Trudeau’s continued bad judgment a liability
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has consistently shown poor judgment. From his blackface performances in his youth — remember that was in the 1990s not the 1950s — to believing that no one could object to his using the Aga Khan’s helicopter to take his family to a private island, to his decision to duck a public inquiry on unacceptable interference with the lives of Canadians and their democracy by the egregious Chinese Communist Party.
Friends and advisers often try to warn him off his more bizarre failures of judgment — but fail too often. Having gotten away with his staggering lack of responsibility so often, he thinks he will get away with it one more time.
I am doubtful. There are perhaps four escalating reasons why this time may be different.
David Johnston the wrong choice
First, his foolish decision to choose David Johnston. Johnson is not unqualified by virtue of his character, as our hooligan of an Opposition Leader likes to bellow. No, it is because he is as pure a product of the Canadian establishment as one could imagine. A leader and defender of Canadian academic, bureaucratic and political institutions would find it impossible to propose a way out of our China mess that was certain to impugn the competence and complacency of the entire Canadian system of government. His choice was always going to be a means of saving the reputations of the people and agencies involved.
Just trust us
Second, Trudeau’s triumphant claim that we should accept his and Johnston’s word, and some minor fixes and tweaks will ensure we do even better next time. Why, exactly, would the Canadian people do that? Trust a prime minister whose behaviour has skated over ethical red lines time and again? Trust a counsellor whose loyalty to the institutions of the Canadian establishment is such that he would defy a gun to his head in their defence.
Dogged by political scandal
Third, his choice will mean he will be dogged by a political scandal from today until the end of his term, which he may yet have drawn to a close to sooner than he thinks. No “look over here” strategy will prevent the collective opposition parties harrying him day after day until he folds. Canadians may appropriately be more concerned with his failures on climate, housing and health, but the stench from this scandal will, over time, become irreparably damaging.
Patriotic Canadians will not stay quiet
Fourth, he has fallen for a strategic blunder that Johnston set for him. Johnston has had little experience of determined and well-armed critics shooting back. He, and his client, are now in for a serious surprise. Johnston excoriated the security establishment leakers as essentially traitors; their journalistic fellow travellers as fools and incompetents. So now the most powerful media institutions in the land will take their licking in silence and sullenly retreat? The patriotic Canadians who put their careers on the line to warn the nation that its security was being threatened by incompetent officials and complacent politicians will accept their condemnation of their courage quietly?
Perhaps Johnston has forgotten Daniel Ellsberg, a similar essential “traitor” who helped save the United States from the consequences of similar incompetence. Or the still unknown American patriots who revealed the torture chambers and secret prisons run by the CIA? People who have crossed the personal ethical Rubicon that their loyalty to their nation must always trump the crimes of those to whom they have given their pledge of secrecy, never remain quiet. They double down.
So the additional stupidity that Johnston and Trudeau have walked into is the reality that there will now be more leaks from more sources. They will contain even more galling tales of Chinese crimes on Canadian soil.
Having spent many of the past 30 years on Canada/China relations, I know some of the tales that have yet to be told. They will leech pubic support for this prime minister and his government inexorably, until it throws in the towel and accepts the inevitable inquiry, or until it faces defeat in the House.
Friends and advisers often try to warn Trudeau off his more bizarre failures of judgment — but fail too often. Having gotten away with his staggering lack of responsibility so often, he thinks he will get away with it one more time