Proof Our Politicians Are Not Canadians

Trudeau as Paper Boy


Proof Our Politicians Are Not Canadians

Their "Sorry" is merely ceremonial and refers only to someone else's past deeds.
 
Walking out of the supermarket a couple of weeks ago I found myself briefly in the way of a woman coming in with a large cart. "I'm sorry," I said. And then I said, "What am I sorry about?"  For half a second, the woman looked perplexed, and then she said, "You're Canadian."  And we both laughed.

As I wrote, back in May 2018, sorry has no meaning unless backed up with actual contrition and visible remedial effort, and we're not likely ever to get that from a politician. To be "politic" is to mince words, and boy do our politicians know how to mince.

Right now, with an election coming on, Trudeau is mincing around the media:

PostMillennial: Trudeau’s media bailout will accomplish nothing other than wasting your money

• The Trudeau government worryingly appears not just to aim to prop up these businesses which have spectacularly failed to adapt, but it actually has put people who were a part of the failing industry in charge of guiding the decision making.
• That’s like putting the kid in charge of guarding the cookie jar.

On a grander scale, Trudeau himself is that kid.

"I've made mistakes", he says.  Spit-Spot: Clean Slate

The CBC article that quotes him also contains a subheading: "A short history of leaders saying 'sorry'"

Except that not a single one of them, including Justin Trudeau, actually expressed contrition.

Harper said, "I'm not perfect."  As if we didn't already know that.

Paul Martin: "I'm mad as hell."  His way of saying he had nothing to do with the sponsorship scandal.

Jean Chretien didn't have to say anything because Martin, sort of, said it for him: "I don't think" Chretien was involved in the sponsorship scandal.

Then Chretien, faced with the GST debacle said:
"If I and others left the impression with anyone that we will be able to do away with the tax without a replacement, I want to tell them that I am sorry," ...

The key word being "If" and, of course he includes others who may or may not have been more at fault then he, and then he says: "I want to tell them", knowing that wanting to do something and actually doing something are two different things.

More about Chretien's non-mistakes here.

Even a criminal who says "I may have done it" will probably go to jail, but Trudeau pats himself on the head for saying "I made mistakes", and invites one of his biggest mistakes, his school chum, Gerry Butts, back into the parlour:

CBC: Butts returns - and Trudeau's putting the band back together for October

Politics is basically the art of dissembling.  The parties assemble to dissemble.  I'm reminded of a quote attributed to Galen Weston's grandfather, George Weston:

•  "People will eat horseshit if it has enough icing on it."

Here are two more pertinent newsmedia articles:

Canada.com: Andrew Coyne: Even before first bailout dollar arrives, newspaper industry holds out its hand for more

• If anyone was under any illusion the bailout was intended to be a temporary or transitional measure, the report should dispel that 

TorSun: The political resurrection of Gerald Butts (Opinion)

• I believe Butts’ claim he did not pressure Wilson-Raybould as much as I believe Trudeau’s original claim that the report in the Globe and Mail that broke the story was “false.”
• What the return of Butts to a key role in the Liberal re-election campaign — similar to the one he had in the 2015 vote — indicates, as the CBC’s Aaron Wherry observed in reporting the story, is that Trudeau thinks Lavscam won’t be a defining issue in the campaign and not enough to hurt his chances of winning another majority government.

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