Conservatives 37, Liberals – 32…plus Trudeau now admits Jody challenged him on #LavScam

— 02.15.2019 03:12 PM

#LavScam effect, in effect. Here.

The Conservatives appear to be chipping away at the Liberals’ chances of securing another majority in October, with Andrew Scheer’s party leading with 37 per cent in overall support among those surveyed, compared to the Grits at 32 per cent, a Campaign Research poll suggests. New Democrats, meanwhile, are still trailing considerably behind the other two parties at 14 per cent.

And check out this, from the Star,

Trudeau admits Wilson-Raybould challenged him on SNC-Lavalin

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admits his former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould challenged her boss last fall to clarify if he was “directing” her to make a decision in the disputed bribery prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

Trudeau refused Friday to say exactly what he told his former attorney general or whether he indicated his own preference to her.

“…Jody Wilson-Raybould asked me if I was directing her or going to direct her to take a particular decision and I of course said no, that it was her decision to make and I expected her to make it,” Trudeau told reporters Friday.

When asked if he had expressed a preference, and if it is possible Wilson-Raybould felt his comments as pressure, Trudeau declined a direct answer.


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What #LavScam means, in five points

— 02.15.2019 08:22 AM

It’s been going on for more than a week, now, and the outlines of it are already seen.  Five ways in which it is leaving, and will leave, an impact:

  1.  Indigenous people.  I am the proud father to an amazing indigenous young woman; I work with First Nations across Canada.  I am disgusted by what Justin Trudeau did, and is doing, to the amazing indigenous leader named Jody Wilson-Raybould.  Indigenous people do not trust Trudeau, now, and they’re saying so.
  2. Women.  The sexist and condescending way in which Jody has been treated – and still continues to be, as seen in this morning’s Star, and last week in the Canadian Press and Global News – is repellant.  It is noteworthy that the Liberals who are paying tribute to Jody are almost all women – include ones in Trudeau’s cabinet.
  3. The Liberal Party.  This web site attracts four million visitors a year.  On social media, like Twitter, I get about a half-million “impressions” daily.  That’s a fair number of people – and I can tell you that many of my readers are Liberals.  They are telling me they are disgusted by Trudeau and his PMO – and shocked by how badly they have handled this mess (eg. sending out the clueless Justice Committee chair to say Jody didn’t deserve to be in cabinet because she didn’t speak French – which will be a big hit in English Canada).
  4. The Conservatives.  Andrew Scheer knows this is his moment, and he has seized it.  The Tory leader hasn’t looked this determined, this focussed – and frankly this Prime Ministerial – since he became his party’s leader.  Gone is the smirk, and there’s an undeniable gravitas to the guy, now.  For his party, PMO’s attempts to destroy Jody Wilson-Raybould represents an opportunity, too – it allows them to address the allegation that they are indifferent to women and indigenous people.
  5. The New Democrats.  Jagmeet Singh is going to win that by-election in B.C. – because B.C. is sickened by what has been done to Jody.  Meanwhile, his colleague Nathan Cullen has been simply extraordinary in prosecuting the case against the Liberal government – and it will reveal itself in the polls, soon enough. And a rise in NDP fortunes means a drop in Liberal support, always.

Will Justin Trudeau lose the election? It’s too soon to tell.  But the poll I’ve heard about suggests strongly the answer is this:

Yes.

 


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Happy birthday

— 02.15.2019 01:15 AM

Many guys will understand what I mean when I say this: your father is both a bit of light, and a bit of shadow, over your path through life.

Mine, T. Douglas Kinsella, MD, OC, would have been 87 years old today. So many years after we lost him, he remains a constant in our lives. He still illuminates some of the path. Without even being here, he still quietly persuades me to examine the choices I have made.

Me? I have made bad choices. I have been reckless and cruel with too many. I have not lived by the single rule he left us.

“Love people, and be honest,” he said to us, and I often feel I have done neither.

He saved many lives as a physician, and he won accolades, and he was a member of the Order of Canada. But for us – my brothers, my nephew he raised, my closest friends – he was the man we aspired to be. Not for the distinctions he received, but for how he was, in his soul.

He was unfailingly honest; he was kind to everyone he met. He married his high school sweetheart, and was with her every single day for 50 years, and my God how they loved each other. We would sit there at the kitchen table in Calgary or Kingston or Montreal, and we would listen to him. He’d listen to us, too, and persuade us to try and figure things out. There were some great times, around that table.

The best thing is having a father like that. The harder thing is knowing that you will never be like him.

I had a dream that he died in 9/11; I don’t know why, but I did. I woke up weeping, and remembered that I wasn’t a boy anymore, and that he has been gone for more than a decade. I don’t think he would like what his son has become. I mostly don’t.

So I put on my pants and shoes, and went out into the day, looking for what’s left of the path.

Happy birthday. I miss you.


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#LavScam shocker coming

— 02.14.2019 04:03 PM

Hearing a poll is coming.

Hearing that the pollster started fielding before #LavScam erupted.

Hearing the pollster was also in the field for two days afterwards – and caught plenty of the negative reactions Canadians are feeling.

Hearing that there has been a significant shift – and not in a good way for Justin Trudeau.

At all.


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UPDATED TWICE: why the chair of the House Justice Committee thinks Jody was demoted

— 02.14.2019 02:44 PM

The male Cowardly Chair of the Justice Committee opining on the reason why Jody Wilson-Raybould was demoted.

Spoiler alert: the Cowardly Chair thinks it’s lack of French. Seriously. He says it, right at the 5:30 mark.

UPDATE: Anthony says I’m a liar, here. You decide. But I sense some folks are starting to get a bit, you know, nervous.

UPDATED AGAIN: He said it twice! Here he is saying the same crazy crap to Graham Richardson! Who’s the absolute liar now, pal?


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The Standing Cowards on Justice and Human Rights

— 02.14.2019 10:12 AM

A bit of next week’s Hill Times column:

The cowards included the House of Commons committee that professes to be all about “justice and human rights,” but doesn’t espouse either. Last week, the Liberal members of that committee actually voted to deny you the opportunity to testify about what you know in the metastasizing SNC-Lavalin obstruction of justice scandal.  They did that, right out in the open. They voted, instead, to shield their political masters in Justin Trudeau’s office, and convene secret meetings.

These are their names: Anthony Housefather, the obsequious, sycophantic weakling who leads the committee.  Ali Ehsassi, who is alleged to be a lawyer, and said this of the alleged obstruction of justice: “there is nothing to be concerned about.”  Colin Fraser, who is thankfully quitting politics, and who also claims to have once practiced criminal law.  A nonentity named Ron McKinnon, who actually said the committee shouldn’t invite any “random people” from PMO to testify – even though the Opposition had a decidedly non-random list, ready to go.

Oh, and Randy Boissonnault and Iqra Khalid.  Those two, in particular, distinguished themselves as Nixonian exemplars.  When this sordid, sickening affair grinds to its inevitable end, in a courtroom somewhere, it is Boissonnault and Khalid who will receive special commendations for unalloyed dishonesty and cowardice.  Boissonnault, for saying out loud – like Donald Trump, who says it all the time and in what lawyers call “similar fact-situations” – that the whole affair is “a witch hunt.” 

He said that, with a straight face.

 


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