on a big run-up in Morneau Shepell shares, a run-up that began at around $14.50 a share almost the day after the December 2015, fiscal statement and hasn’t stopped since, reaching almost $22 a share in trading this week.

As we say in the news business, there really is no story here. Scheer and the Tories are trying hard to bring down the minister of finance. But if he doesn’t fall — as seems possible if there is no ethical or insider-trading scandal — then it is the Tories who will suffer for having ethically over-reached in a campaign that leaves Canadians scratching their heads.