They can’t even organize a proper mutiny.
How pathetic, how telling, is that? For days, we’ve been hearing about the letter that Liberal MPs have been circulating, in which they ask – demand, implore – Justin Trudeau to leave.
Except: nobody has seen the “letter.” We don’t know if it exists, let alone what it does or does not say. More particularly, we don’t know which Members of Parliament signed it, if any.
A letter that reads like a resolution from a high school dance committee was leaked Wednesday, all full of verbiage and self-importance. Unsurprisingly, one of the authors of the missive is former Liberal Party president Alf Apps, who previously was heard from during the Ornge scandal and the Michael Ignatieff blip. Caveat emptor, etc.
If the letter was a rebellion about a clause in the federal Currency Act – which limits how many coins can be used in a single transaction (yes, it exists) – we’d shrug. So, too, section 365 of the Criminal Code, which was long ago crafted to prohibit witchcraft (yes, also real): who cares. Fill your boots, Sabrina.
But knowing whether (and which) Parliamentarians are scheming to overthrow a sitting prime minister? That one is kind of relevant. It’s important.
Nameless Liberal MPs – perhaps even one who represents you – don’t think you’re entitled to know any of that, however. They think bloodless coups don’t require the consent, or the knowledge, of you, the voter.
This writer has talked to members of the Liberal caucus about the ghost letter. They genuinely don’t know anything beyond what they see in the papers, and they think it’s all ridiculous.
Said one: “This is not how things are done.”
I’ll say. At least when the moronic Martinite mob rose up against my former boss, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, they had the gumption to attach their names to it. When they bellied up to the microphones, we knew who they were.
It was idiotic and self-destructive, and it (a) actually delayed Chretien’s departure and (b) immolated the Liberal Party for more than a decade. But at least it was a transparent, out-in-the-open exercise in total stupidity and self-destruction.
Not so this latest stunt. It’s gutless and the most unstrategic move in the recent history of Canadian politics (and that’s saying something).
Unstrategic how, you ask? Here’s how: I may not know much, but I know the Prime Ministerial Law of Physics: if you push one too hard, they’ll push back twice as hard. And they’ll stay longer than they planned to. Guaranteed.
That’s the main reason why Brian Lilley and I are tearing our hair out over the Mutiny of the Clownies. It all but guarantees that the Dauphin, the Boy Blunder, will stay even longer.
Wouldn’t you? If you’re surrounded by a bunch of political munchkins, wearing masks and kicking pebbles at your feet, are you going to flee? Are you going to retreat and be forever remembered for being defeated by a posse of nobodies who no one could pick out of a one-person lineup?
No, you wouldn’t. You’d say: “Sorry, munchkins. Several million Canadians voted for the party I was elected to lead, and that means I get to be prime minister.” And then you’d say something that we can’t print in a family-friendly newspaper, but we all know what it is. And you’d be right to do so.
There’s only three ways out of the office of the prime minister. One sees the Lord calling you home, and you getting carried out in a pine box.
One involves you walking out on your own, gleefully giving the finger to the assembled press hordes, and then heading off to the beach to write your memoirs.
And the final one is the right way: the people – us, the bosses – defeat you in an election, and you make haste to the aforementioned beach.
Not on the list? Being driven out by a gaggle of gutless nobodies with a “letter.”
That doesn’t work.
It won’t work now, either.