Breaking news out of the stock ticker and the National Enquirer: Justin Trudeau announces he's leaving office and getting engaged to Mark Carney after Sophie ran off with Ed the Sock.
Well, no, that's not actually the case. But I'm sure Bob Fife and Marieke Walsh are on the case and Skippy Poilievre will demand ten thousand committee inquiries into a sole-sourced prenup agreement.
What's actually happened just now is that Trudeau has brought Carney aboard his advisory team for help in drafting that ambitious Maple New Deal plan that was floated this past weekend, while the rest of the bloodhounds were still sniffing for new details about WeGhazi. Typical of Trudeau, he ignores bullshit with the old family shrug, and just gets down to work on things that actually matter.
Trudeau’s group of core decision makers during the crisis has been small -- consigned primarily to his own staff, plus Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Morneau and their close officials. But that’s beginning to change. Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna are being more active in devising an infrastructure spending package. Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains is poised to deliver plans on shoring up industries facing long-term damage form the pandemic, as well as measures to help sectors deemed strategic for the nation’s economy. Immigration, daycare and unemployment insurance are among other issues top of mind for the government.
Now, according to John Ivison and other Con mugs in the Twittersphere, it's a sign Trudeau is soon to be out the door, with Carney as finance minister to Chrystia Freeland. Not so according to Bloomberg, which broke the story in the first place, which says nothing about Trudeau's departure, but does place focus on Bill Morneau:
Carney’s involvement comes as Trudeau’s own finance minister, Bill Morneau, appears to be fighting for his political life. Morneau is embroiled in a scandal over a contract to a charity that employs one of his daughters and had paid C$41,000 ($30,700) in travel expenses for his family for trips to Kenya and Ecuador. Though Morneau has repaid the money and apologized, the opposition Conservatives are calling for his resignation.The article does mention that Carney is often spoken about as a "future" Liberal leader but BNN isn't lighting their hair on fire about a leadership change right right now. Unlike the amateur cable access vloggers of the TV pundit class and the bottom-feeders at the toilet paper dead-tree outlets. Personally, I don't think he'd excite the base the way Trudeau does even in the aftermath of his worst moments. Trudeau is a performance artist on the hustings. The finance guy is untested and, well, kind of smug and boring. Perfect for a finance guy, though.
But the junk journos in Canada, of course, are focused on Trudeau's imminent future rather than Morneau's, because Trudeau's name garners more headlines and clicks for their bankrupt business than Morneau's. The smart money and the smart journalism belongs to Mike Bloomberg, not Conrad Black. Besides, if Carney does run anywhere it'll probably be in the seat belonging to the MP for York-Centre, Michael Levitt, who stepped down to chair a Holocaust museum. Gee, is Skippy going to call the Gestapo on that charity involvement too?
Moreover, per this morning's ARI poll and some other recent ones, the Liberal base is relatively strong and appears to stand behind Trudeau. Some squishy votes are parking with the Bloc and NDP knowing there's no election tomorrow. Carney would become a pariah like Martin were he to become the FM and mount a coup over Trudeau using Stupid Sponsorgate as the catalyst. Much to his detractors' chagrin, Trudeau will leave when he is good and ready, campaigning on the COVID recovery plan while the other idiots campaign on complaints about angels dancing on pinheads or something to that effect.
Assuming there's no plague election, come next spring or so Trudeau will go around talking about the safety net and climate change, while MacKay will talk about... guns, free markets, the carbon tax, and Crooked Hillary's We-Mails. The NDP will call for revolution and complain that Goldman Sachs is designing the recovery plan, while the Bloc will say something in French that is anything but "rape," "cocaine" and "Hell's Angels." This is why the opposition cooks up scandals: they have nothing to offer on policy and none of the cool kids want to play with them because they pick their noses and don't do their homework.
And hypothetically speaking, if he does decide sooner rather than later that he's had enough of the smearing and the guff and the vile invective aimed at his family, and passes the torch onto someone else, he'll have left that person an ideal blueprint for Canada's future at a crucial time in history. He would have every right to say that he got Canada where it needs to be, and his successor — likely a woman — will get Canada where it needs to go.
But he's not going anywhere yet.
As for what else is down the pike... "insider Liberals" say, our lips are sealed.
Hush my darling, don't you cry.
