The SNC-Lavalin Tempest In A Teapot

The Canadian media has been having a field day over the past month with a tempest in a teapot called the SNC-Lavaloin Scandal.

It revolves around this big Quebec company that did some illegal shit in Libya about 10 years ago.

But it’s really about how the then Attorney General was pestered by a bunch of people in the Prime Minister’s office to consider all the ramifications of putting the company on trial, not the least of which were the 9000 or so jobs the company represented in the province of Quebec and the possibility of this all being seen as some sort of influence peddling on the part of the PM’s office.

The opposition Conservatives, heavily influenced, but not represented, by the former PM and genuine scumbucket, Stephen Harper, started screaming blue murder about this, like they were innocent little lambs, conveniently ignoring all the scandals they created to the point where Canadians got sick of it all and booted them out of power.

The media, of course, jumped all over this like a dog with a bone and started speculating like crazy, even when they had no solid information or official testimony to go on.

The media in Canada have lately been taking a lot of their cues from all the success that sources like CNN are having spending the bulk of their day speculating about the dire consequences that the Trump administration is going to be facing when this or that shit hits the fan.

Trouble is this sort of sordid BS really does put bums in seats in front of the TV, where they are then exposed to all manner of big pharma ads, which are, if you listen carefully, almost as depressing as the so called news.

Canada, however is different. We don’t have all that many earth shattering scandals, and the SNC-Lavalin affair would hardly fit that description. The worst that is happening here is a little bad judgement and lack of team cohesion in the Cabinet.

And the weird part of it all is that none of this attempted tampering/cajoling actually did any good because the prosecution is going forward.

But it’s an election year and that means any chance the opposition Conservatives have of altering opinion is something they will jump on with both guns blazing.

The only trouble with that is that the Conservatives, thanks to Harper and their current leader Andrew ‘Little Dweeb’ Scheer, plus the added force of Ontario Premier Doug ‘The Slug’ Ford and a few other clowns out west, all look like they are in the pockets of big industry, and are all more than willing to privatize our most precious commodity, which is a health care system that is affordable for everyone.

This thinking is based on the American belief that health care is a business and not a human right. Which is course is shot from guns and why I would never want to live there. But since conservatives are not what you would call creative thinkers, they glom onto anything that looks like it will benefit the rich or the corporate world.

This of course has very little to do with any mandate to serve the people of Canada.

I followed this SNC -Lavalin mess since the beginning and frankly the only conclusion I have been able to arrive at is that this whole thing would never have seen the light of day, but for the desperation of the Conservatives to create a scandal and shift public opinion in their favour.

This is the work of political desperados. And it’s too bad that there are so many Canadians out there who have proven themselves to be easy to con. But I guess it’s that way in any society.

Kind of makes you wonder about the political system itself and how useful it actually is these days.

It also makes you wonder about how the media, especially in the advent of the 24 hour news channels, have become less the valuable objective information source and more the biased editorialist influencers.

My thought on all of this today was summed up in a little meme I made last week.

I leave you with that, and the hope that someday we will al grow up and stop giving so much cred to all the bullshit artists out there.

jim out