Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that former Liberal cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett will become Canada's new ambassador in Denmark. Ms. Bennett rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, June 1, 2023.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Carolyn Bennett is among the kindest, most well-meaning politicians to serve in Parliament in recent years. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should not be appointing her as the next ambassador to Denmark.
Ms. Bennett, a medical doctor, is smart and experienced in public policy, and though her level of fluency in Danish is not a matter of public record, she wouldn’t be the first language-challenged Canadian envoy in Copenhagen. And her appointment, announced Wednesday, is far from the first time a former cabinet minister has been named to an ambassadorial post.
Who, one might ask, would begrudge her a fin-de-carrière European posting from what looks a lot like a fin-de-régime Liberal government?
Yet Ms. Bennett just happens to be one of those MPs who decided last year not to run for re-election, in a riding, Toronto-St. Paul’s, that just happens to be one of the safest Liberal seats. Her departure from politics for an ambassadorial posting opens an opportunity for someone else, and coincidentally, a former chief of staff to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland who recently left Ottawa, Leslie Church, is running for the Liberal nomination there.
Of course, people eventually move on. That’s what happened with Rodger Cuzner, the gregarious former Liberal MP from Cape Breton who was appointed to the Senate in October. People in Ottawa, even political opponents, like Mr. Cuzner. He served 19 years in the Commons, so the new senator has legislating experience.
And since Mr. Cuzner left his post as Canada’s consul-general to Boston, he made room for Mr. Trudeau to appoint Bernadette Jordan, another former Liberal MP from Nova Scotia.
No rules were broken. And the Boston consulate has been a regular sinecure for both Liberal and Conservative political appointees. But the pattern doesn’t look so great.
Those are the kinds of things that add doubts about whether a government’s priorities are out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Canadians. And that’s especially true with governments that are long in the tooth – sometimes they don’t seem to even see the problem.
In 1984, prime minister John Turner lost the federal election after Brian Mulroney clobbered him in a debate for not cancelling predecessor Pierre Trudeau’s patronage appointments – “You had an option, sir!” Mr. Mulroney made a raft of late-tenure patronage appointments, too. And his successor, Jean Chrétien, appointed minister Alfonso Gagliano, a key figure in the sponsorship scandal, as ambassador to Denmark.
Liberal partisans might have no problem with these appointments. Most people won’t pay too much attention to any particular one. But as the Liberals try to get their stalled popularity to lift off, these things will weigh them down.
Which brings us to Mr. Trudeau’s family vacation at a $9,300-a-night resort in Jamaica, where, as the Prime Minister noted pointedly on Wednesday, no rules were broken.
The Conservatives who called the Commons ethics committee to investigate must also know no rules were broken. That’s presumably why MPs Michael Barrett and Larry Brock opened by noting that a sizable number of Canadians were visiting food banks at Christmas while Mr. Trudeau was on this free holiday.
The point they were making isn’t really about rules. It’s that Mr. Trudeau is not like you: “He was born of privilege. He maintains a lifestyle of privilege,” Mr. Brock said.
The Conservative argument that Mr. Trudeau’s free stay at a resort owned by long-time family friend Peter Green amounts to an $84,000 gift doesn’t make it a breach of ethics rules. The existing rules say public office holders can accept gifts from friends.
But the Tories enjoyed pointing out that Mr. Trudeau has friends who give him vacations worth more than the average annual Canadian salary. And the Prime Minister played into their hands by protesting that like many Canadian families, he spent holidays at a friend’s place. He doesn’t see a difference.
Everyone always knew Mr. Trudeau isn’t an ordinary Joe. By now, most Canadians know he stays at the properties of fabulously wealthy friends. He stayed at Mr. Green’s last year. And the first time he fell afoul of the ethics rules was a 2016 vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island. Then-ethics commissioner Mary Dawson found that the Aga Khan wasn’t close enough to count as a friend, at least not for the purpose of vacation-gifting.
The Aga Khan trip was a political mistake. Luckily, Mr. Trudeau has closer friends with other fabulous vacation properties. Apparently, no rules were broken. But another mistake was added to the pile.