As a father, I constantly think about the world my children are growing up in.
- What kind of leaders are leading the country they live in?
- Are they people of character and integrity?
- Would I want my children to model their behaviour after them?
- How will I explain to them why reprehensible behaviour often goes unchecked and why sometimes — it is even rewarded from the people we elect to represent us?
Insert Justin Trudeau. Not one, not two, but on route to potentially his third violation of the ethics act. Still, Canadian’s feel it in their gut — a sneaking suspicion formed from experience that no justice will be served.
Remember the Aga Kahn?
Prime Minister Trudeau took a Christmas vacation to a “close family friends” private island in the Bahamas. He rode on their private helicopter and it just so happened that the “close family friend” whom Justin Trudeau hadn’t seen since being a child — was sitting on a board that was lobbying the government of Canada when giving all these “gifts” to our Prime Minister.
“While the Aga Khan himself is not a registered lobbyist, the foundation is registered to lobby the House of Commons, and — according to records — received more than $47 million from the federal government in 2016,” says a Global News article from 2017.
Remember SNC-Lavalin?
Do you remember when Trudeau fired then sitting Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, for not doing the PMO’s bidding and signing a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC-Lavalin, only immediately to appoint someone who would?
An article from 2019 by the National Post quotes Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion in the ethics report saying:
“Dion said the Prime Minister had breached the rules by “improperly” furthering the interests of SNC-Lavalin. Decisions by the attorney general were supposed to be free of political considerations, but it was clear that Trudeau and the people around him “viewed the matter chiefly through a political lens to manage a legal issue,” wrote Dion.”
Then the Prime Minister’s office bullied witnesses into not coming forward to speak about the matter!
“The report by Dion opened up a whole new scandal, even before it got into the details of the SNC-Lavalin affair. “During this examination, nine witnesses informed our office that they had information they believed to be relevant, but that could not be disclosed because” it would breach cabinet confidence, the report reads.” (From the National Post article, “The SNC-Lavalin scandal: Here’s what’s true and what’s false”)
Now WE got a third scandal
Justin Trudeau is now embroiled in potentially his 3rd ethics violation, the WE charity scandal. Imagine handing out a $900 million dollar Federal contract to a charity that conveniently paid your family members to speak at their events, while refusing to pay other speakers who were potentially more qualified to speak on the matter.
Now imagine a program designed for students, that gave egregious amounts of money away to the institutions designed to give the money to the students.
No need to imagine, I’ve just described the WE scandal that the Prime Minister is now struggling to put positive political spin on.
“The program intends to offer between $1,000 and $5,000 to the so-called volunteers and, in WE’s implementation, would have offered $12,000 to the teachers who recruit them and $25,000 to the summer camps that host them. Passing out big bucks to everyone who had anything at all to do with it seems to be the essence of this entire scheme. Here’s $900 million: spend half of it to give the other half away. Hell, with that mandate, even I could run it,” writes Rex Murphy in the National Post.
Even My Child Knows
I put the question to my 6 year old daughter in English and French yesterday. To my shock, unlike a politician answering questions, she was direct with her answers and was consistent in both English and French!
Dad: “Is it ok to lie?”
Daughter: “No!”
En Francais
Papa: “Est-ce normal de mentir?”
Fille: “NON!
I proceed to press my daughter on the harder questions.
Dad: “Do you think saying sorry means you should get away with everything you did wrong?”
Daughter: “NO!”
Papa: “Pensez-vous que dire desole signifie que vous devriez vous en sortir avec tout ce que vous avez fait de mal?”
Fille: “NON!”
If a 6 year old can understand that it’s wrong to lie, and that you shouldn’t get away lying, why doesn’t the Prime Minister of Canada? We as Canadians need to demand accountability, or we will have a lot of explaining to do to the next generation as to why we allowed our leader to abuse the office of the Prime Minister without repercussion. The disrespect Canadian citizens have had to endure under this leadership is unacceptable, we need to demand more of our politicians.
(Disclaimer – all french questions were translated using Google translate, we apologize for any poor translations, and poor pronunciation of the french language.)
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