Journalists, MPs are missing the real Bill Morneau scandal

The so-called “Morneau Scandal” has been a farce in many ways, with mainstream media failing to recognize the real scandal plaguing the government’s financial control system.

First, the tempest in a teapot. While he wasn’t legally required to do so, Finance Minister Bill Morneau made the mistake of not putting his financial holdings, which may run to $40-million, into a blind trust.

The office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner  didn’t object to the fact that Morneau didn’t put his fortune in a blind trust.

Nevertheless, the jackals saw an opportunity to embarrass and possibly bring down the Trudeau government’s Number 2 man. 

“This finance minister used a loophole to keep himself invested in a financial company which he regulates,” Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said in the House of Commons, “all the while going across the country calling honest plumbers and farmers tax cheats.”

National Post columnist Brian Platt criticized Morneau for not being in Parliament all week, and instead travelling out-of-province to make announcements on the government’s small business tax reforms.

But this was a case of Parliamentary Press Gallery journalists being so hungry for blood that most of them ignored the truth about blind trusts and never looked for the bigger issues behind the story.

BLIND TRUSTS "A SHAM"

Bad news for the NDP and the rest of us, as Harper's Conservatives pull even

It’s hard to believe, but -- despite all the crimes, insults to Canadians and general incompetence -- the Harper government has pulled even with the NDP in major opinion polls.

The highly regarded Internet site, Threehundredeight.com, calculated all polls as of August 30 and showed the Conservatives at 33.9, the NDP at 33.6, and the Liberals at 21.7.

Based on these percentages, if an election were held today, Harper would finish in first by a comfortable margin.

A blend of polls conducted by Forum Research and Abacus Data between July 25 and Aug 12 on an aggregate sample of about 3700 respondents projects Conservative Party strength at around 133 seats, 120 seats for the New Democratic Party, 46 for the Liberal Party, 8 for the Bloc Québécois and 1 for the Green Party.