The Absurd Trial of John McCallum

It was like the trial scene in Alice of Wonderland. With Andrew Scheer as the Red Queen, poor old John McCallum in the prisoner's box, and the Con media as his eager executioners.

For they couldn't make enough of this story. 

They blew it up like a balloon. They made it sound like the biggest story in the world. They suggested over and over again that McCallum had done something REALLY bad. 

And they gave the ghastly Con Andrew Scheer all the time he wanted to spout reckless nonsense for crass political purposes.

"If I were Prime Minister, I would fire John McCallum," says @AndrewScheer after @HonJohnMcCallum's comments that Huawei executive has 'quite good arguments on her side' #cdnpoli #scheer #MengWanzhou pic.twitter.com/O3YPyQBG4W

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) January 23, 2019

While never considering that McCallum might have been trying to calm the angry Chinese, and save the life of a condemned Canadian. 

Or that McCallum is only guilty of telling the truth, or committing a so-called Kinsley gaffe. 

John McCallum, ex-minister and Canada’s ambassador to China, has committed a gaffe, an awfully big one. 

More precisely, he has committed what’s known as a Kinsley gaffe, named for the American journalist who came up with this definition: “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”

And that obvious truth is that the American request to extradite Meng Wanzhou was political, in support of sanctions we don't support.



The U.S. Justice Department accuses her of fraud by lying to cover up Huawei’s violations of American sanctions against Iran. That’s arguably a political charge in itself.

Meng is being used as a hostage, or a bargaining chip, with Trump himself making that only too clear:

Donald Trump quickly put an end to any illusion that Meng’s case can be considered a purely judicial matter. He cheerfully acknowledged that he would “certainly intervene” to get the charges dropped if it would be good for national security or help to seal a trade deal. 

And the bottom line is that like Meng we've been caught in the crossfire of a trade war between the U.S. and China. We're getting hammered for no fault of our own. 

And to not speak up, or pretend that politics is not involved, can only make us look like a flunky country that any nation can bully.

When only the truth can set us free, and this so called "gaffe" could actually be useful.

China may still get the message that at least some Canadian officials have serious doubts about this case, and share their view that it is at bottom a political issue demanding a political solution.

For a political story can only have a political solution.

It seems so obvious to me, but don't tell that to any of the members of this pathetic At Issue panel...



Who sadly didn't seem to get any of the above, but were instead so full of hot air, or Con gas, I'm surprised they didn't get up and float right out of the room.

And as for Andrew Scheer, he's so anxious to score crass political points he doesn't seem to remember what happened when Stephen Harper personally intervened in the case of a Canadian sentenced to death in 2015.

Like Scheer says he would do if he was prime minister... 



Only to have the prisoner executed the next day.

Which only serves to remind us yet again that Scheer and his Cons must never govern this country.

The world is far too complex for them to handle. For they really are too dumb.

And they really are too evil...