@JustinTrudeau's choice of @joycemurray as Treasury Board President confirms that @Puglaas was demoted/fired. When @scottbrison departed, Murray – who had been Brison's P.S. since '15 – could have easily been made Treasury Board President then. More #LavScam dishonesty. #cdnpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 18, 2019
On the one hand, I oppose politicians’ condolence social media messages, because they too often become a substitute for action. On the other hand, I support them, because if they make even one person feel better, they’re worth it.
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 18, 2019
Talk is cheap.
If the Trudeau government is serious about stopping the spread of hate, here’s something they can do this week.
Will they? (Oh, and one Minister was looking at ways to bring back a version of section 13. Guess who she was?)
The federal government’s words about combatting hate are fine. But they need to match words and action. So: bring back section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act now. It was a #LPC MP who championed its repeal under a #CPC government. So, fix it. https://t.co/cqKM1A5DM5 #cdnpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 17, 2019
Upcoming program change: for three reasons – the mass murder committed by a white supremacist in New Zealand and its global fallout; upcoming legal action against the racist Your Ward News in Toronto; and my related decision to shine a spotlight on Maxine Bernier and his alt-right political party – I am going to be spending less time, on my various platforms, on the #LavScam issue in the coming weeks, and much more time on the resurgence of racism, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitism everywhere. It’s a subject I am rumoured to know something about.
#LavScam is not going to go away – and, with the upcoming Norman trial, the issues that it gives rise to are going to get even more important. The Ethics Commissioner is investigating; the Opposition is unrelenting; the OECD is monitoring; the Prime Minister and his senior staff have lawyered up – because they can clearly hear the footsteps of the Mounties.
So: for me, a slight programming change. I will continue to occasionally highlight developments in the ongoing #LavScam scandal – but my priority, for the next while, will be a returned focus on the growing problem of organized hate.
It’s a big, big problem.
My responses to two thoughtful commenters over on Twitter, below. First one is a thread, the second one isn’t.
Thanks. Your thread was interesting. The issue, as I told my @UCalgaryLaw students this week, isn’t how we parse “national economic interest.” Jobs are an important consideration, as @Puglaas herself testified. https://t.co/RxSOPnfp0N
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 17, 2019
On St. Patrick’s Day, us Irish Catholics recognize them: they’re judicial indulgences. Except you buy them from Mr. Trudeau, and not the Bishop. https://t.co/UflN8gTeLv
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 17, 2019
The Globe and Mail has reported that Justin Trudeau and senior PMO staff have now retained independent legal counsel in #LavScam. I’ve helped organizations through legal/comms crises many times.
I can tell you this is what this latest revelation means:
• their ability to communicate openly about the file comes to an abrupt end
• they now can’t take notes, send or receive email, etc. without disclosing them to the police, Ethics Commissioner, et al.
• they can’t delete past records without attracting more legal peril
• their lawyers are telling them, over and over, that they should not discuss the case with anyone, including their bosses
• their lawyers are reviewing, in advance, everything they hope to say about #LavScam – which necessarily slows down their responses in what is a fast-moving scandal
• the Opposition and the media are going to be watching the legal bills like hawks – and publicizing every penny (which the relevant law firms don’t ever like, and which sometimes leads to withdrawal)
• they are getting their legal bills paid by the taxpayer – but there’s usually a dollar limit, and the representation won’t cover wrongdoing done outside their government roles (ie., LPC)
• their legal bills will get very big very fast – which will inevitably create a whole new layer of scandal
• they may need to hire non-legal representation – comms counsel, for instance – and that inevitably means yet more costs which leads to yet more scandal
• they may need to start paying for additional legal representation out of their own pockets – which inevitably leads to them going home and their spouse saying: “We didn’t sign on for this. This is bankrupting us. You need to quit.”
And so on, and so on.
None of this would have happened if any of them had paid heed to the law – for instance, using “jobs” as an excuse to enter into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement is expressly prohibited in bribery cases (as this is) and Article Five of the OECD Anti-Bribery Working Group Convention (which Canada has signed).
They didn’t talk to any lawyers at the start. Because of that, they’re now going to be talking to lawyers all the time.
To, you know, keep themselves out of jail.
Clip and save.
Wow.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and senior officials in his office have retained outside legal counsel in case of an RCMP investigation into allegations of political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group.
Mr. Trudeau’s communications director, Cameron Ahmad, told The Globe and Mail on Friday that Treasury Board rules allow for hiring of outside counsel when government officials are either sued, threatened with a suit, charged with an offence or under threat of being named in a legal action.
“As per the Treasury Board Policy on Legal Assistance and Indemnification, counsel has been retained to advise on the matter in question,” Mr. Ahmad said in an e-mail.
Mr. Ahmad would not provide further details or reveal the names of the law firms retained by Mr. Trudeau and staff in the Prime Minister’s Office, in response to a formal request last month for an RCMP investigation from Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.
A senior government official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said an outside law firm has been hired to represent Mr. Trudeau, and another law firm will handle staff in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The second law firm will act on behalf of Mr. Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, Quebec adviser Mathieu Bouchard and senior adviser Elder Marques, the official said.
When word of the terror attack in New Zealand arrived, I did what many do: I turned on CNN, and I went to social media.
Within minutes, I found the murderer’s “manifesto” and the live video of his killing spree within the mosque. Sleep didn’t come easily after that.
I’ve been researching, and writing about, the racist Right for decades. I have interviewed and exposed many hate movement leaders. There is no doubt, to me, that the mass-murderer was indisputably a neo-Nazi and white supremacist.
His “manifesto” contained the “Fourteen Words,” the haters’ pledge of allegiance, conjured up years ago by one of the jailed members of the neo-Nazi terrorist group, The Order. The Fourteen Words has since been embraced by bigots globally – including Canada’s own Faith Goldy: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
The video, meanwhile, was about fifteen minutes long and showed dozens of Muslim worshippers being murdered in cold blood. It is beyond horrible; don’t go looking for it. What it resembled, to me, is one of those single-shooter video games that are so popular – except that real people were being killed. Over and over.
His weapons were covered with neo-Nazi symbols and references.
The white supremacists and anti-Semites I have tracked over the years are almost always male. They are usually in their teens or twenties. They have been failures in relationships – with their families, with women – and they are failures at life, too. They can’t hold a job, they have little interest in education.
The Far Right offers them a ready-made credo, a new family belong to, a sense of purpose. Sometimes they even get a uniform out of it.
What they all share, however, is this: they are cowards. They strike when those they hate – Jews, women, gays, Muslims, non-whites – are most vulnerable. A daycare in Oklahoma City, a church in Charleston, a synagogue in Pittsburgh, mosques in Quebec City and, now, New Zealand.
Can you imagine anything more cowardly – anything more weak – than attacking people when they are in a place of worship, or children in a daycare or a school? Could there be anything worse than that?
So: don’t utter the cowards’ name. Don’t go looking for the manifesto or the video. They want you to do that.
Pray, instead, for the victims and their families. And resolve to oppose the haters with every means at our disposal – until they are forever gone, never to return.
The entire rationale for the SNC-Lavalin dirty deal – to risk obstructing justice, and give a corrupt Québec firm a sweetheart deal – was to win seats in Quebec. That’s why Justin Trudeau did it.
And it hasn’t won him support in Quebec – it has cost him support.
Check out this Leger poll. “TRUDEAU SCORCHED BY SNC-LAVALIN.” That’s the headline.
He’s down, Scheer’s bleus are up.
