Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler
There is little more alarming and little more potentially dangerous to a democracy than a government that operates with a sense of entitlement—a belief that they know better than anyone else and can basically do whatever they want, with minimal accountability. While many will avoid seeing it, or excuse it, when they do, we are encountering an undeniable pattern of entitlement with our current federal government in Canada.
The various scandals and power grabs that have followed the Trudeau Government over the past several years, but at an increasing speed since the dawn of COVID-19, are not just a matter of poor judgment or ethical mismanagement or ‘oops’, a mistake here and there, worthy of an apology. Rather, they are the product of an ingrained culture of entitlement that seizes every opportunity to consolidate power and to cater to their friends.
The news this week of another scandal involving the prime minister’s office is not the tip of the iceberg. We saw that a long time ago. It might, however, be the last straw.
Katie Telford as chief of staff to the Prime Minister, is probably the most influential and powerful member of the Trudeau Government, other than the man himself. There is nothing that goes on that she is not aware of.
Her husband Rob Silver was, until his wife’s appointment in 2015, a Liberal pundit on CBC’s Power and Politics and the founding partner of a government-relations firm that lobbied the federal government on behalf of some of its clients. He saw the potential for a conflict of interest and stated that he wanted his wife to be successful in her new job and so he stepped away from both positions.
Subsequently, Silver was appointed a senior vice president of MCAP, a firm that describes itself as Canada’s largest independent mortgage finance company with a reported $105 billion in assets under management. Lo and behold, in recent months the Trudeau Government awarded a sole-sourced contract to MCAP worth up to $84 million to administer its COVID-19 Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) program for small businesses. Furthermore, it is reported that Silver played a role in these discussions.
Despite the inevitable protestations to the contrary, anyone with the slightest understanding of how a prime minister’s or a premier’s office operates knows that the chief of staff would be fully aware of a multimillion-dollar contract going to a firm where her husband was a senior executive. It is equally hard to believe it didn’t also come up at home over a martini or two. It is also difficult to believe that the prime minister did not know about this. If he didn’t, then Katie Telford must have thought it would not be a problem for him. All part of the old school, you see.
No doubt we will hear again that with the pandemic in full force, as with the contract to WE Charity, there was no one else other than a firm that Ms. Telford’s husband worked for that was qualified to administer the COVID rent assistance program—and by the way (they will say), it was not a political decision, the civil service told them to do it. Right!
That might work once, but not twice. Surely only the most indoctrinated would believe that only organizations with close personal ties to the Trudeau Government are qualified to administer multimillion-dollar contracts paid for at public expense. I am more inclined to believe that the pandemic became more of an excuse for power grabbing and rewarding one’s friends than a justifiable reason for managing the crisis.
The pattern of entitlement we have seen with the Trudeau Government over the years is, in my view, disturbing. It’s a lengthy record which cannot be dismissed as coincidental. It ranges in part from holidays subsidized by individuals who lobby the government to interference in the judicial process related to SNC-Lavalin, to the suppression of Parliament in order to avoid accountability, to sole-sourced contacts to friends and supporters of the Liberal establishment, some of which clearly benefit individuals with ties to the Trudeau Government. Does anyone see a thread here?
As well, when you see individuals in addition to the prime minister, people like Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Katie Telford, crossing a very clear line of what is right and wrong in government, then one begins to see entitlement as a systemic problem with this current administration.
As a result of their recent scandals, polling numbers for the federal Liberals have plummeted to the point where they are barely above the Conservatives, who are effectively leaderless. There are those, therefore, who have changed their minds and now think that an early snap election might be a good idea. I am not one of them.
Less than a year ago, Canadians elected a minority Liberal government. They wanted Parliament to work and they wanted the government to be accountable to Parliament. The Trudeau Government was not given a free hand, but they have effectively taken it.
It is well past time that Parliament got fully back to work. They can hold the government’s feet to the fire, they can demand accountability, and they can severely limit their sense of entitlement. That the Trudeau Government has gotten away with what it has is at least in part the fault of Parliament for not insisting on doing its job. They have the numbers to do that.
We do not need another election yet. What we do need is a government that thinks more of their obligations to Canadians than they do of lining the pockets of their families and friends. The system works when we have a Parliament that ensures that the government gets those priorities right.
So far, we don’t have either and it is high time we did.
Hugh Mackenzie
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!
Click here to support local news
I agree with Hugh Holland, quoting Conrad Black’s opinion has absolutely no credibility with me.
Thank you Mr. Whillans for coming back to the facts of this evolving virulent virus! The science continues to evolve with the newness of this strain, any mutations, and the profoundly expansive effects on the human body, of all ages. Scientists, epidemiologists, researchers are aiming, firing at a constantly moving target. Hang in folks.
To Paul Whillans and Hugh Holland: hear, hear!
Why don’t these students get a job in the building trade industry and learn a trade from what I hear we have to import workers in all the trades because our students wont work with there hands. And want to start at the top not at the bottom like we all had to do years ago.
The Consevatives are forgetting that this whole program was brought on board to give young people jobs to help them pay for school in the fall.
Now we have 109 people fired from WE plus all the students who would have benefited from the program.
Instead of continuing to chastise the Liberals one month later, how about using your energies to come up with a workable plan to get money to these students?
Quoting Conrad Black, the king of arrogance, who bankrupted several good companies and spent several years in prison for fraud does not give one confidence. There are exceptions of course, but people usually reach “high office” because of exceptional ability and hard work. Many come from humble beginnings.
When Katie Telford and Gerald Butts submitted more than $200,000 in moving expenses to go from Toronto to Ottawa the writing was on the wall. Running Ottawa and the country with this crew would no longer be cost effective. This whole charade was orchestrated to funnel money back into the Liberal coffers. Follow the money.
Ray Vowels…..It should be noted the striking differences between 1957-58 H2N2 (“Asian Flu”) pandemic and the current Covid 19 pandemic. From a technical stand point Covid is ten times more transmissible with an average transmission rate of 3.28 across 23 studies (reported by National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Heath) as compared to the 1957-58 H2N2 with a transmission rate of .3%
But more importantly, the death rate over the entire 16 month run of the 1957-1958 pandemic in the US was 68,000. In the seven months to date, the death toll of Covid 19 in the US has been 166,000 deaths and is projected to be between 200,000 and 300,000 by years end (much higher if social distancing/masks/ and lockdowns are ended).
So Ray, it is obvious that Covid is much more deadly than the 1957-58. People have a reason to “run scared”. Economy only improves if the virus is shut down as long people are under threat of their or their elderly parents death the economy just doesn’t come back.
We have for as long as I can remember elected people who are “well-connected” to high office. Then we are outraged when it turns out their relatives and spouses share some of the same connections and receive government contracts. The irony is, this is inevitable, as long as we keep electing individuals from this class.
If we want to stop this pattern, we should vote only for people who have ordinary jobs., and are of ordinary means, and don’t have friends and relatives in the high offices and board rooms of large corporations.
If we don’t open things up and stop running scared of this corona virus our economy will never see the light of day. If we look back a few years to the 1959 pandemic. that as far as I can figure was just as bad as this one nothing was shut down no school closures no social distancing everything went on as normal and we all survived. It’s time to open everything back up and stop the fear mongering. Trudeau will soon have us so far in debt our great grand children will be paying it off.
It’s all about Ethics and in this case lack of ! Hopefully , like baseball , 3 strikes and You’re Out !
Conrad Black wrote the following recently about the Trudeau government. I think this complements well your thoughts here, Mr McKenzie:
“This government has distracted the country with nonsensical preoccupations with alarmist theories of climate and absurd pandering over gender issues, has made a shambles of native policy, legalized marijuana on a basis that is not competitive with the illegal providers, has not been innovative in responding to the coronavirus and is in arrears of most other advanced countries in rehabilitating the economy.
In all of the circumstances, the WE controversy appears to be more of the same juvenilism, tokenism and narcissism. I doubt if it is a crime, but it won’t do.”
Dear Mr. Flanagan: From anything I’ve read, there’s absolutely nothing to be scandalized about. CMHC realized that it couldn’t handle a contract the size of CECRA, and subcontracted it to MCAP and FTC. This was way back in mid-May, and neither the Prime Minister nor Mr. Silver was involved (although the latter had some telephone contact AFTER the decision). At that time the money was in the $50M ballpark The July extension has raised it to $84M.
I agree that the Liberals have made some high-handed, unethical decisions. The Tories, however, are so desperate to dig up more dirt, that they find it where none exists.
Funny thing about this “scandal”. The Globe & Mail and the National Post both ran articles about it. They reported that:
CMHC determined that they could not administer the program internally, so they sought bids from two experienced firms;
Mr. Silver’s firm won the contract based on a stronger bid and lower cost;
There is no evidence that Mr. Silver was involved in the bid or the contract negotiations, although he did participate in a telephone meeting with a CMHC communications staffer over a month after the initial contact was settled;
There is no evidence that Ms. Telford had any involvement with the matter at any time.
Call me naive, but when even the National Post and its Trudeau-hating columnists do not see a scandal, I am inclined to believe there was nothing amiss. I will change my opinion if presented with evidence of wrongdoing.
Imagine if the conservatives had or might have tried any of this crap the media would be all over it, calling them everything from can not say it lol to whatever. Trudeau has some major issues and does not deserve to be PM. There are issues that the left media does not want to talk about. An election will not happen as the NDP are broke and the conservatives do not have a leader, plus Trudeau does not want one at this time and knows he will be backed by the gutless broke NDP
I had a personal epiphany when reading about New Zealand’s success, as it was a result of the overwhelming trust of their government.
And it all stems from the country’s referendum and subsequent (narrow) decision to do away with the first past the post elections to a proportional representation. Now it is virtually impossible for either of the two major parties to have a majority. It has left a governance based on consensus and a need to consult widely. I think the citizens now feel engage in their own country. I long for that feeling.
I would welcome giving up my (somewhat) irrational disdain for the Ford government. And I believe that the same would happen from the “other side” (e.g. a largely irrational disdain for anything Liberal). I believe that were Canada to do the same, everyone would feel respected by and engage with their government. And it would serve to get big money and lobbying out of the management of public affairs (no lobbyist would waste the time and money trying influence the many parties that could eventually be the king makers in parliament).
It is time to throw the entitled Liberal and Conservative parties on the trash heap of public history.
This does show a lot of unity within the Liberal party. How many more single source contracts are there out there?
Keep digging there are probably Lots more bodies buried.