Imaginary questions for illusory inquiry

WILL THIS INQUIRY REVEAL THE DANGER THE CANADIAN STATE WAS IN? — MURPHY

Q : What is the major question that must be posed by the inquiry into the calling of the Emergencies Act?

A: It is this. Was there ever the slightest chance of the government of Canada falling?

Q: What will the inquiry tell us on this key point?

A: That there was a chance of the government of Canada falling.

Q: Do you already have a glimpse of how great that chance was?

A: Superbly informed as always. Yes.

From some of our best political actuarials it has been estimated that the imminent danger of violent overthrow of the Canadian government by the truckers' protest was somewhere between a mass outbreak of veganism in Newfoundland (apocalyptically unlikely) and Canada meeting its climate goals in 2030.

Q: Can you put this estimate in more familiar terms? These recondite projections confuse me.

A: Yes.

Q: Well?

A: Here are easier yardsticks to appreciate the likelihoods.

The chance of cheaper gasoline in the next three years. The chance of an EastWest pipeline during Justin Trudeau's tenure. And, the chance of something positive about Canada in any CBC documentary, on radio or television, before the sun ends its glowing.

Do these homely examples help?

Q: Was the army called in during the presumed period of danger to our national government?

A: No.

Q: This is curious. Please, tell us, why not?

A: I will not.

The government already knows the answer to this question, so I don't think the inquiry should concern itself with it, and I'm not altogether certain you should even be asking about it. (Are you a truckperson malcontent? I suspect you are.)

Q: During this same period of dark apprehension and anxiety in the government of Ottawa, what were the plans to move the government in case of a coup/ insurrection/overthrow, and where did it plan to go?

A: That is a state secret. To reveal the location would give the government nowhere to hide during the next coup/revolution/insurrection — or nasty question period.

(Besides the greedy B & B's involved would probably hike their rates.)

Q: Did Ottawa, as the crisis approached, alert Washington that Canada could soon be without its legitimate government and all state authority in mad shambles?

A: It did. Mr. Trudeau spoke with Mr. Biden.

It was only afterwards, on reflection by the PMO, that it was concluded they may not have chosen the optimal channel for an “alert.”

Q: Did this help matters? A: Opinion in the PMO strongly favoured any additional communication on this issue to be conducted with some consideration given to the possibility of consciousness in the receptor/agent. It is not good to be indelicately precise on this matter, but you know what I mean.

Q: Did the Liberal government have any intelligence from outside its own established services, i.e. CSIS, CBC, favoured press gallery reporters, The Narwhal, National Observer, Jagmeet Singh, the Toronto Star, Gerald Butts, Frank Graves?

A: Are you kidding? There are press subsidies for a reason.

Q: With the stability of the entire nation at stake, what were the advisories sent out to provincial capitals?

A: They were told to “hold fast” and on no account surrender their authority. It was stressed in all communication from Ottawa that even if a province had a Conservative government it was constitutionally preferable for it to stay in power, rather than turn over their legislatures to truck drivers with a problem. Tories over tires, was the slogan of choice.

Q: What can we expect from this inquiry?

A: The same ruthless exposé we had from the Aga Khan affair, the WE affair, and the curious incident of Chrystia Freeland staying in an Edinburgh hotel for a Glasgow conference and spending thousands of dollars on limousine travel.

Q: What else can we expect from this inquiry?

A: A merciless sketch of the radicals in blue jeans and baseball caps, a medical assessment of the effects of “honks” on innocent civil servants, and a report that in time will stand with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a document of the collapse of civilization. It will make the Giller Prize nominations.

Q: Should we expect even more?

A: Please you rabble! Do not inflate expectations. Canada is back to Liberal normal. Why should the most extravagant suspension of civil liberties in our time hold the national attention any longer than it took to suspend them?

Q: What is the purpose of this inquiry?

A: The purpose of this inquiry is to numb investigation and to allow time for it to fall forever from the news agenda. Which is as it should be.

It is the modern equivalent of those one-time superb political time-wasters: Royal Commissions. They were the chosen pathway for political amnesia.

Q: Royal Commissions, what were they?

A: Pardon. I forgot. Only us old guys remember them. They were so efficient. A couple of million dollars, endless hearings, fat unreadable reports, and the issue that provoked them, buried.

Q: A final thought: will this inquiry reveal the danger the Canadian state was in?