Good reporting at the Liberals’ Globe and Mail division today on the political interference into the RCMP investigation in Halifax. Notice how I always call the Globe and Mail the “Liberals’ Globe and Mail division?” I’ve done this for decades now. Just as I do with “liberalvision CTV,” and “Justin Trudeau’s own state-owned CBC division.” “The Liberals’ Toronto Star branch.” Etc.
It’s perfectly apt. Because fact check: it’s perfectly true. It’s only at times like these (also see We-Gate and SNC Lavalin-Gate, and several other Gate instances) when the various “news” media divisions have to suck it up and do their actual jobs to one extent or another — or risk being shown up once again by the Wall Street Journal or the Daily Mail. The G&M (that’s a very short version of the “LG&MD”) does a better job than most at taking these lumps and doing solid reporting (almost always at the able hands of Robert Fife and Steven Chase), as well as some opinionating, and they are to be commended.
So they’re covering it. At least peripherally. Good. But at times like this, I feel compelled to do what I happily do every day anyway, which includes publicly asking the age-old question: Can you just imagine the national “news” media disgust ’n outrage-a-palooza, lasting months and maybe years, and dominating every minute of our news viewing, reading, and listening, if Conservative PM Stephen Harper had been accused of interfering in a police investigation? Especially if it was to advance his supposed “pro-gun” agenda or his supposed pro-life proclivities? Or advanced that most awful thing of all to progressives today… freedom?
Here — I’ll help you out: The answer is no, you cannot imagine. But I can imagine that it would include a lot of “democracy is in peril” talk, and news coverage would be replete with words like “dictatorship” and “authoritarianism” and “totalitarianism” and “grievous overstepping” and “abuse of power” and they’d get to use their favorite abbreviation for the Conservatives a lot: “the Cons.”
What I wasn’t prepared to do — maybe until now — was to start calling the RCMP “Justin Trudeau’s RCMP Fan Club,” or Bill Blair’s RCMP Anti-Gun Lobbying Buds.” The P in RCMP could stand for Politics, Progressives, or Politbureau, these days.
It’s all conjecture, right now, and our findings will have to be based on the confidence one places in key figures in the case. Who’s believable? Who is not? Who has a good track record? Who does not? Who has lied before? Who hasn’t? It is becoming clearer and clearer — to me if not to everyone who isn’t drinking the Liberal Party or Justin Trudeau KoolAid (red in color, it tastes gross but it is effective) — that not only was Emergencies Preparedness Minister Bill Blair (then Public Safety minister) involved in political malfeasance but so too was the prime minister. And this is based on the records of someone who can, actually, be believed and trusted, at least to the extent that the G&M used this notion — as backed up with named sources — as the basis of their entire article.
Former RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson and other retired Mounties are defending the integrity of Superintendent Darren Campbell…
… Supt. Campbell’s notes say Commissioner Lucki told the RCMP officers that she had “promised the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister’s Office” that the force would disclose the type of firearms used in the mass shooting because it would advance the government’s “pending gun-control legislation.” Mr. Blair was public safety minister at the time. …
Blair and Trudeau (and who knows who else) have apparently used a mass shooting for pure political gain, and started doing so even before the bodies were cool. They also seemed to have put their thumb on the scales of justice — an active police investigation — in order to literally control the narrative. For political ends. Such an example of crass partisan self-serving politics and abuse of power is hard to fathom, in Canada or even in the worst shithole banana republic anywhere on the globe. Go ahead and use your words.
Further down the report we see even more clearly the politics of Justin Trudeau once again crossing paths with what should be an independent — once again legal or justice — institution in Canada, reminiscent of the Jody Wilson-Raybould scandal. And once again it is to satisfy his own political ends. And all because his own arguments, the data, facts, science, and logic, could not help him with his pathological ideological and vengeful, and most certainly purely political, anti-gun obsession which has literally nothing to do with the “safety of Canadians” but everything to do with autocratic political control of the segment of the population which doesn’t vote for him. Or the entire population, perhaps.
… In an interview with commission investigators, Lia Scanlan, the RCMP’s former director of strategic communications in Halifax, talked about the pressure from Ottawa. The transcript was made public earlier this month.
Ms. Scanlan told the investigation that federal government officials including Mr. Blair and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “were weighing in on what we could and couldn’t say” during media briefings.
The transcript of her remarks was heavily redacted in some sections by the Mass Casualty Commission before its release and so some details of the testimony remain secret.
At another point, Ms. Scanlan talked about Commissioner Lucki’s conduct in an interview and attributes what happened to “political pressure,” adding “that is 100 per cent Minister Blair and the Prime Minister.”
She then told investigators: “We have a Commissioner that does not push back.” …
The “commissioner does not push back” possibly because she’s a Trudeau acolyte. Certainly a Trudeau appointment. I won’t go so far as to say a Trudeau toady or suckup, or a political aid, but you may.
Photos courtesy of Twitter – account @Cdn_Eliana
It seems to me that if Superintendent Darren Campbell’s and others’ testimony is to be believed — and my reading of the situation — and in fact this whole article — speaks to his impeccable honesty and professionalism, then she’s at the very minimum guilty of willingly caving to political pressure, and it is for her to answer for why she should remain in that job. Not me.
But an even worse outcome should befall the Trudeau Liberal government. Bill Blair and Justin Trudeau in particular. I’d say the RCMP should investigate, but, well, you see the problem here.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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