#LavScam: this is the definition of political stupidity

— 03.13.2019 12:32 PM


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In today’s Sun! Trudeau’s train-wreck #LavScam press conference

— 03.13.2019 07:42 AM

It was vintage Justin Trudeau.

There he stood at the prime ministerial podium at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, a battery of Canadian flags behind him, a throng of journalists in front of him. He blinked, all dewy-eyed sincerity.

It was Thursday morning, early. He’d just been asked if he planned to apologize for the metastasizing Lavscam scandal. It wasn’t a crazy question: Trudeau’s own press minions had been leaking that the prime minister was considering doing precisely that.

But, no. Said Trudeau: “I will be making an Inuit apology later today,” he said. Blink, blink.

And so it went. Not the worst press encounter of the week — R. Kelly won that prize, hands down — but close. Made a bad situation way, way worse.

Here’s why.

For starters, as noted, the Liberal leader didn’t apologize — for what he had done to Jody Wilson-Raybould. For trying to cook up a sweetheart deal for a rotten Quebec engineering firm. For wiping his feet on the rule of law.

Apologies cost nothing, Justin. If done right, they pay lots of dividends.

That’s not all: The Deflector-in-Chief didn’t take responsibility. Not even a bit.

Even if you don’t apologize, Justin — even if you don’t express the smallest amount of regret, which you didn’t do either — it’s important that you accept that the proverbial buck stops with you. Instead, you whinged (yet again) that it’s all Wilson-Raybould’s fault.

“She didn’t come to me,” you wheezed. (Actually, she did. You just wouldn’t listen.)

The worst of it: Trudeau sounded as sincere as a two-bit carnival barker.

That’s a surprise. Trudeau’s greatest talent, you see, is acting. He is an expert at radiating sincerity and emotion. But at his press conference, he had all the conviction of an al-Qaida hostage reading a statement about the evils of the West. This was a historic moment, and Trudeau needed to convince us. He didn’t.

He didn’t acknowledge the seriousness of this scandal, either. Lavscam is a raging five-alarm fire; Trudeau brought a squirt gun. He said nothing that will extinguish Canadians’ growing belief that Trudeau and his staff may have obstructed justice.

Also: Trudeau didn’t rebut the allegations that have been made against him. In fact, he did the reverse. He confirmed all of Wilson-Raybould’s evidence: That she was pressured to give SNC-Lavalin a judicial high-five. That he and his officials — 11 of them, more than 20 times, over a four-month period in fall 2018 — did what the former attorney general said they did. Guilty as charged, Your Honour.

At one point, Trudeau looked up from his focus-grouped talking points. He looked a bit weepy. Was an apology about to arrive?

Nope.

Instead, Trudeau gave us every indication that the pressure is getting to him. Without warning, he launched into a bizarre exposition about his dead father. How he and Pierre liked justice. And stuff.

Pro tip, Justin: Hauling dead relatives out of the crypt to buttress your argument isn’t convincing. It’s creepy.

And so it went. Trudeau just didn’t get how bad this is. You know: That, in a functioning democracy, politicians cannot ever, ever tell judges and prosecutors what to do. When that happens enough, you are a democracy no more. You’re a banana republic.

As he departed to “make an Inuit apology,” he was right about one thing, however. An “erosion of trust” had happened, as he said.

But the “erosion of trust” wasn’t between him and Wilson-Raybould.

It’s between him and us.


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Five things Trudeau can do to stop the #LavScam scandal

— 03.12.2019 07:34 AM

A few journos have asked me what I’d do instead in #LavScam.  I dislike “what they should’ve done” stories because they assume comms can fix anything.

Comms can’t. #LavScam is beyond comms help. Trudeau now needs to do things, not say things.

Here’s the five things he needs to do.

  1. Call in the cops on his own government.  Chretien did that in sponsorship.  It’s not the action of someone who is guilty.
  2. Call for an external body, like the OECD Anti-Bribery Working Group, to investigate, too.  That’ll address the conspiracy theorists who’ll say the RCMP are beholden to Trudeau.
  3. Flush the Clerk of the Privy Council.  Wernick’s statements – there’ll be “assassinations,” “vomitorium,” etc. – have been crazy and inflammatory.  He’s made a bad situation way worse.  Fire him.
  4. Fire Katie Telford, Mathieu Bouchard, Elder Marques, Ben Chin and any other senior staffer who was pushing Jody Wilson-Raybould to give a sweetheart deal to a sleazy Quebec company – and any staffer who has facilitated a cover-up.  Try and bring back Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott to cabinet (they’ll refuse, however).
  5. Call an election now.  Say that Parliament is too divided (true) and has lost confidence in the government (really true).  Say the Liberals need a new mandate to get past this unholy mess.

He won’t do any of those things, of course.  Nor will he do the one thing that will really end this scandal.

Which is resign.


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Ten things Trudeau did wrong at his #LavScam press conference

— 03.12.2019 07:08 AM

How bad was Justin Trudeau’s early-morning LavScam press conference?

So bad CTV Your Morning’s Ben Mulroney asked aloud if the Liberal Prime Minister had made things worse for himself.

So bad Bell Media radio host Evan Solomon called Trudeau’s statement “a word salad.”

So bad I played a tape of Trudeau’s press conference for students in my University of Calgary Faculty of Law crisis communications course – as a sterling example of how not to do crisis communications.

Trudeau made many mistakes in Parliament’s press theatre. Here are ten.

1. He didn’t apologize. After Trudeau’s office leaked that the beleaguered Liberal leader was deliberating about an apology for the SNC-Lavalin scandal, we all kind of expected one. We didn’t get one. And when Trudeau was asked why, he blinked and stammered and looked offended. Dumb. Apologies cost nothing, Petit Justin. But if done right, they pay many dividends.

2. He didn’t take responsibility. Even if you don’t apologize – even if you don’t express the smallest amount of regret, which Trudeau didn’t do either – it’s important that you accept that the proverbial buck stops with you. Trudeau (again) said that it’s all Jody Wilson-Raybould’s fault. “She didn’t come to me,” he wheezed. Well, actually, she did. You just wouldn’t listen.

3. He didn’t sound sincere. Justin Trudeau’s greatest strength is his acting ability. He is an expert at radiating wet-eyed sincerity and emotion – kind of like our Labrador retrievers, when we come home and discover they’ve eaten an entire living room sofa. At his press conference, Trudeau had all the conviction of an ISIS hostage reading a statement prepared by his captors. This was a truly historic moment, and Trudeau needed to convince us. He didn’t.

4. He didn’t acknowledge the seriousness of this scandal. LavScam is a raging five-alarm fire; Trudeau brought a squirt gun to the blaze. He did and said nothing that will extinguish Canadians’ growing belief that Trudeau and his staff may have obstructed justice.

5. He didn’t rebut the allegations that have been made against him. In fact, he did the precise reverse. Trudeau confirmed all of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s evidence: that she was pressured to give a sleazy Quebec company a sweetheart deal. That he and his officials – 11 of them, more than 20 times, over a four-month period in Fall 2018 – did what the former Attorney-General said they did. Guilty as charged.

6. He didn’t make us feel he understands it. In fact, Trudeau gave us every indication that the pressure is getting to him. At one point, the Deflector-in-Chief looked up from his focus-grouped talking points and launched into a bizarre exposition about his dead father. Pro tip: hauling dead relatives out of the crypt to buttress your argument isn’t convincing. It’s creepy.

7. He didn’t provide a compelling narrative. People get bombarded by millions of words and images every day. It’s data smog; it’s hard to keep up. So, it’s critical that you provide a narrative – a story. (Because while facts tell, stories sell.) At the conclusion of Trudeau’s windy word salad, we still didn’t know why he fired Jody Wilson-Raybould. Because she didn’t speak French? Because she was “difficult”? Because Scott Brison? We don’t know.

8. He didn’t sound like a Prime Minister. Sure, he used an official-looking podium. Sure, there was a battery of Canadian flags arrayed behind him. Sure, he can wear a pricey suit. But, with the sound off, Trudeau looked like he was irritated that he was being forced to answer tricky questions from the wretches in the Press Gallery. He looked like he was pissed off. Not penitent.

9. He didn’t get it. The seriousness of it all, that is. Over and over, Trudeau gave us every indication that the whole mess was simply a case of broken telephone. When, in fact, it was about how he and his senior staff – not one of them a lawyer – repeatedly tried to tell the lawyers what to do. The decision was all Wilson-Raybould’s, he said – as long as, you know, she made the decision he wanted her to make.

10. He didn’t remember the cardinal comms rule. Which is: don’t repeat the main allegation against you. Instead, Justin Trudeau acknowledged, over and over, that there had been “an erosion of trust” between him and his former Attorney-General. He said it so much, even the New York Times put it in a big headline.

No, Justin, the “erosion of trust” wasn’t between you and Jody Wilson-Raybould.

The erosion of trust is between you and us.


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BOOM: OECD Anti-Bribery group investigating Trudeau government

— 03.11.2019 09:57 AM

Wow.

11/03/2019 – The OECD Working Group on Bribery is concerned by recent allegations of interference in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin that are subject to proceedings in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The Canadian engineering and construction group is the subject of an ongoing prosecution into allegations of the bribery of Libyan officials to obtain a Can$ 58-million contract to restore a water pipeline.

As a Party to the Anti-Bribery Convention, Canada is fully committed to complying with the Convention, which requires prosecutorial independence in foreign bribery cases pursuant to Article 5. In addition, political factors such as a country’s national economic interest and the identity of the alleged perpetrators must not influence foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions.

The OECD Working Group, which brings together the 44 Parties to the Anti-Bribery Convention, will closely monitor Canada’s updates, and has also sent a letter to the Canadian authorities confirming its concerns and next steps in this matter.

What this means: basically, Justin Trudeau, PMO and PCO may have breached Article 5 of the Anti-Bribery Convention of 1997.

This scandal was bad already. It just got a lot worse.


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