National Post (National Edition)
Election threat shows PM doesn't like being questioned
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn't like his actions being questioned. He doesn't like it from Parliament, he doesn't like it from the opposition, he doesn't like it during Question Period. He doesn't like it from his own caucus, he doesn't like it from his cabinet ministers, he doesn't like it from Commons committees.
He just doesn't like it — get it? He seems to take it personally. He gets very indignant, whether the questions are about his personal actions, those of his family or those of his government.
As he made clear this week — House Leader Pablo Rodriguez said it in so many words — he views questions about his decisions as a declaration of a lack of confidence in the government, and thus justification for turning yesterday's vote on setting up a committee to probe government corruption into a confidence motion that had the whole country on edge over the prospect of an expensive and disruptive election in the middle of a pandemic.
It's not even the content of the queries that upsets the prime minister, but the fact that the opposition would dare demand the right to do its job, which consists of asking questions and proposing alternatives to the party in power.
Trudeau's distaste for scrutiny has been an ongoing feature of his time in office, particularly in the latter stages of his first term, and the first year of his second.
He so disliked former-minister Jody Wilson-Raybould raising concerns about his approach to the SNC-Lavalin scandal that he ousted her from her position as justice minister and attorney general, leading to her departure from the party. His treatment of her cost the Liberals a second high-profile female minister, Jane Philpott, former president of the Treasury Board, whose support for Wilson-Raybould ultimately saw her expelled from the caucus and quit politics altogether.
Trudeau objected just as fiercely to an investigation of the SNCLavalin affair by a Commons committee. To stifle questions, his government limited testimony, blocked access, obstructed requests for documents and invoked cabinet confidence to prevent full disclosure of government discussions and decisions.
Having evidently learned a lesson from that experience, Trudeau and his people wasted no time in acting to halt a similar embarrassment over the WE scandal. Rather than endure ongoing questions by committees investigating the decision to hand almost $1 billion to an organization with strong Liberal links, Trudeau prorogued Parliament altogether.
No committee, no questions. It didn't matter that the professed excuse for the shutdown — a need to reboot Parliament in light of COVID-19 — never happened, other than a flaccid throne speech and self-serving address to the country on national TV. What was important to the prime minister was the opportunity to rule without question, without Parliament, without committees — without anyone intruding on his decisions with bothersome interruptions.
Yet, even then, the prime minister found himself faced with doubters. Bill Morneau, the finance minister who had loyally gone along with every borrowing decision in five years of ballooning expenditures, evidently got cold feet at the extent of the bills being run up in the battle against COVID-19 and shared his doubts with Trudeau.
He quickly found himself out of office and out of politics. We still don't know the extent of Morneau's fears. While Trudeau occasionally tolerates questions from the press, he has so perfected the art of airy banalities as to make the procedure pointless.
Now Trudeau finds himself confronted with the opposition's determination to renew the investigation into the WE affair that was short-circuited by prorogation. They would like additional documents, the first set having been heavily censored by government departments, including entire pages blacked-out to prevent anyone from learning anything. They would like to question more witnesses, including civil servants and perhaps the prime minister himself.
To prevent this, Liberals spent much of last week filibustering two standing committees looking into the scandal. The government argues that its single-minded focus on the COVID-19 pandemic is too crucial to be distracted by committees, yet obviously it wasn't crucial enough to stop entire days being devoted to protecting it from answering questions. When the Conservatives proposed a whole new committee, the Prime Minister's Office went ballistic and countered with its threat of an election.
“If you read carefully the motion that has been put forward, it is a motion that frankly drips with a lack of confidence in this government,” said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. “For us to govern effectively, we need to have the confidence of the House.”
Someone needs to ask Freeland why a fundamental part of parliamentary government is known as “question period,” if questioning in itself represents lack of confidence in the government. If such is the case, question period itself would justify new elections every other day.
In its 2015 election platform, the Liberal party expressly pledged that it would “shine more light on government.”
“Government and its information should be open by default,” it said. Access to information would be improved. A special prime minister's question period would be introduced to ensure “direct accountability.” Committees would have their status protected and reinforced. “We will ensure that Parliamentary committees are properly resourced to bring in expert witnesses, and are sufficiently staffed to continue to provide reliable, non-partisan research.”
Trudeau's current assault on those same committees renders those pledges not only laughable, but farcical. This is a government that's obsessed with secrecy, offended by the opposition raising questions and insulted that voters would dare elect MPs with the temerity to represent their interests and raise different points of view.
It's astonishing that Trudeau would now feel threatened by the possibility that the opposition parties lack confidence in his government. Who could feel confident in a party that's so consumed by vanity and arrogance that it assumes it has the right to run Canada as it sees fit, free of the need to explain itself to those same voters?
HE SEEMS TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY. HE GETS VERY INDIGNANT. — KELLY MCPARLAND