Juno News - Justin Trudeau plays the hero

00:00:00.000 It was quite a story Justin Trudeau told on Thursday, and he's sticking to it. But is anyone

00:00:11.760 believing him? So to recap, Trudeau appears before the House of Commons Finance Committee,

00:00:16.280 a rare affair. Trudeau has never been exposed to an environment like that before, where he could

00:00:20.860 have hostile questioners like Pierre Paglia from the Conservatives, Charlie Angus from the NDP.

00:00:25.700 Normally, it's just the question period, and it's media scrums, which don't have the same sparring

00:00:30.540 component to them. His story, though, kind of came out of the gates with a rather unexpected

00:00:35.900 flip side of a narrative. Did you know that Justin Trudeau was actually the first whistleblower in

00:00:41.840 the We Scandal affair? He was the one who first pushed for accountability. Yep, that's what he says.

00:00:48.240 So basically, the public service came to him and said, we got this program. We Charity has to do

00:00:53.860 it. He thought it could stay as an internal government program, he says. But they insisted.

00:00:59.420 In fact, they gave him, his words, a binary choice. They said to him, either the We Charity does this

00:01:06.360 student grant program, or it doesn't happen at all. So what's it going to be, Prime Minister? Are you

00:01:11.780 going to let students lose out? Are you that heartless? And, well, he really felt up against

00:01:15.820 the wall. But he still pushed back the virtuous, ethical man that he is. He pointed out, he said,

00:01:21.240 I don't know about this. I mean, my family has connections with this group, so maybe it doesn't

00:01:26.120 look so good. But they were insistent, those bullying public servants. So the Prime Minister,

00:01:31.500 well, he tried and he tried. And he said to them, please, make this as ethical, as accountable as

00:01:36.940 possible. We got to make sure this is of the highest thresholds. They continued to push him.

00:01:41.800 And finally, I mean, he's only human. He said, uncle. And he gave in and he submitted. He said,

00:01:46.340 fine. If the public service is so adamantly insisted that it can only be done this way,

00:01:52.040 so be it. The only thing he admits, the only thing he's willing to cut his opposition any slack on is

00:01:58.940 that, yes, he should have recused himself. And he regrets that, even though it was all for the

00:02:04.360 students. So that was the main narrative. We did not expect there to be a curveball there about how he

00:02:08.840 flips it around and tells a story about how he is the hero in all of this. But maybe we shouldn't be

00:02:14.180 surprised because we've heard in previous stories how this is an opportunity for us all to reflect

00:02:19.680 in previous scandals. For the SNC-Lavalin story, for the blackface story, it was not so much

00:02:24.900 his own personal wrongdoing, but it was a moment for us to all pause and all look at the way we

00:02:30.200 treat each other. So perhaps here, we don't even have a moment for us all to reflect. We have a moment

00:02:34.920 to acknowledge that Trudeau is actually a great ethical leader and the We Charity scandal show who's

00:02:41.140 just that. Do you believe it? Are you buying it? I think the problem with that is he's basically

00:02:47.040 acknowledging he had problems with it, but he still went ahead with it. And that's why if you're

00:02:54.320 admitting he had problems with it, if you're admitting it didn't pass the smell test, why did

00:02:59.020 you let it go through? And those are the questions that still remain, the ones that Trudeau's new

00:03:04.080 narrative has now provoked. Let me know. Do you think it passes muster? I don't think so.

Juno News - August 02, 2020