This whole fundraiser headache just won’t go away, and at this point, I just want to bang my head against a wall because all sides are just making this whole situation way more needlessly gross than it needs to be. At his end-of-year press conference yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that at fundraisers, people do talk to him about stuff and he listens, but that doesn’t really influence his decision-making. And I’m a little queasy about everyone labelling this as “lobbying” because that has a fairly specific term and any actual lobbyists need to be registered, which the party makes an effort to screen them out of these events. According to the opposition, this was “bragging” as opposed to the reality that when you’re the PM, people will want to tell you stuff all the time, so unless the suggestion is that he doesn’t attend fundraisers any longer, then I’m not sure how you stop people from taking that opportunity to try and tell the PM their great idea/issue they’re passionate about that he could totally do something about/etc. The NDP are vowing to introduce a bill to put the government’s ethical guidelines into legislation, but how do you legislate the “appearance” of conflict of interest? It’s a subjective measure that the media and the opposition have been torqueing with no actual demonstrated quid pro quo (and no, insinuation based on coincidental timing is not actually proof of quid pro quo), and I’m not sure what they’re exactly suggesting they give the Ethics Commissioner power to do when it comes to regulating said appearance of conflict, but giving yet more power to an unaccountable officer of parliament rankles on me even more.

And then there’s the Trudeau Foundation. After they embarked on new fundraising efforts because of low interest rates were hitting their ability to do their work, and lo, they suddenly have new donors, some of them Canadians with foreign connections. This apparently is a sign of a conspiracy that people are somehow trying to curry favour with the Prime Minister, despite the fact that he has severed his ties to the Foundation before this happened. (Apparently this too goes into “appearance” of conflict where none actually exists). Oh, and it’s also apparently suspicious that some companies have increased their lobbying of a new government. Because it’s not like you want to get your points to the new people in charge when you’re looking to change policies that the previous government implemented (or refused to). That’s kind of how lobbying works. It’s not necessarily nefarious.

And to tie this all off, the Globe and Mail ordered polling on “cash for access” fundraising (never mind that what happens at the federal level bears no resemblance to what went on in Ontario), and wouldn’t you know, most people don’t like it. And half of respondents think that you can buy government influence for $1500? Honestly? This is the media not doing our jobs to show how government works, but is just reinforcing stereotypes about crooked politicians being on the take. It’s kind of gross, and we should be better than this.

Good reads:

• Also at his end-of-year press conference, Trudeau said the deaths of those two hostages in the Philippines was his biggest regret of the past year.
• The government has introduced a bill to make it easier to open safe injection sites to combat the opioid crisis, while also working to crack down on drug smuggling.
• Their places now secured on committees, the Independent Senators Group is now looking for funds to get staff to organise themselves as a quasi-caucus.
• The government is formally introducing an amendment to withdraw the Banking Act provisions in Bill C-29 in the Senate, going beyond what was hinted at on Friday.
• The PBO plans to look into any plans to purchase Super Hornets. We’ll see if his methodology is any better than when his predecessor looked into F-35s.
• The Canadian Forces has training assessment teams in Lebanon to help determine how to help them build capacity.
• One of the class-action lawsuits filed against the Canadian Forces for sexual misconduct are alleging that they were negligent in controlling such behaviour.
• A trade tribunal plans to look into Environment Canada’s procuring a supercomputer without an adequate process.
• Kevin O’Leary visited “Capitol Hill” in Ottawa yesterday, and has a campaign manager, strategist and statistician, but he’s still “exploring” a leadership bid.
• Maclean’s has an update from Kellie Leitch’s riding on the growing conflict between her supporters and detractors.
• Andrew Coyne suggests that maybe we should tax health and dental benefits as they are income, and we need to simplify the tax system anyway.
• Stephen Gordon explores the relationship between doctors’ fees, healthcare costs, and the tax avoidance structures that benefit those rising incomes.

Odds and ends:

Catherine McKenna talks about some lessons learned in the whole dust-up over the new Civic Hospital site.