It was prime minister Justin Trudeau’s first presser since the WE Imbroglio blew up over the revelations of his family being paid speakers for the charity, and there was a definite note of contrition this time. After hinting that the government would extend the wage subsidy until December with details coming later in the week, a mention of his call earlier in the morning with Donald Trump that touched on tariffs, Black Lives Matter, and China, and a promise on further updates on the Safe Restart Plan with the provinces to come later in the week, Trudeau turned to his mea culpa on the Imbroglio. “I made a mistake in not recusing myself from discussions, and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” Trudeau said. He praised how the government got creative with designing programmes during the pandemic, and how they had worked with a range of partners to make it happen, but he was sorry that he didn’t remove himself from the discussions with WE, and that he was frustrated that youth would have to wait longer to do their party to serve because of the mistakes he made. (I would argue that WE’s plans raised a lot of red flags too, for what it’s worth). When asked if he would appear before committee to discuss what happened, Trudeau was non-committal, but in a hung parliament, he doesn’t have the votes to shield himself this time.
During the Q&A, he said that he pointed out to Trump about the disruptions to the aluminium supply chains and hoped that they wouldn’t see tariffs that would only slow down the economic recovery; he also mentioned that there were ongoing discussions around the border, but the rest of the time was spent reiterating, over and over, that he didn’t have the details on what his family members had been paid by WE and that he should have, and that he did seem to have some reflection that he needed to be careful on this file because of his past activity with the charity but that he didn’t go far enough and should have removed himself entirely from the conversation. Later in the day, Bill Morneau sent out his own apology for his own failure to recuse himself given his daughters’ activities with WE.
For what it’s worth, there seems to be some kind of learning curve because it only took the second try for Trudeau to give an apology rather than stick to talking points aimed at deflection until the conclusion of the Ethics Commissioner’s report, at which point there would be either an apology or admission of some kind of wrongdoing and a promise to do better next time. This time, we managed to skip weeks of such failed damage control, so that’s something, I guess.
Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt finds herself wanting when it comes to Trudeau’s explanation for how the whole thing went down, and hopes that he’s saving it for his discussion with the Ethics Commissioner. Matt Gurney gives credit where credit is due for Trudeau learning enough to make a rapid admission and apology rather than dragging things out for months. Paul Wells is unimpressed with the apology and wants a full accounting of what happened, particularly as it is increasingly evident that things were wrong with the WE contract outside of the apparent conflict of interest, and how those decisions were made need to be aired.
Good reads:
- Ruh-roh! It looks like the federal government wasn’t enforcing the rules around temporary foreign workers, which allowed outbreaks to occur on farms.
- Here is some number-crunching on the PM’s daily pressers in the first phase of the pandemic and lockdown, including on his choice of verbs and phrases.
- The RCMP have charged a Quebec man with calling for Justin Trudeau’s death and the eradication of Muslims.
- Former Liberal MPs who lost their seats in the last election are waiting to hear about nomination contests so they can be ready to run again.
- Leona Alleslev has resigned as deputy leader of the Conservatives to more vocally back Peter MacKay, who says that no promises were made for her support.
- Maclean’s has a profile of Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis.
- Jason Kenney is accusing the federal government of preventing Apple from fixing the province’s contact tracing app, which requires iPhones to be unlocked to work.
- Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the options for calling prime minister Trudeau to committee to testify on the WE Imbroglio.
- Heather Scoffield is frustrated by the vague answers being given on the extension and amendments to the wage subsidy programme.
- Colby Cosh recounts how Alberta has abolished its last vestiges of prohibition, by allowing liquor sales in Mormon-centric towns that were still “dry.”
Odds and ends:
For the CBA’s National Magazine, I wrote about Friday’s Supreme Court decision on genetic privacy, and what the broader implications of the ruling are.
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