The big headline over CBC yesterday was that five of the six most recent federal judicial appointments in the province of New Brunswick all had some kind of ties to Dominic LeBlanc – never mind how tenuous those ties were. This of course led a bunch of Conservative apologists to compare this with the Dean French/Doug Ford situation in Ontario, which is absurd given that judicial appointments have a more rigorous merit-based system around them (more rigorous than it was under the Conservative era), and many of the French/Ford appointments had to do with whether someone was connected to French by family or lacrosse, many with no obvious competences in the roles they were appointed to. The Conservatives also declared that this was somehow related to both Loblaws winning a competition around fridge refits (no, seriously), and that this was reminiscent of the Arctic surf clam contract that LeBlanc was involved in wherein the definition of “family” used by the Ethics Commissioner differed from that in other statutes. (Not mentioned was the time when the Conservatives appointed most of Peter MacKay’s wedding party to the bench in Nova Scotia).

Reading deeper into this story, I found that some of the connections that were being highlighted were a bit dubious. The most dubious was the fact that one of the judges named was not actually someone that was recently named, but rather promoted to the Chief Justice of province’s Court of Appeal by Trudeau, though she was originally a Conservative donor and had been first named to the Bench by Harper. The fact that she bought a property from LeBlanc next to his summer cottage was deemed to be curious in this. Likewise the fact that two of them were part of a group that paid off LeBlanc’s leadership campaign debts a decade ago (each would have donated a few hundred dollars) is a pretty dubious link between them. The only one that might raise eyebrows is the fact that one of the five is married to LeBlanc’s brother-in-law…but even then, at what point do we start disqualifying someone whose relation is by marriage twice-removed?

The other bit of nuance that we can’t forget here is that New Brunswick is a very small province with a very small population, and legal circles in a province like that would be very tight – especially when you consider that the provincial political culture is far more nepotistic than the federal culture is. While the CBC piece cites a paper that says that people with political connections get judicial appointments at a rate double that in other parts of the country, but one has to remember that it can be harder to avoid, which is why fighting nepotism in those places can be much harder. And this is the point where people will bring up the fact that Jody Wilson-Raybould objected to the fact that names that were short-listed needed to be sent to PMO for vetting by the Liberals’ database, but again, it needs to be stressed that they need to go through all sources to check for red flags because the prime minister is politically accountable for those appointments. It’s called Responsible Government. Does that mean that these five appointments didn’t have some influence from LeBlanc tapping the justice minister and saying he wanted them appointed? Anything is possible, but it’s unlikely given the vetting process and the fact that most of these connections are tenuous at best. But it’s also regrettable that this kind of journalism strives for sensationalism and an attempt at being gotcha than it is with nuance.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau met with Ukraine’s new president and promised more targeted aid as well as trade, but said there was no agreement on armoured vehicles.
• It looks increasingly like Donald Trump didn’t raise the issue of the detained Canadians with the Chinese president at the G20 as he promised (or did he?).
• Anne McLellan has submitted her report on whether the separate the roles of justice minister and Attorney General to Trudeau for his consideration.
• The global boom in natural gas, which Canada enthusiastically participates in, may be undermining climate goals because of methane releases.
• The pre-writ election period has now begun, with its own spending limits. (Reminder that fixed election dates are garbage).
• CSIS and CSE are tracking foreign espionage directed toward our election, particularly efforts aimed at parties themselves. (More from Stephanie Carvin here).
• Another Indigenous group is planning to put forward a bid on the Trans Mountain pipeline (but that’s unlikely to go anywhere until the expansion is built).
• The Senate Ethics Officer finally released the report former Senator Don Meredith’s conduct, finding harassment and sexual harassment of staff and constables.
• Following that report, there are concerns that the Ethics Officer an access senators’ private emails (but may have had sign-off from Internal Economy).
• Former NDP MP John Rafferty died of cancer this past week.
• The lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan, William Thomas Molloy, died of pancreatic cancer (and this vacancy will paralyze the provincial government).
• Susan Delacourt considers the news that the Conservatives in the UK are looking to call on Stephen Harper to help them negotiate Brexit.
• My column points to how MPs have a sense of learned helplessness when they complain about Parliament, even though it’s in their power to change things.

Odds and ends:

Here is your reminder of the illegitimate way in which Dominion Day became Canada Day.

This may not have been the last Canada Day on Parliament Hill until after the renovations, and next year may yet happen.

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