4 ms·

The Canadian PM got caught red handed in a number of scandals, lining the pockets of his friends with tax payer money. Overpaid $100 million in COVID medical eq

The Canadian PM got caught red handed in a number of scandals, lining the pockets of his friends with tax payer money. Overpaid $100 million in COVID medical equipment; his former parties' MP setup a shell company 7 days prior to be the middleman between govt and equipment imports (pocketing a nice $10K per unit purchased). Add on that a huge no-bid contract awarded to his favourite buddies that run a for-profit charity that has promoted his brand for years, paid his family members, expensed lavish trips, etc. These guys had zero experience in these domains. Then he prorogued parliament to prevent investigations. He continued with filibustering tactics, threatened an election during the pandemic when further inquiry was pushed. It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID. I haven't even mentioned his other previous ethics violations but I'll spare you the details.

ytwySXpMbS 6y ago
Do you have any sources? I'd love to look into this more but can't find anything about the overpaying for Covid-19 medical equipment.
- TravHatesMe 6y ago
  https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-million-for-ventilators-gifted-contract-to-former-liberal-mp https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-... https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour-un-ex-depute?fbclid=IwAR0H9Pa3ECE0hmB88fhBOHhCWP_Rz1fXsYqhfuC2nSqBGfL-eXilQe3pSK4 https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour...
  - mthoms 6y ago
    I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect but using "The Post Millennial" as a source is a very curious choice. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial - >The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas, for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets, and for opaque funding and political connections. >The Post Millennial has been described by Buzzfeed News as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties. >In July 2020, The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published some of these articles. After being contacted by the Beast, it took the articles down without comment. If you don't trust Wikipedia on this, just have a look the topics and opinion pieces run by this "news" organization. Hardly a reputable source by any stretch.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TravHatesMe 6y ago
      Duly noted but are you suggesting that this story is false? For your convenience, here are some others I just found: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-companies-warn-conservative-motion-could-deter-domestic/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-co... > Given that much of what has been released on the WE contract has contradicted what the prime minister has told Canadians publicly, the opposition are well within their rights to probe it and other spending, including the sole-source $237-million contract for ventilators made by former Liberal MP Frank Baylis’s company Baylis Medical https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/macdougall-trudeau-embraces-the-dark-side-of-the-parliamentary-force https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/macdougall-trudeau-embrace... https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5157524/Contract-to-a-former-MP-It%E2%80%99s-from-the-classic-Liberal-Party.html https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5157524/Contract-to-... https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/companies-warn-tory-motion-could-deter-domestic-production-of-ppe-1.24226046 https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/companies-warn-tory-mo...
      - mthoms 6y ago
        >are you suggesting that this story is false? Did you read the first sentence of my comment? It starts with "I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect..."
        TravHatesMe 6y ago
        Yes you said "I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect" and then questioned a source for a specific point. That created some ambiguity in my head. Perhaps you disagreed with that specific point? Perhaps you were calling into question that specific point because the source is bad? That's why I asked for clarification. No ill will. Could be my interpretation. My apologies. No need to be snarky about it eh.
        mthoms 6y ago
busterarm 6y ago
My favorite part about his family being paid speaking fees was all of the other celebrities that the same charity told that they don't pay speaking fees.
mistermann 6y ago
> It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID. It is, but then also it isn't really all that amazing if you sit down an examine the entire system. People being "fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability" isn't surprising, because these problem derive from the structure of the system itself, not any one individual politician operating in it. One could Google up plentiful examples from history of all politicians leveraging the opaqueness of the particular political system they operate in (all systems on Earth are flawed in this manner, to varying degrees) - but at the individual level (politicians and voters), they all realize that "these things are inevitable", and that even though technical wrongdoing has occurred, from the aggregate perspective, the ends justifies the means (which is a perfectly reasonable position to hold in my opinion, if we assume that the individuals in question are not aware that their perception of reality does not match objective reality, which is ~always the case). I believe that to fix the problem, these systems must be completely redesigned to accommodate the obvious shortcomings. But then to do that, it would require buy-in from both politicians and the media, who both likely enjoy the amount of power in their possession and wouldn't be too keen on giving it up, so I wouldn't hold my breath on anything improving, ever.
Jack000 6y ago
it's a matter of degree - Trudeaus scandals aren't in the same league as Trump. The fact that these violations were investigated (and has had a real, damaging effect on the PM's approval ratings when they came to light) shows that Canadian politics is doing much better than the US, where the president literally fired the FBI director for investigating him.

ytwySXpMbS 6y ago

Do you have any sources? I'd love to look into this more but can't find anything about the overpaying for Covid-19 medical equipment.

TravHatesMe 6y ago
https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-million-for-ventilators-gifted-contract-to-former-liberal-mp https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-... https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour-un-ex-depute?fbclid=IwAR0H9Pa3ECE0hmB88fhBOHhCWP_Rz1fXsYqhfuC2nSqBGfL-eXilQe3pSK4 https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour...
- mthoms 6y ago
  I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect but using "The Post Millennial" as a source is a very curious choice. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial - >The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas, for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets, and for opaque funding and political connections. >The Post Millennial has been described by Buzzfeed News as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties. >In July 2020, The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published some of these articles. After being contacted by the Beast, it took the articles down without comment. If you don't trust Wikipedia on this, just have a look the topics and opinion pieces run by this "news" organization. Hardly a reputable source by any stretch.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TravHatesMe 6y ago
    Duly noted but are you suggesting that this story is false? For your convenience, here are some others I just found: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-companies-warn-conservative-motion-could-deter-domestic/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-co... > Given that much of what has been released on the WE contract has contradicted what the prime minister has told Canadians publicly, the opposition are well within their rights to probe it and other spending, including the sole-source $237-million contract for ventilators made by former Liberal MP Frank Baylis’s company Baylis Medical https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/macdougall-trudeau-embraces-the-dark-side-of-the-parliamentary-force https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/macdougall-trudeau-embrace... https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5157524/Contract-to-a-former-MP-It%E2%80%99s-from-the-classic-Liberal-Party.html https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5157524/Contract-to-... https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/companies-warn-tory-motion-could-deter-domestic-production-of-ppe-1.24226046 https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/companies-warn-tory-mo...
    - mthoms 6y ago
      >are you suggesting that this story is false? Did you read the first sentence of my comment? It starts with "I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect..."
      - TravHatesMe 6y ago
        Yes you said "I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect" and then questioned a source for a specific point. That created some ambiguity in my head. Perhaps you disagreed with that specific point? Perhaps you were calling into question that specific point because the source is bad? That's why I asked for clarification. No ill will. Could be my interpretation. My apologies. No need to be snarky about it eh.
        mthoms 6y ago

busterarm 6y ago

My favorite part about his family being paid speaking fees was all of the other celebrities that the same charity told that they don't pay speaking fees.

mistermann 6y ago

> It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID. It is, but then also it isn't really all that amazing if you sit down an examine the entire system. People being "fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability" isn't surprising, because these problem derive from the structure of the system itself, not any one individual politician operating in it. One could Google up plentiful examples from history of all politicians leveraging the opaqueness of the particular political system they operate in (all systems on Earth are flawed in this manner, to varying degrees) - but at the individual level (politicians and voters), they all realize that "these things are inevitable", and that even though technical wrongdoing has occurred, from the aggregate perspective, the ends justifies the means (which is a perfectly reasonable position to hold in my opinion, if we assume that the individuals in question are not aware that their perception of reality does not match objective reality, which is ~always the case). I believe that to fix the problem, these systems must be completely redesigned to accommodate the obvious shortcomings. But then to do that, it would require buy-in from both politicians and the media, who both likely enjoy the amount of power in their possession and wouldn't be too keen on giving it up, so I wouldn't hold my breath on anything improving, ever.

Jack000 6y ago

it's a matter of degree - Trudeaus scandals aren't in the same league as Trump. The fact that these violations were investigated (and has had a real, damaging effect on the PM's approval ratings when they came to light) shows that Canadian politics is doing much better than the US, where the president literally fired the FBI director for investigating him.