The End of the Liberals?

The public relations disaster that is the SNC-Lavalin case is, of course, not the end of the federal Liberals - or at least not quite. But there can be no doubt that the testimony of former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould has cast a rather dark cloud over Justin Trudeau's sunny days.

It does not matter if the "consistent and sustained effort" to pressure her to get involved in the SNC-Lavalin case was within the bounds of what is acceptable or not. The amount of pressure was, considering the political and economic stakes involved in the consequences of a criminal conviction, probably not abnormal. It should surprise no one that a political party that needs to have strong support from Quebec if they wish to win the next election, would be anxious about potentially thousands of jobs being lost because a company went bankrupt. There are some who will argue that no political interference is ever acceptable; there are others who will argue that it was all within the bounds of what is legal and normal; that Ms. Wilson-Raybould was overly sensitive. Neither argument is right or even particularly useful.

The federal Liberals in the past three and half years have made of a number of decisions that might put their capacity to win another federal election in doubt. For example, the decision to not only approve the pipeline but then buy the company that was going to build it may attract a few Albertans to the Liberal party; in all likelihood, those decisions will lose far more votes in British Columbia. The federal government's decision to impose some sort of carbon tax on provinces that have not developed their own plans will win no votes in those provinces. The government's movement on either how Canada supports veterans or how it deals with Indigenous land claims and the myriad of other issues that need to be resolved so that First Nations can take their legitimate place within Canada has been pathetically slow. And now, because of the SNC-Lavalin case, whether it is true or not - the Liberals look to be as manipulative as any other party. Any right to present themselves as the party who are morally upright, ethical and who have a vision of what justice might look like is gone.

Of course, it is gone because it is to the Conservatives' benefit to stand up in the House and be morally outraged. There is no point reminding them of all of the times that a Conservative government created (or destroyed) legislation that supports large industry including oil companies; of all of the times that they welcomed and benefitted from aggressive lobbying from such multinationals. There will never be a conversation that suggests that the Conservatives pushing for this issue to be aired in public - to benefit their political aims - is equally as unethical. The whole affair is just one more bit of proof that we have devolved into a world where one can get ahead fastest by tearing down the opposition as opposed to creating viable alternatives.

It is going to be an interesting few months. The Liberals may be hamstrung by their leadership's over-aggressive approach to wanting input into the SNC-Lavalin case and therefore will be even less productive than usual; the Conservatives are lead by a man who is comfortable standing on the same stage with speakers who are clearly racists; the NDP, which has been directionless for a number of years as it searches in vain for votes in the centre is led by a leader who has yet to sit in Parliament.

If there was somewhere to move to - I might consider it.