Justin Trudeau plays the hero
Episode Stats
Words per minute
191.87146
Summary
Justin Trudeau says he's the hero in the We Charity scandal, but is anyone actually buying it? The Prime Minister tells the House of Commons Finance Committee that he was the first whistleblower in the scandal, and pushed for accountability.
Transcript
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It was quite a story Justin Trudeau told on Thursday, and he's sticking to it. But is anyone
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believing him? So to recap, Trudeau appears before the House of Commons Finance Committee,
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a rare affair. Trudeau has never been exposed to an environment like that before, where he could
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have hostile questioners like Pierre Paglia from the Conservatives, Charlie Angus from the NDP.
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Normally, it's just the question period, and it's media scrums, which don't have the same sparring
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component to them. His story, though, kind of came out of the gates with a rather unexpected
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flip side of a narrative. Did you know that Justin Trudeau was actually the first whistleblower in
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the We Scandal affair? He was the one who first pushed for accountability. Yep, that's what he says.
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So basically, the public service came to him and said, we got this program. We Charity has to do
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it. He thought it could stay as an internal government program, he says. But they insisted.
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In fact, they gave him, his words, a binary choice. They said to him, either the We Charity does this
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student grant program, or it doesn't happen at all. So what's it going to be, Prime Minister? Are you
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going to let students lose out? Are you that heartless? And, well, he really felt up against
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the wall. But he still pushed back the virtuous, ethical man that he is. He pointed out, he said,
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I don't know about this. I mean, my family has connections with this group, so maybe it doesn't
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look so good. But they were insistent, those bullying public servants. So the Prime Minister,
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well, he tried and he tried. And he said to them, please, make this as ethical, as accountable as
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possible. We got to make sure this is of the highest thresholds. They continued to push him.
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And finally, I mean, he's only human. He said, uncle. And he gave in and he submitted. He said,
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fine. If the public service is so adamantly insisted that it can only be done this way,
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so be it. The only thing he admits, the only thing he's willing to cut his opposition any slack on is
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that, yes, he should have recused himself. And he regrets that, even though it was all for the
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students. So that was the main narrative. We did not expect there to be a curveball there about how he
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flips it around and tells a story about how he is the hero in all of this. But maybe we shouldn't be
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surprised because we've heard in previous stories how this is an opportunity for us all to reflect
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in previous scandals. For the SNC-Lavalin story, for the blackface story, it was not so much
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his own personal wrongdoing, but it was a moment for us to all pause and all look at the way we
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treat each other. So perhaps here, we don't even have a moment for us all to reflect. We have a moment
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to acknowledge that Trudeau is actually a great ethical leader and the We Charity scandal show who's
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just that. Do you believe it? Are you buying it? I think the problem with that is he's basically
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acknowledging he had problems with it, but he still went ahead with it. And that's why if you're
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admitting he had problems with it, if you're admitting it didn't pass the smell test, why did
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you let it go through? And those are the questions that still remain, the ones that Trudeau's new
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narrative has now provoked. Let me know. Do you think it passes muster? I don't think so.