Past Time to Recuse Himself Permanently
“Part of what makes people upset, is if you to stand back and look at it, you have path A and path B, maybe both will fit within the rules, but there’s clearly one that has less problems." “It’s very hard once you start getting into the nitty gritty of what exactly was right or wrong. You’re trying to break it down into a little black and white decision. It’s not really that simple." “But you step back and think, ‘My goodness, didn’t you think about this?’” Jennifer Quaid, law professor, University of Ottawa
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| Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers an opening statement about federal government's decision to task WE Charity — which has ties to the Trudeau family — with running a $900-million student grant program. (CBC News) |
Under questioning by the finance committee looking into the WE Charity connections to the Trudeau family, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his chief of staff left the impression that the PMO (prime minister's office) was swamped with work related to COVID-19 and lacked sufficient time and motivation to do their due diligence over the appropriateness of selecting a charity with direct personal links to the very source preparing to sign the agreement to turn over close to a billion dollars to be administered to give financial relief for future tuition to university students willing to volunteer in their community.
They chose instead to rely on the civil service to investigate whether or not this would be a good move. On the part of the prime minister and the finance minister, both of whom were heavily compromised in their relationships with the charity, neither thought to apprise the federal department involved in the selection process of the depth of their indiscretions as elected officials in unethically accepting remuneration for services rendered or accepting paid vacations by the charity.
With two such executives holding the highest elected positions of trust in the country untroubled by having compromised their integrity and ethics in contravening Parliamentary rules in charge of discharging and distributing $350 billion from the nation's coffers for COVID-19 relief, how confident can the country be that the best interests of the nation are being looked after? Justin Trudeau states he was unaware of the state of the charity's finances, was unaware that Michelle Douglas the charity board's chair had resigned because of that issue.
Not was he aware that WE Charity was in breach of bank covenants. That because Ms. Douglas had insisted that the board needed to see and review WE Charity's financial status, and was outright refused, followed by an invitation to her to resign her position. Nor that most of the board voluntarily vacated their own positions on the board, directly related to Ms. Douglas's departure. He was unaware, he also stated, that his finance minister had accepted an expenses-paid trip to Kenya and to Ecuador for himself and his family, courtesy of WE Charity.
So, then, what did he know, what was he aware of, other than being quite in agreement that the charity that had paid his mother $250,000 for speaking engagements hadn't compromised him personally whatever, nor that his wife was a spokesperson for the charity. Oh, of course, all this was unimportant to begin with since, he has said, he hadn't been aware that the charity had been chosen to administer the program to disburse funds to university students for volunteer work. In all probability Mr. Trudeau is not aware that the very essence of volunteerism is that it is unpaid work. Trifles.
But he did, in the final analysis, approve the agreement to sign over the contract to WE Charity. Neither he nor the finance minister saw fit to recuse themselves; both voted for WE Charity to be given the contract. Nasty little details.
Mr. Trudeau is now openly musing that it might perhaps be a good idea if he took on staff someone whose specialization is to sniff out these inconvenient challenges to personal ethics. For the purpose of examining all future projects to ensure that Justin Trudeau places left foot before right. He has likely forgotten that there is already someone in place to be consulted whenever there is any doubt, just as he has mislaid the reality that his chief of staff is meant to function for that purpose as well. It simply hasn't occurred to him that he's the wrong man in the wrong position, unable to tell right from wrong.
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| Marc and Craig Kielburger, the founders of WE Charity, and KatieTelford, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's chief of staff, also testified before the House of Commons finance committee this week. |
Labels: Canada's Liberal Government, Parliamentary Democracy, Prime Minister JustinTrudeau
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 04, 2020
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