2 weeks Ago By Postmedia News
Article content Mark Carney has just given Canadians an advance look at what the ethical standards will be of his government if the Liberals win the April 28 election and it’s not pretty. That comes with his decision to “reassign” rather than fire two Liberal Party staffers who attempted a disinformation campaign against Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. They secretly planted phoney campaign buttons at a conservative convention featuring language evocative of U.
S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign and highlighting reported divisions within the Conservative Party. Their obvious intention was for Conservatives to pick up and wear the buttons during the convention with the hopes this would be picked up by the media in a bid to discredit the party.
The scheme was revealed by CBC News reporter Kate McKenna, who overheard Liberal party staffers boasting about it at a pub in Ottawa last Friday night and, after confirming its authenticity, filed a story on it. Carney said on Monday that he wasn’t aware of what had happened and “unreservedly” apologized for it, adding, “I’ve made it absolutely clear to my campaign that this behaviour or anything approximating it, or in that spirit, is unacceptable and cannot happen again.” But apparently the two individuals responsible for it not only won’t be fired but won’t be disciplined in any way, just reassigned to another part of the campaign.
Prior to Carney’s comments on Monday, the Liberal campaign issued a bizarre written statement on their button scheme that not only didn’t apologize for it, but described it as simply “poking fun” at reports of infighting in the Conservative campaign. That leaves many questions unanswered, including who within the Liberal campaign war room authorized this attempt at election disinformation, how many Liberals knew about it in advance and who paid for the buttons? But even more important, it raises the question of how Carney will handle unethical conduct within his own government — for example by his cabinet ministers — if he wins the election. That there will be unethical conduct by senior Liberals if they win the election is a near certainty, given that during their decade in power, Liberal cabinet ministers were repeatedly found to have violated the federal Conflict of Interest Act, including former prime minister Justin Trudeau — twice.
.
