What If... (Liberal "Scandals" May Be CPC Inventions)

So, here's a "what if..." Bear with me. What if the CBC is rife with employees hired during the reign of the Harper appointed board who are in place to pursue character assassination of any PM who is not CPC?

What if the RCMP is rife with conservatives who are reluctant to investigate conservative shenanigans like Jason Kenney's leadership campaign? I mean, yeah, they go through the motions for the optics, but stall and hope public interest fades away...

What if the former ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson, is a Harper loyalist who turned a blind eye on Harper's ethical shortcomings but has suddenly become a vocal critic of PMJT despite the obviously unprofessional and unethical position it puts her in?

What if some civil servants have a side mandate to undermine PMJT and the Liberal government and take advantage of opportunities to plant landmines like the photo of PMJT with Aspar Jatwal in India? Or the photo with Joshua Boyle?

What if the CRA is rife with CPC loyalists who continue to not investigate offshore wealth? What if the legal branch of the civil service is rife with CPC loyalists who keep taking Indigenous children and vets to court to obstruct appropriate funding to make the Liberals look bad?

What if the Saudi arms deal and the secret China deal that Harper signed have kept the current government hogtied despite public sentiment that urges a different response to these governments?

What if Harper loaded the deck so that anyone who succeeded him would face a shitload of problems, even without his puppets, Scheer and Poilievre, and his lackeys in the media, Fife, etc, continually trying to undermine and topple the government? Phoenix, anyone?

I'm just speculating here. But, things Stephen Harper was known for were holding a grudge and planning for contingencies. It seems pretty clear he felt he should have been PM for life.

What would he stop at in efforts to make life as miserable as possible for anyone who defeated him? At least 24 secret orders-in-council. More than any other government, even wartime governments. What did he do?

Harper had a decade to make changes in the civil service. To make it reflect his vision to some degree. Potentially to make it hostile, or at least uncooperative, to his successor. I am just encouraging people to look beyond the narrow view we are getting from MSM and the CPC.

And if you can totally embrace all the conspiracy tales that have been coming at us from MSM and the CPC, why do you feel what I am speculating about is so absurd? Does it have to do with your own biases and beliefs?

Why is it easier to believe that the Liberals are paying back WE for them occasionally hiring members of PMJT's family for speaking engagements in the past than to believe that 10 years of Harper led to some fundamental changes in how the civil service behaves?

The Trudeau speaking fees were not even high in the scope of speaking fees. Definitely not lucrative enough to throw away masses of political capital for. Misjudgment of the optics, maybe, but there does not seem to be any substantive evidence of malfeasance or bad motives.

Pierre Poilievre attempted to churn up a scandal about renovations that had been planned for years by the NCC, suggesting Trudeau was building himself a palace with public money. Think about that. The CPC assumes people don't know how things work

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They make stuff up and throw it out there, trying to find something that will stick. Think about the source. If they tried to feed the public a fantasy about a secret palace, shouldn't all the "scandals" they rant about be put under a microscope? Think critically.

Here is some background to what I have been speaking about with respect to Harper "stacking the deck":

Another Rant About Canadian Journalism

I can no longer bear to watch Vassy Kapelos on CBC's Power and Politics . The show was once a source of, at the very least, an understanding of who was saying what. 

It seems to have turned into a "bash the Liberal government" free-for-all. This is not journalism. This is more of a blood-sport. Where the aggressors have traps, lures, and telephoto infra-red sights. 

I would like to point out that responsible journalism is not simply attacking the sitting government. It is not just giving everyone a podium to bash the sitting government. 

Journalistic integrity is based on some pretty solid principles.
- Is it TRUE?
- Is it verifiable?
- Is publishing it in the public good?

Journalism is meant to hold the sitting government to account, yes. But it should also hold those who would form government to account. This means not just letting opposition parties trash the government and, sometimes, even make stuff up, unchallenged. 

Journalists fail when they do not hold those who would like to form government to as high a standard as they hold the sitting government. It is not in the public good to give one party a pass, to not fact check both sides.  

And, speaking of both sides... This current trend to try to give both sides equal weight and time, regardless of their validity, is complete garbage. 

I mean, if you get a government minister of health, or civil servant on talking about the importance of vaccinations, then, in the interest of "balance" you allow an anti-vaxxer to spout off nonsense & only challenge the government person, that is irresponsible journalism. 

Sometimes, one side of the argument does not deserve the air time because it is complete balderdash. We need our journalists to recognize when this is happening and to react appropriately. 

This "good people on both sides" nonsense is fairly new. Perhaps not as new as the Trump regime, but pretty close. It is irresponsible journalism. No. Sometimes one side is correct and the other is nuts/evil/a threat to the public good. 

So it completely abandons journalistic principles to treat both as equally valid. You are supposed to be fact-checking, arbiters of messaging. And it is fine to question government officials. They are not sacrosanct. But to just attack and nitpick is choosing sides. 

And to have panels where all participants just want to bash the government is abhorrent. Not all governments are bad. Thus far, overall, the Liberals have been doing a damn sight better job for Canadians than their predecessors. 

To anguish over nothing-burgers like a swingset the PM paid for, or renovations the National Capital Commission (which looks after Canada's official residences and buildings) has been planning for a decade, is completely disingenuous. That is being a mouthpiece for the opposition and not acting in the public good. 

I realise that the CBC has suffered sever budget cuts for decades. Which means they have to compete for eyeballs and clicks against sensationalist corporate-run and right-leaning media outlets.

I like to think that if the CBC was fully funded & not dependent on advertising revenue, and if the culture created by Harper appointments was purged, our national broadcaster could do much to educate the public about how our government works and about issues of the day in a non-partisan manner. 

Perhaps that is naive. But I believe there are some real journalists out there capable of adhering to journalistic principles and who actually care about educating the public.  

So many Canadians seem to not really understand how government works, how responsibility is divided between provincial and federal governments. When your guests say blatantly untrue things about how things actually work, it is your job to counter the misinformation.  

To give air time to people who are making sh*t up is not only not in the public good, it is a disgrace to the journalistic tradition and directly counter to the public good. When I was watching, I often thought, "My God. What are these journalists thinking letting this go?"

So, I am sorry if this offends Ms Kapelos . But I am not alone in feeling this show is failing in bringing facts to the table. It feels like a love-in for the CPC. This is not in the public good. 

Any party that aspires to form government need to be put under the same microscope as the sitting government. People in a democracy need to see who they are voting for, warts and all. On all sides.