Fawcett: David Johnston is the right man for the wrong time via NatObserver
A big part of the disconnect here is because Johnston is delivering a serious response at a fundamentally unserious time. When the leader of the official Opposition communicates primarily through memes, insults and YouTube videos, getting him to sit down and have a serious discussion about Canada’s strategic security interests is about as likely as your cat filing your income taxes.
Finally, it betrays a bit of naïveté on Johnston’s part. As he wrote in his report, “This matter is too important for anyone aspiring to lead the country to intentionally maintain a veil of ignorance on these matters. While political parties may disagree about policy and priorities, they should do so from a common understanding of the true facts, not as speculated or hypothesized from media reports based on leaks of partial information.
Johnston tried to address this in his report, detailing his limited interactions with the prime minister and the Trudeau Foundation over the years. He even stress-tested it with Frank Iacobucci, a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice who was appointed to the bench by Brian Mulroney. “I have no doubt whatsoever that I had any conflict of interest and no doubt at all, speaking for myself, about my impartiality,” Johnston said.
Of course, that’s a feature rather than a bug for many of the people launching the accusations. Those of us who care about public institutions — including, I presume, the current Liberal government — need to be more careful with how we steward their finite supply of public trust and confidence. Spending it to win the day, an issue or even an election might seem appealing in the short term. In the longer run, though, it leaves us all bankrupt.
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