Why the Fake Scandal Is Just A Grotesque Farce

I'm still having a really hard time trying to make sense of that fake scandal, the one that has Andrew Scheer's Cons and their media stooges in a feverish state, and practically quivering with excitement.    

Is it an attempted very Canadian coup, fronted by Andrew Scheer and his Trumpling Cons, and funded with dark money from those who want to end the war on climate change, and carve up our medicare system?

Or in the grey grimness of this frozen February, is it just a mass outbreak of senile psychosis?

But today, at last, the ugly truth hit me like a rubber bullet between the eyes, and it was horrible. 




For this fake scandal is nothing more than a grotesque political farce. 

Federal Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion will investigate claims that the Prime Minister's Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin avoid criminal prosecution. 

Brought to you by our shabby shuffling Con media, the creepy Andrew Scheer, and believe it or not, by the NDP's Nathan Cullen. 

A political farce where the new Ethics Commissioner gets to play ringmaster in a Con clown circus, thanks to an anonymous source in a Globe story.

Even though there are almost certainly no ethical violations for the Commish to rule on, which will make it little more than a scene out of Alice in Wonderland.



Especially since, as Thomas Walkom points out, politicians in this country have in certain cases the right to influence judicial proceedings. 

Forgotten in the furor over whether Justin Trudeau’s office meddled in a court case is an inconvenient fact: In certain instances, Canadian law allows politicians to play a pivotal role in judicial proceedings. This may be one of those instances. 

In other words, it wouldn’t have been improper or illegal for Wilson-Raybould to demand that her prosecutors work out a plea bargain with SNC-Lavalin rather than take it to trial. She would have had to explain herself publicly. But there is an arguable case that can be made for giving a break to a company that employs thousands in Quebec.

And Trudeau has not only the right but the duty to try to save Canada's premier engineering firm, that employs 50,000 people all over the world, including 9,000 in Canada.

Especially since the two men responsible for that bribery corruption case in Libya left the company seven years ago. One has already spent more than two years in jail, the other is being prosecuted by the RCMP.

And a remediation agreement would punish the company with large fines, but spare it from being barred from bidding on federal contracts for a decade, which in its present state would almost certainly destroy it. 



Which is absurd, since as Neil MacDonald who is no friend of the Trudeau government points out, in the Middle East bribery is the price of doing business. 

Having worked in the Middle East for several years, I regard baksheesh as the lubricant it is. Either you pay it, or you don't get anything done. It's about that simple.

And a remediation deal makes absolute sense.

Why in heaven's name would the government want to hobble a huge Quebec employer, eliminating all sorts of jobs, because, like everybody else who does business in the Middle East, it paid bribes?

In Quebec they seem to get it. With Ariane Krol, an editorial writer at La Presse, suggesting that the deal is only common sense.  

The Canadian justice system must send the company a strong message, that's for sure. But there is no need to decapitate it, to act as a deterrent. There is no need to inflict upon it a trial that would continue for years, threaten the future of the company, and the employees who work for it today, who had nothing to do with what happened.

While the columnist Yves Boisvert looks at how criminal companies should be punished, and argues that Trudeau’s obvious wish to impose a remediation agreement on the weakened SNC-Lavalin is the smart way to proceed. 

In short, as long as we do not know more, I almost want to say that the Prime Minister's Office has done the right thing so that SNC-Lavalin is punished in the most intelligent way possible. 

It is not a free pass, it is a mechanism for public money collection, ethical recovery of a business and economic and strategic preservation that better serves the national interest.

But unfortunately in English Canada, our ghastly Con media seems intent on turning this fake scandal into something bigger than it is, just to pleasure their corporate bosses.



For this, from the Con fluffer John Ibbitson, is totally absurd. 

The Prime Minister and his advisers will either clear Ms. Wilson-Raybould to offer her version of events, while also offering their own understanding of what happened, or the Liberals will pay the price at the next election. The choice is that simple.

When most Canadians couldn't care less about that fake scandal, which had no effect  on the course of events, and aren't about to trust the creepy Andrew Scheer for the reasons I mentioned on Twitter.

Andrew Scheer, the serial liar, racist, misogynist, homophobe, and climate change denier, has no right to claim the high ground. And his use of the sleazy Postmedia Con propaganda service makes only too clear who is the real fraud. #cdnpoli https://t.co/LWx6SckKMJ

— Simon (@montrealsimon) February 11, 2019

For that is what the next election will come down to:

A choice between a creepy Con who would tear this country apart and turn it into a Trump-like nightmare.



And a real Canadian leader we can count on to stand up for our country and its precious values.

Which really amounts to no choice at all.

This fake scandal is a grotesque farce, and the sooner it's over the better...

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UPDATE: Jody Wilson-Raybould resigns.  Good, her role in this grotesque farce is over. Now can we please move on...