The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner released his reports on Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau’s involvement in the WE Imbroglio yesterday, and came to two different results – the prime minister was cleared, but Morneau was found to have breached three sections of the Act, because he was not only personal friends with the Kielburgers (which Trudeau was not), but Morneau gave them a lot of access to his department as a result of that friendship, and offered them very preferential treatment.

On the one hand, this defused a few of the prepared talking points, but it didn’t disarm all of them. The Conservatives insist that even if he wasn’t found to have broken the rules, the system is still “broken” and needs to be made even tougher, which they are going to regret when every interaction becomes a minefield and their own members start getting caught up in impossible situations should they form government, and it misses the mark of what the current problems are. The NDP, predictably, say that this proves the Liberals only care about their “rich friends,” which I’m not sure the Kielburgers really qualify as for obvious reasons.

Of course, as I have written before, the problem is not that the rules are too lax, but rather that the Liberals in their current incarnation have a culture that believes that so long as they mean well, that the ends will justify the means. No amount of tinkering or toughening up the rules can change that because it’s a cultural problem. It also doesn’t help that the definition of “corruption” has become so broad in the Canadian discourse that penny ante bullshit is treated as a capital crime, though very curiously, grift that is out in the open in places like Queen’s Park or the Alberta Legislature are not treated with the same kinds of howling denunciations that the WE Imbroglio has been. I also have to wonder what these same howlers would do if they saw the actual corruption that takes place in other countries, because it’s on a whole other level than anything that has happened here. And on a final note, this report does not mean that WE Charity was “destroyed” for nothing. The charity hasn’t been “destroyed,” and its dubious activities were brought to light by good reporting, not Charlie Angus’ antics at committee, and that’s a good thing. This incident helped to shine that spotlight. Let’s not confuse Trudeau’s exoneration with anything else that has happened to WE in the interim.

Good reads:

• Maclean’s has a look at domestic flights that were found to have COVID exposures.
• Bill Blair is dismissing Doug Ford’s clamouring about the “porous” border, citing that Ford has all the power he needs to enforce quarantines.
• The government’s programme to compensate for vaccine injuries or deaths is still not up and running, but will apply retroactively.
• Surprising nobody who has actually paid attention, the Department of Justice has confirmed that no, the amendments to Bill C-10 are not a threat to Charter rights.
• It looks like the bill to force web giants to pay for news will be delayed until the fall.
• The government is offering a pathway to citizenship for the families of those citizens or permanent residents who were victims of Ethiopian Flight 302 or PS752.
• The Privacy Commissioner says he can’t investigate federal political parties’ data-gathering practices because they don’t fall under his enabling legislation.
• Greyhound is ending all of its Canadian services – and already there is a demand that the federal government create a new interprovincial bus service.
• The Federal Court dismissed CBC’s lawsuit against the Conservatives for their use of footage in election ads, citing it as “fair use.”
• Liberal whip Mark Holland argued at the Board of Internal Economy that the Bloc MP who took the screenshot of Will Amos needs to answer questions about it.
• Quebec introduced new legislation to “protect” French, and one of its novel plans is to unilaterally insert two new clauses in the federal constitution, which may not fly.
• Ontario has extended its “stay-at-home” order until June 2^nd, because it takes numbers a long time to come down after you let them climb that high.
• Here is a look at how Saskatchewan is planning their re-opening, and yet it’s far more blunt than the relatively successful plans the UK has drawn up.
• One of Jason Kenney’s MLAs quit caucus, and hours later, two more were kicked out of caucus, so that’s going well for Kenney.
• Éric Grenier posits that a by-election to get Leslyn Lewis a seat could create more headaches for Erin O’Toole, given her extreme socially conservative views.
• Kevin Carmichael listens to former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz as he explains why he doesn’t think we’re in any danger of rapid inflation.
• Heather Scoffield places Bill C-10 in the broader context of Canadian cultural policy.
• Susan Delacourt reads through the Ethics Commissioner’s report on Bill Morneau, and worries that the ever-expanding definition of “friends” will soon be impossible.

Odds and ends:

For Xtra Magazine, I look at the federal government challenging an order for the Human Rights Tribunal to examine Health Canada’s role in the MSM blood “ban.”

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