Prattling about jobs, PM ignores truckers

Fermat’s Last Theorem was a doozy of a headscratcher that kept the very best noodles of mathematics in a whirl of frustration and despair from 1637 — when Fermat scribbled in the margin of a book that he had a solution for it (but that it was too large to fit on the side of the page) — to 1995. That’s 358 years. It was finally solved by the British mathematician Andrew Wiles, after decades of recondite theorizing, endless computation, and manic determination (Jacob with a Numbers Angel). He beat Fermat at last.

Or is thought to have done so. I’m certainly in no position to rule on Mr. Wiles’ wily exegetics. For intricacies of this altitude, and for a cool head when under potential fire from the unruly brigands of number theory, this is the point when we dilettantes at the Post throw the switch, light up the Bat Signal, veer it west and beckon Dr. C. Cosh.

I make my own gradeschool allusion to Mr. Fermat and his riddle only to suggest that the scale of the problem, its enduring challenge to the very best of minds and its resistance to definitive resolution invokes a disturbing comparison to a current teaser of equally daunting perplexity: the bottomless challenge of solicitor-client privilege.

The entire harem of lawyers in the civil service, the covey of external academic superstars, the top- rate attorneys in practice available for consultation on a phone call from the prime minister, the current attorney general and his cohort of legal ninjas, the bar societies of all the provinces and territories, and at least one retired Supreme Court justice hired to represent the former attorney general, Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould — all seem unequal to the problem. They languish. It is a real snorter.

Can Ms. Wilson-Raybould speak? Or can she not? Evidently she can speak in cabinet — for she did. In caucus? I’m unsure. In the justice committee? Evidently the authorities have not delivered a ruling on that. The prime minister can speak. And does so variously every day. Sometimes he even speaks for Ms. Wilson- Raybould. The clerk of the Privy Council can speak. Gerald Butts can speak, at least to the point that he may deny he has done anything wrong or untoward.

Can it be that solicitorclient privilege is an unfathomable, impenetrable legalistic black hole from which no light can emerge that it is currently and conveniently for all sorts of rea- sons made out to be? Apparently it must be so, for certainly up to now, it has held within its irremediable grasp all the key information that could settle the crisis and upon which a government’s fate depends.

One other feature of the week was the prime minister’s determinedly robotic turn in Wednesday’s question period. He has a very high bar when it comes to self-embarrassment.

He showed none whatsoever in absolutely ignoring the specific questions being put to him, and issuing a nearly identical and fully irrelevant answer to every single different inquiry. Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer asked about 15 particular questions and to each one the prime minister gave, with minuscule variation, a gauzy non sequitur about his concern for jobs and the middle class and something about the rule of law. He could just as easily have risen and said “it’s raining in Tanzania now” or “cats have four legs and a tail” for all the connection his answers had to the questions before him. The Liberals sometimes applauded the travesty, though we must believe — they are human — there were inwardly ashamed of his pure witless evasions.

Meantime if “jobs for the middle class” were the prime minister’s heart’s desire, he might have stepped out of the Commons and said at least a hello to the gathering of truckers who had driven all the way, in coldest February, from Alberta to Parliament Hill. They were there to describe how things are for working people in Alberta ( and other provinces) since the oil industry has been battered by world prices, the fire in Fort McMurray, the killing of pipeline projects, the stalling on the remaining Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and the flight of capital (another multi-billion-dollar oil company announced this week that it was packing up for the U.S.).

Most of them were salt-ofthe-earth types, not the professional agitators, perpetual demonstrators and seasoned road- blockers that constitute Canada’s protesting class. There are two groups: those who make a living out of protest ( see above); and those who protest (and only as a last resort) because they can’t make a living. The former, in fact, are very much the reason the latter had to come to Ottawa.

It wouldn’ t have hurt Justin Trudeau to extricate himself from the pointless metaphysics of solicitorclient privilege and wander out to shake a few hands and have a couple of chats with real people in real language about what they’re feeling, what they’re going through and what they might be seeking from his government. If a prime minister can make it to We Day revivals, or Women in the World #MeToo congratulatories to exchange progressive bon-mots with such eminences as Katie Couric, Tina Brown and Mira Sorvino, surely a few minutes with a handful of western Canadian truck drivers, heavy-equipment operators and laid-off electricians shouldn’t be too much of a burden.

They travelled over 2,000 miles by truck; he had, at most, a few hundred yards on foot. And their only concern was jobs, the very jobs he was so repetitiously insisting were his prime concern during the woeful performance in question period.

In one sense, and a very real sense, a couple of wellmeant hellos to these folks, a bit of listening to pick up their sense of things, might very well have had more value and more substance than all the artful, posturing theatrics of the past two weeks on SNC-Lavalin and Jody Wilson-Raybould’s still enigmatic dilemma. As between the two venues — the protest outside, the farce within — I know where reality lies.

A footnote: the plastering of the convoy with the tag that it was “fringed” or “infiltrated” by white supremacists and all sorts of other odd, despicable types was a cheap one exercised by many in the media. The main purpose of this group, and the people who organized and executed the trip, was clear as day, and as important as any issue in the country at present. If you’re going to characterize protests by whatever fringe elements may or may not attach to them, please do it universally.

Next time there’s an Occupy sit-in at Queen’s Park, or an anti- pipeline march in Vancouver, note the flags, check the repeat attendees, and find out who’s backing them. Or does scrutiny only apply to the non-professionals of the protest movement?

THE CRISIS ... UPON WHICH A GOVERNMENT’S FATE DEPENDS.