Thursday, January 11, 2018

Trudeau Town Halls: Baubles Of Distraction, Not Questions Of Substance

Prime-Minister-For-A-Day Kim Campbell is probably best remembered for saying, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues.” She might just as well have been talking about town halls, particularly the kind our Prime Minister is currently in the midst of.

Justin Trudeau's meet-and-greet will undoubtedly constitute a public-relations success. That success, however, will be thanks to two things: Trudeau's ease in front of large crowds, and the profound colloquialism and ignorance of the people attending these sessions. It is the latter I wish to address today.

In theory, town halls, being somewhat unscripted, are an opportunity to put the convener on the hot seat. Unfortunately, the topics thus far brought up have been tritely predictable and easily defused, no doubt because they are exactly what the PMO has prepared Mr. Trudeau for. Consider, for example, what was asked at his Sackville gathering. While the questions may be important to the posers, they lack, shall I say, a certain concern for national and international issues that the government is, in my view, badly fumbling. Here are two examples:
Abdoul Abdi’s sister Fatouma Alyaan asked ‘Why are you deporting my brother?...My question to you is if it was your son, would you do anything to stop this?’
And this one:
Why do we have medical doctors who come here from different countries who are unable to integrate into the system?
To be sure, he was also asked about his visit to the Aga Khan's private island retreat, for which Trudeau has been rebuked by outgoing ethics watchdog Mary Dawson, but again, this was a predictable and easily-handled question for which I am sure the Prime Minster was well-prepared.

The questions at yesterday's session in Hamilton were similarly trite and predicable:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a woman heckling him about Omar Khadr during a town hall in Hamilton that he, too, is angry about the multimillion-dollar settlement the former Guantanamo Bay inmate received from the government.

“The anger that some people feel, and that a lot of people feel about the payment the government made to Omar Khadr is real and quite frankly — this might surprise you — but I share that anger and frustration,” he said.
Score another one for good preparation.

Yet I can't help but wonder how Mr. Trudeau would respond if truly important questions were asked of him. Questions like the following:

Why does your government insist on protecting the rights of multi-nationals to sue our government over legislation that might interfere with their profits?

Known as investor-state dispute settlement, it is a mainstay of NAFTA and eagerly sought for the TPP. So far, Canada has been sued five times under NAFTA provisions for trying to protect the environment.

Another question well-worth posing would pertain to the government's continuing support for the immoral Saudi arms deal, arms that have been shown, in contravention of the deal, to have been used against Saudi citizens.
In July, after The Globe and Mail's reporting of conflict in Awamiyah, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement saying she was "deeply concerned" and announced a probe of the incident.

The Trudeau government has never released the results of this investigation nor has it explained to Canadians what happened.
These are the questions I would ask on this issue:

Why have you refused to release the report, and why is your government now trying to quash the most recent legal challenge to the deal, an attempt that a federal court judge has rejected?

Finally, I would ask about the Trudeau government' attitude toward tax cheats using offshore havens:
A dozen governments around the world say they've recovered a combined $500 million in unpaid taxes so far thanks to the Panama Papers leak of tax-haven financial records in 2016.

But not a penny of that is destined for Canadian government coffers. The Canada Revenue Agency maintains it will be at least another 2½ years before it will have an idea of how much it might recoup.
When other governments are enjoying considerable success in recovering tax money thanks to the Panama and Paradise papers, why is your government and the Canada Revenue Agency so reluctant to aggressively pursue them?

So those are some of the questions that will likely not be asked at the town halls. God forbid that this government should actually have to make an honest accounting of itself to the Canadian people.


  1. Those questions should never be posed to the corporate nanny state, Lorne. Why do modern governments prefer private interests over the public interest? I'm not sure there's a party in the House that hasn't embraced the neoliberal order or at least acquiesced to it as an inevitability.

    1. Still, Mound, it would be at least psychologically satisfying to confront them with their own perfidy.

  2. Yeah, the Lower Sackville JT meet 'n greet was bedeviled by poor questions. A lot of our citizens don't know the difference between municipal, provincial and federal government, and especially not who is responsible for what. Still JT was his usual poor er, um ah self, fully up to the quality level of his interrogators. What a useless t!t the man is.

    Your questions are much better of course. Did you find the time to pop down to Hamilton and pose them?


    1. Alas I was not able to attend, BM. Speaking of inane questions and people's inability to distinguish levels of responsibility, I remember attending a talk some years ago by Linda McQuaig, speaking about one of her books. When the time came for questions, one benighted soul asked her why she, the questioner, was being delayed at the border crossing in Niagara Falls. To her credit, McQuaig simply tactfully answered that that was not really her field of expertise.

  3. .. like it or not.. the Trudeau town halls are a valuable strategic 'win' for him. There are multiple indicators, many clues validating such.

    The cleverly placed agitators & their questions from the dark side were, to be kind.. laughable. The guy is invulnerable to such flawed juvenile idiocy.

    In my view, I think the common Canadian has a deep set feral sense when being snowed.. or when the proverbial leg is being peed on and told its raining. The old Harper attempts & the current staged Scheer attempts are seen or regarded subliminally as contrived.. a staging. Has anyone got a photo of Harper or Scheer on skates? Shots of Trudeau on skates abound. This stuff can't be faked. You can skate, ski, box, take your shirt off... or not. If Jason Kenney thinks driving a pickup truck is so cool, Notely will donate her well used & well maintained compact car.. This is the kind of stuff Hamish Marshall cannot comprehend.

    Will the Scheer war room brain trust send him to a college or Rider football game to field punts? One hopes not.. a 'Stanfield moment' is hardly useful.. often disastrous..

    1. Points well-taken, Sal. BTW, in today's Star, Tim Harper offers his views on these town halls: