Is Erin O'Toole Finally Going To Be Exposed As A Serial Liar?

I started pinning a Pinocchio nose on Erin O'Toole a few weeks ago because I was so angry at the way he lies all the time.

And so frustrated that our shabby Con media was allowing him to get away with murder.

But I'm feeling a lot better now.

For some in the media have started criticizing the ghastly serial liar, and his nose just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

First Enzo DiMatteo wonders whether O'Toole is turning into Rudy Giuliani.

O’Toole sold himself as a moderate when he became conservative leader – the first, in fact, from Ontario since god knows when. He was supposed to win votes for the Cons in the all-important 905. Instead, he’s fashioned himself into a Trumpian knock-off. 

After setting a more cordial tone, his recent performances in the House have become erratic. It’s gotten to the point that his line of questioning during the recent economic update had some on social media wondering whether he’s morphed into Trump sidekick Rudy Giuliani. That may be a little harsh. But the misinformation campaign he and his party have engaged in on the coronavirus is unmistakably Trumpian.

By asking questions designed to undermine Team Canada and increase the anxiety levels of stressed out Canadians for crass political purposes.

The two leading candidates, Pfizer and Moderna, have yet to receive emergency authorization from Health Canada, which has been conducting a “rolling review” of vaccine candidates since late October. O’Toole knows that. And he knows that safety protocols must be met before any vaccine can be distributed to the general population. But he would have Canadians believe the government is hiding something, and that nefariousness is at work.

Which couldn't be more cowardly, or more disgusting...

Or more pathetic.

And then there's Dale Smith, one of the few honest reporters in the parliamentary press gallery, who takes aim at the way O'Toole is deliberately trying to create confusion with a shameful campaign of misinformation.  

 Over the past two weeks, he has repeatedly lied, misconstrued, or gave facts without context in order to present a false picture on so many things, that when I started going through my QP recaps, the length of the list surprised me.  To wit: 

In an attempt to make the federal government the villain, he has lied about the responsibility of the provinces in rolling out rapid tests and in their role in vaccine distribution

– He mischaracterized Justin Trudeau’s statement on the lack of spare domestic capacity produce vaccines

– In demanding to know why the federal government didn’t secure the licences to produce vaccines domestically, he lied by omission in that we don’t have the technological capability to manufacture mRNA vaccines to scale

– He insinuated that premiers don’t know what is going on with the vaccine roll-out when it’s their jurisdiction

– He mischaracterized the CNN report on the early pandemic response in Wuhan, China (which said that the mistakes were bureaucratic and similar to what has happened here in Canada)

– In trying to sow confusion around when vaccines would be arriving (which nobody actually knows), he has taken a number of broadly consistent statements and presented them as contradictory.

-While it has been public knowledge that the Canadian Forces have been embedded within the Public Health Agency of Canada to work on vaccine roll-out planning for months, he insisted that the involvement of the Forces has been “last minute”

– He has been promulgating a conspiracy theory around the government’s hopes for a vaccine candidate with CanSino – never mind that the timeline doesn’t match up for his assertions that the government put all their eggs in that basket only for it to not pan out

It's an impressive if depressing list, and my only quibble with Smith is that he calls O'Toole's Trumpian tactics "misinformation" while I call them "lying." 

As in lying like a thief or a traitor who would try to undermine our country's response to a deadly pandemic for grubby political purposes, even if it demoralizes our frontline medical workers, and leads to the death of many Canadians.

But at least Smith does ask the obvious question:

If he keeps lying about this, how can Canadians trust him if he forms government?  Or does he hope that they will be so inured to his lies that they will believe anything he tells them if that eventuality ever happens?  Given what we’ve seen south of the border, that possibility should be terrifying to everyone.

And he's right about "terrifying." For the obvious answer is that if O'Toole and his grubby lying Trumpian Cons ever form a government this country won't stand a chance.

And what's also obvious that if we are ever going to defeat the Covid monster we must first demolish the monster Cons.

So get ready to crush O'Toole and his grubby Cons, before they kill this country and its precious values...