Author Topic: Liberal MP lies to parliament  (Read 116 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Squidward von Squidderson

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5630
Liberal MP lies to parliament
« on: June 10, 2022, 10:00:37 am »
Quote
But since then it has become clear that this is the government’s new line: that although the minister clearly and repeatedly stated, in Parliament and before the committee, that “the advice we received [from law enforcement] was to invoke the Emergencies Act,” that “at the recommendation of police, we invoked the Emergencies Act,” that “it was on the advice of law enforcement that we invoked the Emergencies Act” etc., etc., that what he really meant by this was that police had asked for the “tools” contained in the Act, without ever mentioning the Act itself. A day after his deputy first floated the possibility, the minister took up the refrain, telling reporters that “the request was for the powers, which required the invocation of the Emergencies Act.”

Leave aside the minister’s explicit and repeated language to the contrary. As implausible as it is that that is what he meant, is it any more plausible as a description of what actually happened? It might be, if, say, police leaders were unaware that the extraordinary powers they were requesting required invoking the Act. Or if for some reason they felt obliged to speak in a kind of code, hinting at using the Act without saying it out loud. Of course, this would also require us to believe that, after denying to the committee that they had requested the Act’s invocation, neither leader took the opportunity to clarify that they had asked for the powers it contains.

If, on the other hand, none of this seems plausible, then we must conclude the greater likelihood is that the minister made it up: police neither asked for the Act, nor the powers it contained. In which case, Mr. Mendicino would appear to be in some trouble. This was not some offhand remark, dropped in the course of a television interview or overheard in private conversation: these were formal, in some cases prepared statements to Parliament. Neither does it seem plausible that he could have been merely mistaken, on a matter of such import, any more than it is that he could have been misunderstood. If, then, he knowingly “misled” (to use the polite term) Parliament, well, there is a penalty for this sort of thing. And the penalty, in the conventions of Westminster-style parliaments, is resignation.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-if-the-minister-misled-parliament-he-has-to-go/



The funny thing, is that there no need to lie at all.  Canadians were firmly behind invoking the Emergencies Act.  Why are they shooting themselves in the foot about this?

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter