One of the truisms in politics is that politicians only tell the truth — at least their truth — when they’re out of it.
Such is the case with former Trudeau finance minister Bill Morneau.
His new book — Where to From Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity — provides plenty of fodder for political junkies, according to excerpts and interviews with Morneau by Paul Wells, CTV News and the Globe and Mail.
But in the end, he tells us what we already know
Morneau says Trudeau is a smart politician with excellent “performance skills” but his “management and interpersonal communication abilities were sorely lacking.”
Serious challenges facing the government “were not managed on a daily basis at the highest level.”
While well-motivated, the government overspent during the pandemic “because the numbers sounded good,” contributing to inflation and recession fears.
Meanwhile, major problems such as Canada’s low productivity — a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts Canada will be dead last in economic growth among advanced countries for four decades — fell by the wayside.
Cabinet ministers were chosen for political reasons and kept on a short leash by the Prime Minister’s Office.
A Bay St. CEO in the business world, Morneau wasn’t even allowed to choose his own chief of staff when he became finance minister in 2015 and wasn’t consulted by the PMO about the Liberal economic platform for the 2019 election.
He says he was blindsided when the PMO announced more funding for the COVID-related Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy than Trudeau had agreed to hours before.
Morneau said he resigned in August, 2020 because he was angry about malicious leaks regarding his conduct in the WE Charity affair he believes were orchestrated by the PMO, suggesting he was skeptical when Trudeau denied knowing where they were coming from.
He blasts Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre for treating politics as a “gladiator’s arena” interested in “blood shed” and “personal insults” and says his actions “corrode the tolerant and centrist tradition behind Canada’s historic success.”
During his time in politics, Morneau was found to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act during the WE Charity controversy and was earlier fined $200 under the legislation for failing to disclose his ownership of a villa in France.
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