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Later, he apologized for making that suggestion. The apology didn’t matter because the dogwhistle had already been blown.

It was a blatant attempt to position the prime minister and the Liberal government on the side of Quebecers.

The entire SNC-Lavalin mess is pretty easy to understand when you look at it with a Quebec lens. It’s headquartered in Montreal, Que. They employ thousands of Quebecers.

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Quebec’s pension fund manager — the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec — has a sizable investment in SNC. The Caisse is made up of 40 public and partially public organizations, which are mostly Quebec based pension and insurance plans.

That simply means that every single Quebecer has a direct personal financial interest in SNC — or has a friend or relative who does.

If the Liberals are going to hold onto power in 2019, they need to win more seats in Quebec than the 40 that they currently have to make up for the seats they are going to lose in the other parts of the country.

The ethics commissioner will determine if something unethical was done by someone. But it’s clear as day why the Liberal government would act politically to try and solve the SNC issue.

The Conservatives and NDP are dealing with their own political issues when it comes to Quebec for exactly the same reasons.

Andrew Scheer’s immigration policy is driven to pander to Quebec. The discussions around queue-jumping and bogus refugee claimants is all set up to make immigration a wedge issue in Quebec for the Conservatives.