Roundup: Feigned ignorance and consequences

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The list of politicians, federal and provincial, that travelled over the Christmas break, has grown, and premiers especially have been finding it hard to keep their stories straight about their own culpability. A reminder: ministers cannot leave their province without permission, and they need to have someone appointed as an acting minister during their absence, which requires paperwork, and in no possible universe would the premier not have known. While Doug Ford has lied that he didn’t know his finance minister was leaving the country, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe took the weaselly path of “taking responsibility” for not making it clear to their caucus that there wasn’t to be any travelling – something which is a red herring in the case of ministers. They knew and were caught out, and now they are trying to minimize the damage and divert attention away from their culpability, but anyone who knows how governments work know that this is grade-A bullshit.

There is a question of consequences – particularly for the backbenchers who were caught out. Among the federal Conservatives, there seems to be little that they can do to sanction Ron Liepert, while David Sweet resigned as the chair of the ethics committee and said he’s not running again in the next election. A real question will be for Senator Don Plett, who is the leader of the opposition in the Senate. There could be some real political damage to the institution if he doesn’t do something to show remorse, whether that is stepping down from his leadership position, or some other act of contrition. If he doesn’t do it voluntarily, we’ll see if Erin O’Toole makes a move as party leader, or if the Conservative caucus in the Senate makes their own move to limit the damage to their own reputations. Regardless, we’ll see how the next few days play out as the outrage continues to swirl.

Good reads:

  • Dominic LeBlanc says that the “loophole” that could allow returning international holiday-goers to claim quarantine benefits could need a legislative fix.
  • The provinces are proving to be a bottleneck in getting vaccines distributed, as many have still not increased their capacity to deliver doses.
  • The Canadian Press used Access to Information to find out what happened behind-the-scenes when Elections Canada made a tweet that Trump quoted.
  • Here is the oral history of the Speaker’s Scotch in the Canadian Parliament.
  • Surprising nobody, the Ontario government has been slow in turning over documents to the commission looking into long-term care home deaths.
  • Jen Gerson points out that those politicians who went on pandemic vacations have failed a basic ethical test, and now threaten our already-weakened social cohesion.
  • Colby Cosh would love it if we could get over our rage at holidaying politicians and get back to being angry about the too-slow rollout of the vaccines.
  • Robert Hiltz makes his 2021 predictions.
  • In case you missed them, my columns on Doug Ford’s failures, the Liberals forcing through rule changes, and my ode to Senator Elaine McCoy, who saved the Senate.

Odds and ends:

My last Loonie Politics video of 2020 looks at what I think the political lesson of the year was.

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