Photos put seriousness of PM into question
Boyle shots, one with brother Sacha raise flags
The supposed geniuses surrounding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are capable of some very strange decisions. Arranging a meeting with Joshua Boyle and his family after their release from Taliban captivity, and agreeing to the Boyles photographing the smiling encounter — Joshua later tweeted out some snaps — is certainly one of them.
Boyle was arrested Tuesday and charged with a raft of offences including sexual assault and unlawful confinement, concerning events beginning immediately after the family’s return to Canada in early October. Trudeau met the Boyles on Dec. 18. Now photos of Trudeau beaming with the accused are all over the news. If PMO procedures somehow didn’t flag the investigation, that’s a serious concern. If they did and the meeting happened anyway, it’s horrendous political risk management at the very least.
Indeed, these were hardly the first red flags. The PMO argues it would agree to such a meeting with any released hostages — a very stupid policy if it exists, because the Boyles aren’t quite any released hostages. When the Taliban nabbed Joshua and five-months-pregnant Caitlin Coleman in 2012, they were ostensibly “backpacking in Afghanistan.” The phrase dances off the tongue a bit like “scuba diving in Yemen” or “gastronomic tour of Somalia”: not inconceivable, but the Boyles will not have been surprised to learn that some in the U.S. intelligence community were suspicious. They reportedly refused an American military flight home over fears — perfectly reasonable ones, surely — that they might wind up stuck at Bagram Airfield.
But what the heck, let’s think the best of the Boyles. Sunny ways, etc. The best still involves the unpleasant matter of Joshua’s shortlived marriage to none other than Zaynab Khadr — daughter of the late Ahmed Khadr, the Egyptian-Canadian al-Qaida financier for whom Jean Chrétien famously went to bat when he was detained in Pakistan.
Longtime National Post readers may think of me as a bleeding heart on the question of Zaynab’s younger brother Omar. In my view he was a child soldier, a victim of America’s post/9-11 repudiation of due process and of the Canadian government’s complicity in that, which was enabled by Canadians’ bloody-minded glee in seeing anyone named Khadr locked up. I think he deserved his $10-million payout.
That doesn’t mean I would invite the guy to my office for tea and cake and smiley photos — though I’d much rather break bread with Omar than with Zaynab. Her al-Qaida bona fides, her legendary “why shouldn’t they feel it once in a while?” view on the 9/11 attacks, were firmly on the record by the time she married Boyle in 2009, at which point he became a de facto Khadr family spokesperson. Less than a decade later, there he was hamming it up in the PMO.
It’s just a bizarre misstep. Politically, it could be a gift to the Tories: before the Bill Morneau schemozzle came along, they had intended to make the fall session all about the Khadr payout. Here’s an opportunity to revive it. And here’s an opportunity to question Trudeau’s judgment when it comes to simple matters of right and wrong.
It’s a stretch, sure — but all Canadian politics is a stretch, and the Trudeau government has always struggled when discussing what to do with the world’s bad guys. They promised a peacekeeping mission for reasons unclear, then all but abandoned the idea after stringing the UN along for ages. They never managed to explain coherently why we withdrew the fighter jets from the mission against ISIL. Their stated focus on deradicalizing and reintegrating any returning ISIL fighters is broadly speaking the right one, I think — but the vast majority of Canadians will disagree, and the force of the Liberals’ progressive self-righteousness will not change their minds.
Unseriousness is a serious charge against Trudeau: big hat, staff photographer, few cattle. Another nonofficial photo released this week shows Trudeau and his Castro-worshipping brother Sacha in matching sweaters depicting the Last Supper attended by emojis, with the words Happy Birthday strung over top. In a rather over-the-top tweet, Conservative MP Candice Bergen accused the PM of “intolerance” and of “mocking Christianity” — and no question, many Canadians might expect the prime minister to eschew such a garment lest it cause offence. (It was in private, of course, but it’s public now.) But many Canadians also might expect the prime minister to eschew such a garment because he’s the leader of a G7 country, a serious person with a serious job that he’s taking seriously.
This touchy-feely cool dad happy-go-lucky shtick has taken Trudeau a long, long way. I very much doubt it can take him any further. And I think the backlash, when it comes, could be legendary.
(ZAYNAB KHADR) MARRIED BOYLE IN 2009, AT WHICH POINT HE BECAME A DE FACTO KHADR FAMILY SPOKESPERSON. LESS THAN A DECADE LATER, THERE HE WAS HAMMING IT UP IN THE PMO. — CHRIS SELLEY
TOUCHY-FEELY COOL-DAD HAPPY-GOLUCKY SHTICK HAS TAKEN TRUDEAU A LONG WAY.