Long before the election of Donald Trump and the consecration of “alternative facts” by the White House, the American media had noted the creation of a new “post-truth political environment”, where one could hold one thing to be true even if it were contradicted by the facts.
In reality, political discourse has always raised some doubt, to say the least.
In one of those aphorisms which he regularly submitted to the reflection of the readers of the To have to in The silent word, the late Albert Brie had expressed this skepticism with his usual humor. “It is well accepted that politicians commonly practice lying. If one of them gets into the habit of telling the truth, the people can go so far as to wonder if this original is not failing in his professional duty, ”he wrote.
Thus, during the last election campaign, people were almost in awe of the frankness and transparency with which Paul St-Pierre Plamondon put forward the objective of independence. It’s just if we weren’t talking about a revolution in the way of doing politics.
While it is true that politicians often give the impression of taking the truth for a concept of great elasticity, the “Pinocchio syndrome” does not necessarily manifest itself in pure and hard lying, which nevertheless remains the exception.
Very often, it is the carefully maintained confusion of explanations that makes the population no longer able to distinguish the true from the false. George Orwell even said that “political language is designed to make lies sound like truth”.
Last week, many Canadians accustomed to thinking of their Prime Minister as a softie watched with pleasant surprise the images of the altercation between Justin Trudeau and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, whom he said he blamed Chinese interference in the Canadian democratic process.
Granted, Mr. Trudeau may have looked like a young greenhorn who had received a lesson in propriety from his elder, but he was recognized for having the guts to have said his way of thinking to the head of a state. who thinks he’s allowed to push everyone around because he’s the biggest.
The Prime Minister now claims he was not informed that China tried to influence the results of the 2019 federal election, including by funding the campaigns of at least 11 candidates, as revealed by Global News. He admits having read what the media reported, but the security services have never confirmed such an attempt, he assured.
Mr. Trudeau acknowledges having discussed interference generally with President Xi, but not specifically in the context of an election. In this case, why did you reproach him and why did you wait five days before providing these details, while the incident was going around the planet?
The Director General of Elections Canada, Stéphane Perrault, said he was “not in a position to comment on the accuracy of the content of recent reports”. Should we understand that he does not hold the required information or rather that he cannot disclose it?
Not surprisingly, the appearance of senior officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs who were to testify before a parliamentary committee was canceled at the last minute. For her part, Minister Mélanie Joly said she had nothing to add to Mr. Trudeau’s statements.
On Friday, the Prime Minister will appear before the Rouleau commission, which must determine whether his government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act to force the evacuation of the Freedom Convoy, which occupied the center of Ottawa for three weeks last winter.
This time, he will be able to take refuge behind the statements of the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault, who says he has recommended recourse to the law. Mr. Vigneault recognizes, however, that the organization he heads never believed that the convoy represented “a threat to the security of Canada” nor that it was the bearer of a “project of violence”.
As Mr. Trudeau did in the case of Chinese interference, Mr. Vigneault explained that the notion of a threat to national security should be understood in a “broader” sense. Unfortunately, the confidentiality of the Department of Justice’s legal opinion supporting this interpretation would be protected by solicitor-client privilege.
As Albert Brie said: “In politics, to explain oneself is to lie, but in many more words. »