Justin Trudeau is very much the face of this government, and why not? He is the Liberal franchise, and they know it. Other prime ministers might have preferred to ration their public appearances, for fear of overexposure. Not this one. He is everywhere, on every magazine cover, in every news cycle, opening this and announcing that, offering here a hug and there a Cook’s tour of quantum mechanics. Occasionally he even shows up in Parliament.
But while Trudeau, dimpled of smile and tousled of hair, seems the embodiment of eternal youth, his rapidly aging government is the portrait in the attic, on which all the lines and pockmarks of ethical decay are visited. The face on television may bespeak a commitment to idealism and honesty, transparency and fairness, but the government behind it has already amassed a record of cynicism, deception, secrecy and cronyism that for most governments would take years.
Take, as a current example, the Saudi arms deal. That the Liberals are willing to sell $15 billion worth of gun-mounted armoured vehicles to one of the world’s most repressive regimes may be put down to the exigencies of state: the Saudis are, after all, our allies, at least in the Middle Eastern sense of the word. That they did so in apparent violation of federal law may be dismissed as a matter of interpretation. Perhaps, as the government says, it would have been too costly to cancel the deal. Perhaps it would have been better never to have signed it.
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Andrew Coyne: A Liberal government styled by Dorian Gray | National Post
But while Trudeau, dimpled of smile and tousled of hair, seems the embodiment of eternal youth, his rapidly aging government is the portrait in the attic, on which all the lines and pockmarks of ethical decay are visited. The face on television may bespeak a commitment to idealism and honesty, transparency and fairness, but the government behind it has already amassed a record of cynicism, deception, secrecy and cronyism that for most governments would take years.
Take, as a current example, the Saudi arms deal. That the Liberals are willing to sell $15 billion worth of gun-mounted armoured vehicles to one of the world’s most repressive regimes may be put down to the exigencies of state: the Saudis are, after all, our allies, at least in the Middle Eastern sense of the word. That they did so in apparent violation of federal law may be dismissed as a matter of interpretation. Perhaps, as the government says, it would have been too costly to cancel the deal. Perhaps it would have been better never to have signed it.
mo
Andrew Coyne: A Liberal government styled by Dorian Gray | National Post
