(OTTAWA) Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were visibly depressed in the House of Commons this week as Public Safety Secretary Marco Mendicino tried to extricate himself from a fresh controversy sparked by a lack of communication.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
This isn’t the first time Mr Mendicino has been in the hot seat for the wrong reasons. The former Toronto-area federal prosecutor seemed to have a promising future when he joined the cabinet as immigration secretary in 2019.
The Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois have compiled a compilation of the mistakes he has made over the past 12 months. The track record is not glorious.
The gun control law, the presence of Chinese police stations in Canada, the illegal occupation of Ottawa by the “Freedom Convoy” and the transfer of serial killer Paul Bernardo from a maximum-security prison in Ontario to a medium-security prison in Quebec are all cases in which the minister made comments submitted, which was contradicted or which annoyed many.
In the Liberal ranks, it is believed that the confusion expressed by the Minister in this week’s file on Paul Bernardo’s transfer is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
According to them, a ministerial reshuffle is necessary in the summer. And the sooner the better.
“Anything that drags on ends up getting dirty,” argued a liberal source, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely. In other words, the longer Justin Trudeau delays cleaning up his cabinet, the greater the risk that he will suffer the political consequences.
The Trudeau government has been hounded for months by opposition parties over foreign interference and the rising cost of living, and looks set to end the session on its knees. Parliamentary business is due to end next week. Liberal strategists have been counting the days for several weeks.
Especially since Marco Mendicino is not the only minister who has embarrassed the Trudeau government for similar reasons. Emergency Preparedness Secretary Bill Blair last month cited flawed communications to explain why he never received an alert from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 2021 confirming the Conservative MP was being bullied by China for supporting a motion denouncing the communist regime’s treatment of the Uyghur minority.
However, CSIS director David Vigneault assured a parliamentary committee this week that the notice was sent specifically to the Department of Public Safety, then headed by Bill Blair, and also to the Minister.
International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan also pleaded ignorance in the spring when it was reported that Senator Marilou McPhedran issued unauthorized travel documents to hundreds of Afghan refugees following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021.
At that time, Mr. Sajjan headed the Ministry of Defense. Before a parliamentary committee, the senator claimed she informed the minister of her actions by emailing him and other ministers. But Mr Sajjan claimed he didn’t know because he didn’t check his emails and was too busy managing the evacuation arrangements.
These missteps have highlighted what opposition parties call “failures” or blindness in communication in Liberal ministers’ offices.
“It’s a pattern. Ministers keep telling us that they are not aware of the briefing notes. […] You can take their word for it that their staff didn’t see fit to inform them once, maybe even twice, but there comes a point where saying my dog ate my homework is the political equivalent. These ministers lose a lot of homework. We’re starting to worry about her dog’s health,” said Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud.
The government gave us one fiasco after another. The level of disorganization and neglect by liberal ministers is often startling.
NDP MP Peter Julian
In all likelihood, Justin Trudeau will wait a few more weeks before deciding whether to make any changes to his cabinet. However, several ministers are convinced that a game of music chairs is inevitable. There have been no major changes since the last election in autumn 2021 more than 18 months ago. Time goes by. The Liberals secured a second minority seat in the last ballot. Last year they reached an agreement with the NDP that will ensure their survival in the House of Commons until June 2025. They check the election calendar. Half-time has already arrived, the privileged moment for Prime Ministers to reinvigorate the ministerial team and update the government’s game plan for the second half of the term.
While some ministers have fumbled in recent months, others have shone and thoroughly deserved a promotion. This applies in particular to the Minister of Sports and Canada’s Economic Development Agency for the Regions of Quebec, Pascale St-Onge, and the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives, Mark Holland. Other ministers, including François-Philippe Champagne for Industry, Mélanie Joly for Foreign Affairs, Jonathan Wilkinson for Natural Resources, Dominic LeBlanc for Intergovernmental Affairs, Anita Anand for National Defense and Steven Guilbeault for the Environment, remain pillars of government.
By-elections are scheduled for Monday in four constituencies across the country. The Liberals expect candidate Anna Gainey to win at Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount and Ben Carr to win the same at Winnipeg-South Centre. However, Justin Trudeau is unlikely to hand them ministerial duties anytime soon. Liberal MPs, who have been in office since 2015 and have stood the test of time, are already stamping impatiently on his call.