First, here is a serious article about the finances of Canada before the pandemic: https://financialpost.com/opinion/economic-recovery-requires-ottawa-to-change-direction . Food for thought, even for Bambi who voted for this government the first time (like most of her voting life). However, she did not do so the second time. Contrary to many Canadian human beings, Bambi does learn from history sometimes ?. She is saying so without even thinking if the other alternatives to Mr. Trudeau would be better or not. Perhaps the same. Perhaps worse (although hard to believe). It all comes down to the personal responsibility of each politician (or citizen in life), regardless of his/her party, to be decent.
Now, the following post is meant for Bambi’s pure pleasure. It is mainly made of jokes to have fun on this sunny last day of the month of July that she usually likes particularly.
Here is the story: For some entertainment (even is she has never watched any Netflix movie in her life yet, even during this pandemic), Bambi took the time to carefully listen to our PM and his Chief staff, Ms. Katie Telford, when they testified before the House of Commons finance committee. Of course, she equipped herself with a fresh coffee and a piece of cake before ?:
First, it was amazing to observe all the hard work of everyone involved.
Bambi found herself interested in the human side of our MPs. The pandemic has allowed us to see the humanity in official meetings (e.g., dogs barking, cats or kids jumping, etc.). We did not see any pet, make no mistake. This is too serious. However, we could see that some MPs had guitars in their offices. Others had pictures of their kids, etc. Mr. Trudeau seems to have status of knights on horses.
This being said, Bambi appreciated the GREAT questions. Perhaps the BEST ones came from Mr. Pierre Poilièvre. The more she observes him, the more she finds him competent. Well, too bad he is neither our PM nor the Leader of his party ?. As a PM, he would be perhaps competent and he is perfectly bilingual, Bambi fantasized whilst listening to his spicy interactions with Mr. Trudeau. Seriously now, Bambi appreciates his clear AND short questions. He even makes the job easier on the PM by literally telling him what is expected in the answer, simply yes or no ?.
Furthermore, Bambi liked the questions and comments of ALL the other members from ALL parties, including the Liberal Party (of course biased toward Mr. Trudeau… and we are not just talking about “unconscious bias” here ?). For instance, there were good questions and comments from Mr. Fortier, Mr. Angus, Mr. Cooper, Ms. May (who asked one and only but great question). Bambi cannot recall the names of every person. She just remembers that the Chair’s name may be Mr. Wayne Easter (Liberal party, one must say, which seems odd to her but perhaps this is how it is usually done). Anyhow, he seemed fair to Bambi with regard to time management. He seems to be a pleasant politician too. He was even funny at times despite the seriousness of this exercise of democracy and justice. Bambi enjoyed the teasing moments with Mr. Poilievre. The latter can be funny too.
At one point, something odd happened (or not too funny given the touchy moment): Mr. Easter went offline. Power outage at his end (thunderstorm, it seems). Bambi could not help not to joke in her mind saying: Too bad this Chair is not located in Lebanon, he would have had a UPS for his computer or a generator ? (seriously, this is how Lebanese families have done it during and post-civil war). Anyhow, the Vice-Chair took over and did a good job, not wasting more time (Mr. Trudeau stayed for perhaps about 90 minutes only).
Despite all the great DIRECT questions, Mr. Trudeau was as vague as ever. He wants us to believe him that he did not know at which hotel his spouse stayed in London in March, 2020. His own mother was with her. Didn’t he have any conversation about the trip with her neither? Come on (both were at a WE Day in London when the pandemic was beginning to tour the world. For the record, Canada was still in denial back then, especially at its airports).
OK, assuming the Trudeau family truly does not have the time to communicate, our PM knew he was coming to a committee inquiring about dollar figures and dates. Yet, he did not do his math homework ahead of the exam. Not very impressive, to say the least. Mr. Blanchet had a funnier way to describe this testimony on ICI RDI. He referred to it as “a tasteless tofu” ?. OK, except for a date him and his Chief Staff seems to agree on (May, 8), we did not get much information from Mr. Trudeau. However, this May 8 date does not make any sense with the other dates about this program (contradictions). Who launches a program before approving it? Very weird all this.
One more thing about Mr. Trudeau, he wants Bambi and her fellow human Canadians to believe that he did not know the Kielberger brothers (the WE charity Bosses). He has never seen them in person (only on stages of WE days), he insisted. OK maybe this one is part of the truth, even if Bambi found an old picture online taken in a school (see further below. It is followed by a video of him calling those two brothers “our friends” in front of thousands of youth (1:44 minutes from the start )…but this does not mean anything. Perhaps he meant it as an Arab guy calling a pure stranger encountered on the street “habibi” (= my love or lover) ?. Sometimes, strangers may get mad at each other (e.g., traffic or other). Then, they call each other “habibi” with a friendly tap on the shoulder (pre-pandemic times, for sure).
Seriously, Mr. Trudeau seemed to want us to believe that he saw the conflict of interest and “tried to push back” but it was like the fault of the public servants. “They picked the WE Charity. It was a binary choice: WE or nothing”. Wow. Very logical ?.
Bambi is sure that he did not mean it that way but… still, he seemed ungrateful to the HARD/devoted work of our public servants. He said so instead of taking responsibility for his third violation of the same Conflict of Interest Act (Mr. Poilièvre challenged him well on this with some sarcastic humour even ?). He apologized but this time no tear was shed.
If Mr. Trudeau ends up resigning (as the Bloc Québécois is asking and as they should, him and Mr. Morneau), perhaps he can aim for a career in psychology ?. Indeed, he kept using terms like “perception” (of corruption or cronyism?) and “appearance of favouritism”. Of course, all this without providing us with evidence-based data (numbers, dates, content) to correct this misconception.
Seriously, pandemic or not, it is hard to understand all the relationships of WE Charity with our government and many of our industries (now breaking ties with it). Did the WE group contribute to build Mr. Trudeau’s “cool” image over the years, making him more appealing to younger ones (https://ipolitics.ca/2020/07/03/timeline-trudeaus-ties-to-we-are-as-old-as-his-political-career/)?
Does Mr. Trudeau feel the need to help them because they helped him. What are friends for?
How could both Mr. Morneau and Mr. Trudeau be so careless with public funds by choosing an apparently bankrupt (or shell to use a term used the MPs) stakeholder to manage the program? Does that make any sense? Is this fair to taxpayers and to youth (so dear to Mr. Trudeau’s heart)?
Plus, Bambi is still confused: what is the real final value of the program? $912 millions? Just $550 millions? Or $300 millions? Too bad this was not addressed, unless Bambi missed it.
Mr. Angus (NDP Party) seems to be offended by the less than minimum wage payment to student volunteers… but since when we pay volunteers? All this does not make sense to Bambi’s mind, in all honesty.
This being said, bravo and thank you to Ms. Telford for her courage and efforts of telling the truth. Despite being limited in what she wanted to say (or could say?), she has been much clearer, and more collaborative than Mr. Trudeau’s “tasteless tofu” (luckily Bambi is a meat lover ?). Seriously, Ms. Telford also seems to be a hard worker. Not easy to do her job in a pandemic and now with another ethical saga.
After the committee, we learned that Mr. Poilièvre’s motion to get to the bottom of the needed information passed. This happened despite the Liberal MPs vote against it.
To conclude this post by linking it to its title, you may wonder what is the Caesar Act? This is a US legislation that imposes sanctions on Mr. Assad’s extended family members and friends (wife, cousins, now 18-year-old son, friends in Syria and eventually in Lebanon, companies, etc.), supposedly to protect Syrian civilians from corruption (https://www.state.gov/syria-caesar-act-designations/ and https://sg.news.yahoo.com/us-imposes-sanctions-teenage-son-syrian-leader-assad-153450051.html). At the end of Mr. Trudeau’s testimony, Bambi had a funny thought in her mind: How about a Canadian version of the Caesar Act ?? Of course, he is not Mr. Assad and we are not Syria, thank goodness… but perhaps a Canadian Cesar Act can help the House Finance Committee get to the bottom of this story and stop the conflict of interest ?. Obviously, as per this post’s title, that was a joke, hoping you have a deer’s sense of humour!
