Morneau fans flames, still doesn’t get it

We get that Bill Morneau is a rookie first-term politician, but that doesn’t excuse the finance minister’s horribly tone deaf performance in recent days.

Last Thursday, Morneau gave a press conference explaining he was finally going to do what he should have done two years ago when he first entered cabinet and divest his personal holdings in his company Morneau Shepell and put the rest of his wealth in a blind trust.

If he’d simply announced this decision and apologized for causing this mess in the first place, the media, public and opposition might have slowly moved on from this saga.

Instead, he had to get in digs about how everyone was “getting distracted about my personal situation” — as if the press and public were to blame for his lousy choices.

On Friday, it got even sillier. Morneau, speaking at a media event, chastised journalists for asking him further questions:

“The process we have in our country isn’t that I report to journalists on my personal situation, it’s that I report to the ethics commissioner and I make sure that she fully understands my situation,” he brazenly suggested.

Journalists typically ask questions to inform the public about what their government — and public servants like Morneau — are doing. It’s beyond smugness for Morneau to think this line was appropriate.

That came the same day as a Postmedia report revealed Morneau Shepell had renewed a multimillion-dollar contract earlier this year with the Bank of Canada.

You’d think Morneau would be a bit more contrite given this news of a relationship could suggest the appearance of a possible conflict, regardless of his conversation with the ethics commissioner.

But no. And after a whole weekend to reflect on the justifiable concern about transparency, Morneau chose to double down. In House of Commons question period on Monday he took questions dismissively, saying “the opposition obsesses about my personal finances.” No they don’t. The Conservatives and NDP had hardly ever mentioned his wealth until it was revealed he did not in fact place it in a blind trust.

He could’ve worked to make it right. But Morneau just still doesn’t get it. — Postmedia News