National Post (National Edition)
PM argues the end justifies the means
Now that the ethics commissioner has shredded the prime minister’s credibility on the SNC-Lavalin matter, Justin Trudeau is offering something of a moral-philosophical defence of his conduct.
His position, repeated now more than once, is that he “accepts” the finding that he broke the conflict-of-interest law, takes “full responsibility” for the illegal conduct, but is not sorry about it because he did the wrong thing for the right reason.
Before we get to the merit of that argument, two preliminary points.
First, it is rather late in the day for the prime minister to be so careful in his language. The entire SNC-Lavalin mess began when the federal government stuffed into an omnibus budget bill a provision — never specifically debated in Parliament — allowing for deferred prosecution agreements. It was clearly intended to benefit SNC-Lavalin, which had purchased the best influence money could buy to lobby the cabinet to create a way out of its legal troubles. But so hastily and sloppily was the legislation drafted that it prevented exactly what it was supposed to permit. The act makes it clear that “the prosecutor must not consider the national economic interest … or the identity of the organization or individual involved.”
So when the prime minister says he was standing up for the national economic interest, he is doing what his own law prohibited in this case.
A second point is that making fine linguistic distinctions is supposed to serve the purpose of making a subtle truth clear. Trudeau is employing them to confuse and obscure. He does not “accept” the ethics report in the usual sense of the term; in fact, he flat out disagrees with it. He should say so. Plenty of people convicted disagree with the verdict, and continue to make their case on appeal. In this case, the appeal is to public opinion as the ethics commissioner does not have the capacity to mete out punishments.
The principal moral-philosophical argument which Trudeau offers is that prohibited actions are justified if the goal in mind is sufficiently noble. This is a moral-philosophical argument because it clearly is not a legal argument. No court would excuse an accused
who admitted that he broke a law forbidding consideration of the national economic interest on the grounds that he was acting in the name of the national economic interest.
Trudeau is arguing that the ends justify the means, which is how the question is usually put in moral philosophy. To a certain degree, means and ends go together. Slicing someone open to do surgery is altogether different than slicing someone open for torture; the ends render the means here quite different acts.
But a very generic end — the national economic interest — cannot justify means that are clearly illegal. For example, the generic end of earning money to provide for my children cannot justify, say, fraudulent activity. The government has a general end of raising revenue to provide for social assistance; it does so by legal taxation and not arbitrary confiscation. Means matter a great deal.
Indeed, some means are immoral no matter what the ends. Arbitrary confiscation would be such a case. Even in wartime, national security
INDEED, SOME MEANS ARE IMMORAL NO MATTER WHAT THE ENDS.
cannot be adduced as an end which justifies any means. This past June, Trudeau confirmed that when he promised that he would formally apologize to Italian-Canadians for unjust treatment during the Second World War. Brian Mulroney made a full apology in 1990 which was renewed by Paul Martin in 2005, but Trudeau is keen to apologize again.
Yet there will be no apology by Trudeau for his own conduct in SNC-Lavalin. Because he was standing up for Canadian jobs.
Consider though this (admittedly unlikely!) hypothetical situation. Let’s say that it was possible to save those famous 9,000 jobs at SNC-Lavalin by simply incarcerating, without cause and without charge, five innocent Italian-Canadians for a month. Maybe even for just one week. Would that end justify the means of some modest arbitrary detention?
Presumably not. But if that is the case, then the prime minister has to explain why arbitrary detention is an unjustifiable means, and breaking the conflict-of-interest law is a justifiable means. He has asserted it thus far, not made an argument. Mere assertions are not persuasive.