The problem with conflicts of interest is that it’s always about the other guy.

Imagine what would have followed if Stephen Harper had attended a fundraising dinner with Chinese-Canadian businessmen in 2015 just as one of them was in midst of applying for a Canadian banking licence.

The Liberals would have hit the roof, accusing the Conservatives of employing “pay for play” partisan fundraising tactics, breaching conflict of interest rules, etc.

But now that they’re in power, the Liberals don’t seem to get how malodorous their own actions seem. After the Globe and Mail reported this week on Justin Trudeau’s attendance at a $1,500-a-ticket fundraising event at the Toronto home of Benson Wong, a leading Chinese-Canadian businessman, the prime minister went on about how he was simply trying to attract foreign investment and how no rules had been broken.

It turns out that one of the businessmen attending the fundraiser was Shenglin Xian, who was awaiting final approval from federal authorities to launch a Schedule 1 bank, Wealth One. Final approval came from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions in July.

Trudeau alleged in the House of Commons that the Conservatives were “trying to politicize” the bank application from Wealth One because the Harper government had given initial approval to the applications before it lost power in October 2015.

While there’s no indication the application was tampered with, the politicization of the process was the fault of Trudeau and his party fundraisers. By openly hobnobbing with the bank’s backer at a partisan event, he gave the impression that something political was going on.

The prime minister should know better. As his own Open and Accountable Government rules state, “there should be no preferential access or appearance of preferential access.” By charging to get your picture taken with anybody who has $1,500 to shell out, you put yourself at risk of being accused of exactly those kind of shenanigans. That’s what meant by the “appearance of preferential access.”

Trudeau and members of his cabinet like Bill Morneau clearly like doing the cocktail circuit and rubbing elbows with big shots. Why else would they be willing to squander so much political credibility for so little money? Trudeau and members of his cabinet like Bill Morneau clearly like doing the cocktail circuit and rubbing elbows with big shots. Why else would they be willing to squander so much political credibility for so little money?

The other issue raised by the Globe journalists — the $1-million donation to the University of Montreal’s Law School and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation — is more complex. The gift from two Chinese businessmen who also attended the fundraiser was finalized two weeks later. It also smells bad — shades of the machinations of Hillary and the Clinton Foundation — yet the circumstances differ.

The gift was first mentioned publicly in 2014, when Justin Trudeau was just the MP from Papineau and leader of a struggling Liberal party, someone who certainly didn’t appear to be on the cusp of attaining power. Giving $1 million in honour of Pierre Trudeau at that time certainly would not have been the smartest way of currying political favour with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Should the University of Montreal and the non-partisan Trudeau Foundation, endowed when it was founded in 2001 with $125 million in federal cash, have turned down the gift from controversial businessmen linked so closely to the Chinese government? That would have been a tough thing to do, even though public institutions have a responsibility to vet their donors.

What this whole episode reminds us of is how tight the Liberal party has always been with big business. Trudeau may have a fabulous ability to connect with ordinary people, but he and members of his cabinet like Bill Morneau clearly like doing the cocktail circuit and rubbing elbows with big shots. Why else would they be willing to squander so much political credibility for so little money?

That’s what’s so baffling about this: We’re not talking big bucks here. I know this is Canada and we’re not the most generous folks around, but paying $500, or even $1,500, for an exclusive invitation to dine with Justin is chump change for the CEOs and businessmen anxious to get closer to the government.

It should also be small beans for the Liberals — and by now it should have dawned on them that whatever they get out of this sort of activity simply isn’t worth the terrible optics. If Trudeau is so popular with Canadians, the Liberals ought to be able to figure out how to harness social media to energize their supporters and bring in real money.

Remember Bernie Sanders. His campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination brought in US$229 million. And according to the New York Times, 88 per cent of those contributions were for amounts of $200 or less.

Stephen Harper obviously wasn’t very good at the cocktail circuit. He didn’t really like hanging out with people very much — certainly not the kind of schmoozing with strangers usually required of politicians.

And although Harper was right of centre, his government was no great friend of big business — with the exception of the Alberta oilpatch. His government went to war with railways, telecom companies and banks, something Liberals would never do. His constituency was made up of the small businessmen of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the car dealers and insurance brokers from Main Street. What the Conservatives did was build a formidable base of like-minded donors, who shelled out regularly with small amounts to back their beliefs.

Lobbyists for big business in Ottawa used to complain that they couldn’t figure out how to approach the Harper Conservatives. The Liberals clearly have no such problem. All you seem to need is $1,500 and a handshake.

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