If the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is beginning to be exasperated to hear his Conservative rival, Pierre Poilievre, stubbornly hammering that everything is “broken”, perhaps he should stop proving him right when it comes to the good functioning of his government. The repeated failures of the Liberals are as much ammunition for the opposition. And the excuses aimed at justifying these successive crises of the last few months are worthy of those of a student who has not finished his homework. Emails not read by a minister or messages not transmitted by those around him. The kind of alibi that would be inadmissible in a classroom and even more so from a government of a G7 country.
The spring has not been easy for the Trudeau government. According to the Liberals, many of the scandals could have been avoided had it not been for the inertia of a trio of ministers, or even the Prime Minister’s Office.
The transfer of serial murderer and rapist Paul Bernardo from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security facility in the Laurentians has sparked widespread excitement. Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino said he was “shocked”. However, his team had been notified three months earlier. Just like that of Justin Trudeau. In both cases, the information would not have been transmitted upstream to the bosses, it is said.
Ditto in the office of Bill Blair, when he was the Minister of Public Safety. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service tried to warn him in the summer of 2021 that the Chinese regime was targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong, but the note sent to his office was never consulted. The one sent to the Prime Minister’s office remained a dead letter, because it did not require “action” in the eyes of the national security adviser at the time, David Morrison, who was overwhelmed with managing the evacuation of Afghanistan, which fell back into the yoke of the Taliban.
It was this crisis, moreover, that the Minister for International Development, Harjit Sajjan, used to justify the fact that he had not seen many e-mails informing him that a senator, Marilou McPhedran, sent hundreds of inauthentic and unauthorized visa forms to Kabul and fleeing Afghans. Mr. Sajjan did not read those emails. And had still not consulted them two years later, when he came to explain this whole affair to the parliamentary committee.
It is difficult not to share the observation of the opposition parties, who denounce the incompetence. Even internally, the ignorance pleaded by everyone struggles to convince.
The end of the parliamentary session will not have been free of blunders in Quebec either. The problem was however the opposite, where, rather than sinning by inaction, two ministers and the Prime Minister, François Legault, on the contrary said too much.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Three weeks from 1er July, and in the wake of the tabling of her badly passed bill, the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, invited tenants unhappy with the rate of increase in rental prices to circumvent the problem by becoming same owners. This was to ignore the reality of tenants (25% of whom spend more than 30% of their income on housing, and 9% more than 50% of their earnings) as well as that of access to property, which has become impossible for several (Quebecers being the least likely in Canada to be homeowners). Prime Minister Legault has added to it, claiming – wrongly – that no Quebecer has found himself on the street since he led the government (600 households were in fact found without a lease, a year ago) .
Then there was this blunder of Bernard Drainville in an interview at the Dutywhen the Minister of Education refused to compare the salary increase that the deputies had just granted themselves with that demanded by the teachers.
Mme Duranceau, newly elected and minister, may lack experience. Mr. Drainville is described as emotional. However, in both cases, it is rather contempt and condescension that have been reproached to them. François Legault has accustomed Quebecers to his clumsiness. However, these go less well from his ministers.
In Quebec, these clumsiness revealed a disconnection from the field. On the Ottawa side, the blunders are much more serious. They testify to a liberal government machine that seems to have sand in the gears, on the eve of its eight years in power.
The cabinet reshuffle expected this summer will be welcome. A simple shuffling of cards at the top, however, may not be enough to restore order within the government. Justin Trudeau will have to ensure that his ministers take their responsibilities and correct the alleged shortcomings this spring. Or replace them with others, which will not chain the same shortcomings.