Folks, there are times when I find myself a bit speechless and if you know me, that’s saying a lot. But following the news of the past couple of days has been so crazy that it feels like this meme does a good job of summing part of it up:
Yes folks, it’s only Wednesday and in Ottawa, lets add to that it’s only one week, as in the House of Commons is only sitting for this one week before taking the next two weeks off. It’s been a sprint of insanity, except in this race the muscles getting the biggest workout are the ones in our necks, as we shake our heads in disbelief. It’s all been a bit much for me to take in, leaving me in a bit of a stunned state as my head shakes from left to right and my fist shakes up towards the sky. I hope my fitness app is tracking all the calories I’m burning in the process, because at least then something good will be coming out of all of this dreck.
And lets be clear everyone, this week is going to get worse before it gets any better. Today we’ll see Question Period where the Prime Minister will likely take all the questions, as he typically does on Wednesdays. How many times are we going to see Pierre Poilievre rise to his feet and make obscene claims like Mr. Trudeau is “working in China's interests and against Canada”? How many times will Mr. Trudeau reply with indignation, pointing to the long series of non-actions he took Monday night as an attempt to deflect it all away? How quickly will the few Canadians watching CPAC will turn away watch something more edifying, like The Fireplace Channel? Surely the sports betting sites are missing a great opportunity to lay odds on all of these things. Again, something good should come from all of this crap, right?
But with all that bound to come and everything that’s happened so far this week, it amazes me that something significant happened last night that’s barely gotten any mention. Given everything that’s going on, I understand that there was a lot to cover yesterday but this event really stunned me on a few levels. Global News’ David Akin noted it in a Tweet last night, about the address to Parliament given by the President of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen.
It’s not very often that you get the head of such a large, international ally come to address our Parliament. It’s even more important given the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So you’d think that every important politician within a short distance of Ottawa would want to be there for this speech. Yet Akin noted one important absence: Leader of His Majesty’s Official Opposition, one Mr. Pierre Poilievre. In my time working on the Hill and in around official Ottawa, I can’t think of a time when a party leader, let alone the Official Opposition Leader, has missed such an event. They don’t happen every day, or even every year, but usually leaders make sure they show up for these. And there are good reasons for showing up, whether it be diplomatic or simply the optics of being a good host.
What makes this all the more vexing is the fact that it’s the President of the European Union; that’s about as non-offensive a guest you could invite to speak to our Parliament in almost any circumstance. And for Poilievre’s part, he could easily be there to tout what the former Harper government did with the EU back in the day, when he was at the cabinet table. Even though it fell to Trudeau to sign it, it was Harper’s government who initiated, negotiated and agreed to the terms of CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU. It would have been a chance to put some shine on the Conservative name, point to accomplishments and look like a serious, governing alternative to the current Liberal government. There was nothing but upside to show up.
Yet he wasn’t there, when we know he was in Ottawa because just earlier that day he was slamming the Liberals for the inability to get Canadian liquefied natural gas to the European market. Even though von der Leyen did knock down the point (stating that the EU is looking to Canada as a "prime potential partner” to supply hydrogen instead), you’d think that Mr. Poilievre would want to have the chance to be in the room, and maybe bend her elbow as she was done to push for Canadian LNG. Instead none of that happened because he simply wasn’t there.
You can add to the mystery of his no-show the continuing saga of some of his MPs meeting with a far-right, extreme German MEP and his attempts to sweep that under the rug, all while giving no punishment to the MPs in question. I’m not saying that the two things are linked, but things rarely happen in a vacuum, especially in Ottawa politics.
All this is to say that in a normal, functional week in Ottawa, this kind of snub of such a leader by the person who claims he’s running to be Prime Minister of our G7 nation, would be much bigger news. But last night, it only got passing notice because of the ongoing goat rodeo that our Parliament has descended into. That is a fact, a disturbing one that surely isn’t making our lives any better.
I don’t see any winners coming from this current situation on this side of either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. So far the only winners I see from this week are the authoritarian, undemocratic governments of China, Russia and others. They are getting exactly what they wanted to get from their attempts to meddle, interfere and interject themselves into our political lives and processes. They’re getting so much of it now I’m sure they are gleefully stunned at how much return they are getting on this. That fact is staring all of our political leaders in the face right now, or at least they would notice it if they weren’t too busy entering their own goats in the rodeo, fully equipped with the strongest partisan blinders in stock.
I would hope and pray that all of our leaders will take some time over the next two weeks off, after they leave Ottawa, to reflect on the fact that they are giving these malign actors exactly what they want. They are making Beijing and Moscow happy, with their infighting, deflection and unwillingness to put the partisan crap aside to actually deal with the problem. You’d think that we could all agree that it’s a bad day for Canadian democracy when both Russia and China are happy with the behaviour of our Parliament, right? That’s not so evident give the evidence of this week.
They need to ditch the blinders, can the rhetoric and come together to do what is right for everyone, not just ones own political interest on the day. Can that happen? Of course it can. We saw it at the very start of the pandemic, for a few brief months. But will that happen? My optimism can only stretch so far and like I pointed out at the start, it’s only Wednesday. We still have three more days to go to make it that much worse. It’s already been a long week and the way things are going at the Goat Rodeo on the Rideau, it’s only going to get longer.