Musings —03.08.2019 05:23 PM
—#LavScam disgrace: would you call kids protesting tuition hikes Nazis?
Michael Wernick – you know, Justin Trudeau’s muse and personal bureaucrat – did that. He said that. And recently, too.
I’m not making this up. Link here, from the paper I proudly worked for, and represented, The Charlatan.
The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) is calling for the resignation of the Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick from the Board of Governors (BoG) following comments he made in an email.
Wernick referred to the March 30 “Tuition Fees are Too Damn High” rally, in which students picketed and led to the cancellation of the BoG meeting, as “the tactics of Brownshirts and Maoists.”
“Brownshirts” is a reference to the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party. “Maoists” is a reference to Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries inspired by Chinese communist Mao Zedong.
The protest was in response to a task force report concluding there were no feasible alternatives to raising tuition fees…
Wernick said he stands by what he said in the email, which was a response to questions of due process regarding the adjourned meeting.
“I have said everything I need to say in the email, which has been posted,” he said. “My position’s quite clear.”
These people never cease to amaze me.
Wernick is a guy who is everything that is wrong with the Canadian civil service. He has risen to the very top by not actually doing anything, but not fucking that up.
He got to Deputy Clerk by being DM for 8 years at INA (and then AAND) with nothing really terrible happening….in Ottawa. The hell with suicide rates, unsafe water, mold, etc., nothing ever caught fire where anyone care, so good job Mike. Rotate through PCO, don’t get caught holding the bag on anything. Before that, ADM at Heritage, a spend against unmeasurable objectives ministry, for 8 years.
Let’s not forget, he has been in charge for a period where the civil service has actually rendered itself incapable of paying itself, and until now, he has managed to keep himself completely isolated from the Phoenix fiasco. His problem now is that the spotlight has finally found him.
The analogy is about the TACTICS. Facepalm!
Trump exemplifies many of the tactics described in The War Room. So let’s not conflate policy with tactics.
And referencing examples everyone knows is for explanatory purposes. Like, obviously.
Meanwhile, calling for someone’s resignation is about rhetoric and appeals to emotion. Student’s call for resignations all the time. It has no weight and the upside is attention.
Siding with students is just goofy because once they enter the real world, these students will have regretted a lot of those politicking daze.