There's really only one thing to write about this week SA国际影视传媒� the scandal rocking Ottawa.
For those of you who have been on a month-long religious retreat, British Columbia Liberal MP Jody Wilson-Raybould has alleged inappropriate political pressure on her when she was the minister of Justice and Attorney General. She claims Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and people in his orbit tried to get her to drop criminal charges against a major Quebec corporation in favour of a deferred prosecution agreement.
That could be big trouble for Trudeau and his Liberals in the fall election. Political interference in the justice system is unacceptable.
However, it's difficult to comment on this scandal.
We dare not say anything remotely critical of Wilson-Raybould. She has become the untouchable person of Canadian politics, and politicians, pundits, journalists and cartoonists who offer any opinion on her do so at their own risk.
We can't question her actions or motives, like we would any other politician, without possibly being condemned as sexist and/or racist. We can't even wonder why she is a candidate for a party which she is accusing of corruption.
To be honest, we were a little nervous writing the previous two paragraphs, and we apologize in advance to anyone we offended.
We will concentrate on the party leaders and how they are handling this scandal.
We don't mean to be insulting, but we don't really care about the opinions of the leaders of the Green Party, the People's Party of Canada and Bloc Quebecois.
So that leaves the three so-called major parties.
We'll start with the least consequential and move our way up.
New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh is taking his best shots at Trudeau. However, he still has to establish his own credibility before challenging Trudeau's credibility.
Singh always appears a bit surprised whenever he says something that makes sense.
Conservative leader Andrew Sheer has overplayed his hand in a bewildering manner by calling on Trudeau to resign. Sheer was lucky enough to be dealt three aces by the great Texas Hold 'Em dealer in the sky, but he played them like a Royal Flush.
It's hard to miss the irony of Sheer's call for Trudeau to resign while demanding an investigation. The whole scandal is about inappropriate influence on the justice system, yet Sheer is more than ready to convict and sentence Trudeau before an independent police investigation even begins. You can't make this stuff up.
As for Trudeau, he is not helping himself with less-than-convincing denials, especially when said with a condescending smirk. His main argument seems to be that preserving jobs justifies some political pressure, which is not an acceptable excuse.
The prime minister is responsible for this scandal. First of all, he and his people should have backed off Wilson-Raybould when told the pressure was inappropriate, even if they didn't think so. And, it appears the scandal may never have erupted if she had not been demoted in a cabinet shuffle. That was a massive political blunder by the prime minister.
Trudeau made the mess, and it will be fascinating to see if he can clean it up.
