No political party has ever been more sanctimonious or hypocritical than the Liberals
If there’s one thing that’s hard to take from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals — Canada’s natural governing party, as they prefer to call themselves — it’s their perpetual self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
We saw it on display again this month while Trudeau was making multiple apologies (three, actually) for acting like a bully in the House of Commons, grabbing one opposition MP by the arm and elbowing another in the chest (accidentally, he says) while, according to witnesses, muttering “get the f--- out of my way”.
At the same time, Liberals and their apologists were expressing shock, consternation and outrage about the NDP’s childish attempt to block Conservative whip Gord Brown from taking his seat in the Commons, to delay a parliamentary vote, the incident that set off Trudeau.
Excuse us? The Liberal party with its decades-long record of asinine and obstructive behaviour in Parliament, is now lecturing the NDP (and Conservatives) about having respect for the people’s business?
The party that blew kazoos in the Senate to impede the passage of the GST law in a campaign orchestrated by then Liberal Senate leader Allan MacEachen, that also included, according to a December, 1990 Associated Press account, “hooting, catcalls, shouting ... interminable reading of petitions name by name and other delaying measures”?
The party that took pride in its Liberal Rat Pack after it was reduced to 40 seats in the 1984 election -- Sheila Copps, Don Boudria, Brian Tobin and John Nunziata -- who, when they weren’t hurling abuse at Brian Mulroney and his cabinet ministers, were treated with friendly indulgence by the media for creating bedlam in the House of Commons?
Liberal parliamentary decorum? Liberal parliamentary etiquette? Please. Give us a break.
Has everyone forgotten Sheila Copps — future Liberal deputy prime minister — hurling herself across a desk at a parliamentary committee meeting to confront Tory cabinet minister Sinclair Stevens?
As Tobin put it in his 2002 autobiography, All in Good Time, of the Rat Pack: “If we had to make noise ... we would. If we had to flirt with being obnoxious at times . . . well, anyone who thinks politics is a ladies’ and gentlemen’s game has never been deeply involved in the process.” (Source, Jane Taber, Globe and Mail, May 5, 2006).
The issue isn’t that the Liberals are different from the Conservatives and NDP when it comes to disrespecting Parliament. It’s that they’re exactly the same.
But when it comes to hypocrisy, when it comes to crying “SHAME! SHAME!” in accusing the opposition of doing exactly the same things they’ve done, the Liberals have no peers. Or shame.
Trudeau can prattle on about Liberal “sunny ways” all he likes. That is, when he isn’t calling Conservative Peter Kent a “piece of s---” in the House of Commons, as he did while third party leader and for which he had to apologize.
It doesn’t change the fact no party in Parliament more frequently or more tiresomely accuses others of doing exactly what it does.
Simply put, nobody whines like the Liberals.
Trudeau’s whiners | Goldstein | Canada | News | Toronto Sun
If there’s one thing that’s hard to take from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals — Canada’s natural governing party, as they prefer to call themselves — it’s their perpetual self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
We saw it on display again this month while Trudeau was making multiple apologies (three, actually) for acting like a bully in the House of Commons, grabbing one opposition MP by the arm and elbowing another in the chest (accidentally, he says) while, according to witnesses, muttering “get the f--- out of my way”.
At the same time, Liberals and their apologists were expressing shock, consternation and outrage about the NDP’s childish attempt to block Conservative whip Gord Brown from taking his seat in the Commons, to delay a parliamentary vote, the incident that set off Trudeau.
Excuse us? The Liberal party with its decades-long record of asinine and obstructive behaviour in Parliament, is now lecturing the NDP (and Conservatives) about having respect for the people’s business?
The party that blew kazoos in the Senate to impede the passage of the GST law in a campaign orchestrated by then Liberal Senate leader Allan MacEachen, that also included, according to a December, 1990 Associated Press account, “hooting, catcalls, shouting ... interminable reading of petitions name by name and other delaying measures”?
The party that took pride in its Liberal Rat Pack after it was reduced to 40 seats in the 1984 election -- Sheila Copps, Don Boudria, Brian Tobin and John Nunziata -- who, when they weren’t hurling abuse at Brian Mulroney and his cabinet ministers, were treated with friendly indulgence by the media for creating bedlam in the House of Commons?
Liberal parliamentary decorum? Liberal parliamentary etiquette? Please. Give us a break.
Has everyone forgotten Sheila Copps — future Liberal deputy prime minister — hurling herself across a desk at a parliamentary committee meeting to confront Tory cabinet minister Sinclair Stevens?
As Tobin put it in his 2002 autobiography, All in Good Time, of the Rat Pack: “If we had to make noise ... we would. If we had to flirt with being obnoxious at times . . . well, anyone who thinks politics is a ladies’ and gentlemen’s game has never been deeply involved in the process.” (Source, Jane Taber, Globe and Mail, May 5, 2006).
The issue isn’t that the Liberals are different from the Conservatives and NDP when it comes to disrespecting Parliament. It’s that they’re exactly the same.
But when it comes to hypocrisy, when it comes to crying “SHAME! SHAME!” in accusing the opposition of doing exactly the same things they’ve done, the Liberals have no peers. Or shame.
Trudeau can prattle on about Liberal “sunny ways” all he likes. That is, when he isn’t calling Conservative Peter Kent a “piece of s---” in the House of Commons, as he did while third party leader and for which he had to apologize.
It doesn’t change the fact no party in Parliament more frequently or more tiresomely accuses others of doing exactly what it does.
Simply put, nobody whines like the Liberals.
Trudeau’s whiners | Goldstein | Canada | News | Toronto Sun
