Think, Before Casting Aspersions

"We stand behind the campaign's decision to red-light Ms. Innes' nomination and the party has no intention of being pressured into re-visiting that decision."
Jeremy Broadhurst, national director, Liberal Party of Canada

"Less than three days after Innes refused the backroom deal in principle, the defendants launched a full-scale character attack on her."
"They accused her and her campaign team in the national media of 'bullying', 'intimidation', and other unethical conduct ... The defendants deliberately sacrificed Innes' reputation in order to create a smokescreen to shield Trudeau from public outcry for breaching his public vow of non-interference in local riding nominations."
Legal statement of claim

Liberal Christine Innes is shown in Toronto, May 2, 2011.  (Peter Power/Globe and Mail)

 

Uh, oh, sometimes things just don't go too well now, do they? This is a party leader who enjoys criticizing other party leaders, and in particular the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada who also happens to be the current Prime Minister of Canada, a position that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is prepared to challenge. He has established himself as 'different', young and refreshing, charismatic and appealing, intelligent - no, not that, actually - and prepared to lead the country in new directions.

LIBERAL LEADER JUSTIN TRUDEAU   Credits: FILE PHOTO/Elliot Ferguson/The Whig-Standard/QMI Agency

For that hugely responsible task, he is certain, one need not have much experience in the serious business of running the affairs of a nation. He offers the attributes of someone who was raised in wealth and prestige, and who had the privilege of travelling widely with his famous father who a generation earlier was indeed the country's prime minister. And he speaks plainly, from the heart, to the people he anticipates will elect him to the highest office in the land.

Appealing to the middle-class demographic for whom his compassion is boundless, sympathizing with them for having not, as he declares, made much financial headway in the last ten years and claiming that as prime minister he would advantage them hugely. In the meanwhile, speaking their language, he tells them at a charity boxing match: "I will tell you, there is no experience like stepping into this ring and measuring yourself. Not your name, your fortune, your intelligence, your beauty(!); none of that f---ing matters."
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Perhaps he should have been addressing himself to a really disadvantaged underclass, those within our wealthy society for whom earning a living wage is truly fraught with difficulties. And while at it, focus on the plight of the growing homeless in society, children whose families have through misadventure lost their security and are forced to live in straitened circumstances of dire poverty and social insecurity. Now that does f---ing matter.

But he does enjoy lingering on his 'fortune' and his 'beauty'. And he does intend to convince the electorate that he is qualified to act as their prime minister. He is inclined to rather preposterous statements at times that leave doubts in the listener's mind whether he is all there. And nor was it made completely clear why Liberals who sit in the Senate as far as Mr. Trudeau is concerned are not Liberals at all, simply senators.

And so intent is he on winning the pot of gold that his rainbow of nominates for the 2015 election must have his approval, lest they interfere with his interference on the local riding scene, informing whom he wishes to represent the party and where, and who he can dispense with. When Christine Innes found herself slandered and bullied through intimidation tactics she decided she would fight back and reveal the hypocrisy of the Trudeau team.

She refused to agree that she would not challenge a star recruit in Toronto Centre, Chrystia Freeland, where she planned to run herself in the Trinity-Spadina byelection seat, vacant when NDP Member of Parliament Olivia Chow decided to present herself as a mayoral candidate in Toronto. With redistribution both Toronto Centre and Trinity-Spadina ridings will be altered into three new constituencies.

Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star file photo   Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau — pictured here with Chrystia Freeland at his side — has promised open nomination contests in every riding, but would-be candidates must first win the approval of the party’s “green light committee.” 

Campaign co-chair David MacNaughton sought Ms. Innes's promise she would run in Spadina-Fort York, leaving University-Rosedale for Ms. Freeland. When she refused, Mr. MacNaughton informed her she wouldn't be permitted the nomination in any riding for the 2015 election. This, after Justin Trudeau had solemnly stated he was committed to non-interference, allowing open nominations in all ridings.

Her statement of claim has its foundation on having been slandered by Mr. MacNaughton in statements to the media. And goes on to claim that Mr. Trudeau then "intentionally or recklessly libelled or slandered Innes", through his repeated defence of the decision to block her candidacy. And so both Justin Trudeau and his Ontario campaign co-chair are now facing a $1.5-million libel suit.

Life is just so full of these irritating little inconveniences.