Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made his call to the Queen yesterday morning to update her on the situation with the Governor General and that the Chief Justice will be fulfilling his role as Administrator in Julie Payette’s absence, and then he went to face reporters and spun an elaborate and transparent fiction to them, claiming that there was a “rigorous vetting process” around Payette’s appointment. This was a lie, complete with the rote assurances that they are always looking to improve the process. You know what would have been an improvement? Not abandoning the perfectly good process in the first place because when you had a lieutenant governor position open up, you wanted to fill it with one of your former ministers because you owed her after siding with Jody Wilson-Raybould over her. And from there, he couldn’t abandon it just for that position – he had to abandon the whole thing. In fact, Dominic LeBlanc pretty much ratted him out to the Globe and Mail that the vetting was inadequate, so even if you haven’t been following this file like some of us have, you know this was a lie.
How do you reexamine nothing? https://t.co/LeLlutH963
— Chris Selley (@cselley) January 22, 2021
Where the rub in this is because Trudeau is refusing to apologise or take any responsibility for the appointment itself, which is entirely on him under the tenets of Responsible Government. He has to wear this appointment – especially because he abandoned an established consultative process that worked and got good results, then didn’t actually vet Payette when she was suggested to him by his close circle, nor did he call references. As one CBC reporter at the presser said, it took her almost no work at all to find out that Payette’s previous two workplaces showed this very same pattern of abusive behaviour – which again supports the fact that the “rigorous vetting” was a lie. This is something that Parliament should be holding Trudeau to account for, like how our system is supposed to work.
Leblanc continued, saying "we don’t think having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (as GG) can go on for months and months"
As for the traits they're looking for in a replacement, Leblanc says they want someone who is "worthy of the confidence of Canadians" #cdnpoli
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) January 22, 2021
Meanwhile, Colby Cosh makes the salient point that part of our desire for putting celebrities into Rideau Hall stems from our watching the cult of celebrity in American politics and looking to replicate it here, whereas what we should be doing is finding someone competent and unassuming for the role. Paul Wells recounts some of the early red flags with Payette, like her refusal to sign government orders in a timely manner, before making the salient point that part of Trudeau’s problem is really bigger than him – that the impulse to try and make things new and shiny is bigger than just him, and that Trudeau needs to be reminded of the hard work that goes into making these appointments. Meanwhile, here’s Philippe Lagassé providing a reality check as the cheap outrage brigade starts in on Payette’s post-appointment annuities.
https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1352702547702800385
https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1352703435058065408
https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1352705240517251073
https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1352707613633425409
Good reads:
- Justin Trudeau yet again warned people not to travel and said that new restrictions could come up without notice, which could strand people at their own expense.
- Trudeau had his first official call with Joe Biden now that he is in office, and he was apparently assured that “Buy American” provisions don’t apply to Canada.
- Trudeau also made a performative call to the CEO of Pfizer to be told the same thing that everyone else has been told – that vaccine deliveries will resume shortly.
- In the wake of the Nova Scotia mass-shooting, Bill Blair says that they have suspended sales of decommissioned RCMP vehicles.
- Jason Kenney sent a letter demanding that Justin Trudeau get him compensation from the US over Keystone XL, never mind that he hasn’t used dispute resolution.
- Jen Gerson tells some very necessary truths to the Conservatives about the need to purge the radicals from their ranks now, before they become beholden to them.
- Heather Scoffield warns that Pierre Poilievre is spreading conspiracy theories about the Bank of Canada and quantitative easing, which is eroding trust in the institution.
- Kevin Carmichael outlines the needs to put a hell of a lot more nuance in our relationship with China if we want to avoid a Cold War situation.
- My weekend column looks at the problems in how Julie Payette was appointed, and what the next steps need to be when it comes to selecting her successor.
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The PM wanted to try a different type person for the job of GG and a lot didn’t want this so they made sure they found a broadcast all her negatives .It did not work out so she resigned so end of story. We will now get a GG who says nothing even remotely controversial and smiles a lot and most likely male. If A name that comes up for GG now that is even slightly controversial and does not fit very conservative requirements. Their name will go in the trash can faster than you can blink.
About the only “Achilles’ heel” I can think of is that Trudeau’s well-intentioned idealism sometimes trips him up, but as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions. I don’t think this will become a ballot box issue, especially not with all the other chaos in the mix (pandemic, pipelines, presidents), but I still find it rather sad that Trudeau often ends up being undercut by those who *don’t* have his or the country’s best interests in mind, but their own. At least Payette didn’t make hay of it for revenge like a certain she who must not be mentioned (and her gullible sidekick). But if I were advising Trudeau, I’d tell him he needs to find better friends.
Who didn’t like the idea of Julie Payette, though? For years she was making the PR rounds as part of her astronaut duties, she sounded like the most positive, extroverted person, she did a lot of talks for schoolchildren. Doesn’t she have a PhD? People can sneer at it now for “ticking a lot of boxes”, but, well, she did. I know I thought it seemed like an inspired choice. I get that vetting fell apart, but there’s also that thing when you’re trying to break barriers, women’s credentials are never quite enough. Or somebody might have said she’s hard to work with and in a certain atmosphere, that could be taken as sexist, as a woman being judged more harshly for being “assertive”. It was 2017, that says it all. In one of the articles that came out, they did find people who worked with her that didn’t just slam her. I really wonder if people are a little out of touch with just how smooth a ride very educated, accomplished, attractive people have when they’re being considered for a position. She is far from the only such person who slipped through “vetting” and it doesn’t have to be a high-profile job, either.
Phone calls should have been made, of course. But has a prime minister ever apologized for appointing someone who didn’t work out? I can think of a few senators in that regard. A lot of the stuff about “they should go back to the committee Harper set up” just sounds petulant. Only one governor-general was appointed that way, wasn’t he? If people wanted Trudeau to just follow Harper’s systems, they would have voted for Harper.
She was a disappointment, that’s for sure. It’s not like I follow it closely, but I did miss seeing some nice outfits and a bit of elegance around the formal stuff. And her resistance to her duties, that just wasn’t cool. You can tell when someone doesn’t like their job, but considering how she came across years ago, that was a total surprise. I think she should have been asked to resign on that basis alone, but one thing about Trudeau, he doesn’t like to dump people, from what I can see.
As far as the employee relationships, Dominic Leblanc is the wisest. He said in an interview something wasn’t working with human resources, when the employees had to go to the media to find someone who listened. He’s put his finger on the biggest issue. I realize that Trudeau has to ultimately wear everything, because he’s the prime minister, but come on. We’ve got a situation now where people are just going to the media with their grievances, because they don’t trust the channels that have actually been set up to handle those issues. That’s where attention has to go to.
I have to say, it kind of looks like the media have really seized on this episode in part because it’s nothing to do with the coronavirus. I guess a scandal is a good break from that.