Dear Editor:
I had hoped that the standing committee on ethics would vote to do the right thing at their meeting on Aug. 21 and ask the Ethics Commissioner to provide more information on the SNC-Lavalin cover-up by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but they failed us.
In fact the Liberal Party “whip” was there in the form of Quebec MP Steven MacKinnon to ensure that all Liberal committee members voted to keep critical information from the public.
I commend Mr. Erskine-Smith, as a Liberal, for voting with his conscience and not the party on the first vote, but I suspect that this was stagecraft on the part of the party whip to create the illusion that the committee had some independence and was not being orchestrated directly by the prime minister’s office (PMO). The end result is that the prime minister has, for the moment, covered up significant information that could confirm the illegal activities at play in his dealings with SNC-Lavalin.
The really sad thing is that after the committee cover-up we can no longer consider the rot to be local to the PMO, now we must consider it to have permeated throughout the country’s political leadership. It must be the case, otherwise the remaining Liberal MPs, who supposedly represent their constituents and Canada, would be insisting that their party uncover the truth.
Oh! For another whistle blower like Jodi Wilson-Raybould to step forward to help us demonstrate to the world that the whole Canadian government has not engaged in or supported illegal activities, under the pretext of avoiding non existent job losses.
Oh! For some brave person who is prepared to demonstrate that this rot is limited only to those few at the top who seem willing to cater for the dubious needs of certain business leaders, regardless.
But all is not lost: The Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development has us in its sights! Their working group on political interference and bribery is keeping a careful watch on us. Who knows, it may be this group that liberates the information that the government is afraid to share with us.
Hopefully this will come in time for the next election so that Canadians will know exactly what they are voting for; rot or not.
Michael Lee,
Salem