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John Ivison: Patty Hajdu just put her foot in it again, and she can only be boosting Tory unity
There have been several occasions when the jobs minister has repeated with absolute confidence supposed facts that were subsequently found to be less than accurate.
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Nothing is likely to shore up Conservative esprit de corps like the sight of Patty Hajdu rising in the House of Commons and accusing the Official Opposition of being “against Canada.”
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There have been suggestions that Mark Carney has forged a kind of “national unity government” that is luring MPs to cross the floor from both the Conservatives and NDP. The latest floor-crosser, Marilyn Gladu, said she wanted to become part of Carney’s Build Canada agenda.
John Ivison: Patty Hajdu just put her foot in it again, and she can only be boosting Tory unity Back to video
But in an exchange during question period on Monday, there was a stark reminder that this government may have a new roof, but its foundations are built on the progressive wedge politics of the Justin Trudeau era.
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Conservative co-deputy leader Melissa Lantsman accused the Carney Liberals of doubling the deficit and “sending the bill to Canadian kitchen tables … doubling the Food Bank lineups and doubling the rent.”
The guilty men and women, she said, are “the same characters, sitting in the same seats, saying the same things” as during the Trudeau era.
The accusation clearly stung Hajdu, who proceeded to prove Lantsman’s point.
Hajdu has been a minister for more than a decade, despite some high-profile howlers.
She said on Monday that Canadians have been pulling together to build Canada strong. “(But) it doesn’t matter the solutions we propose, those guys are against Canada and Canadians,” she said.
The charge drew howls from the Conservatives and a rebuke from the Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia, who said members should avoid impugning motives.
But the truth is that Hajdu has rarely proposed “pulling together.” Her outlook was conditioned in the early years of the Trudeau government — an unshakeable belief that the progressive vision of expanded social spending, political correctness and environmental concerns was not only correct but on a higher moral plane. Those who disagreed were not only wrong but uninformed, irresponsible and motivated by an unworthy purpose.
To illustrate, when she was status of women minister from 2015-17, she pre-judged the inquiry on murdered and missing Indigenous women, by saying that racism and sexism were embedded within institutions intended to protect women, and that “endemic” gender-based violence was due to colonialism.
By 2018, she was employment minister, responsible for the Summer Jobs program that provided grants to small businesses and organizations to hire students for the summer.
On her watch, applicants had to tick a box affirming that they respected the values underlying the Charter of Rights, including women’s reproductive rights and the rights of gender diverse and transgender Canadians.
When she was asked about it in the House, she hit back: “Is the member saying she is opposed to reproductive freedom?”
Regardless of your views on abortion — and I am pro-choice — being made to tick a box affirming support for it to access government funding was a clear infringement of freedom of expression.
Liberal MPs at the time complained that it created “an enormous bubble of frustration” in the country and that it was Hajdu, rather than Trudeau, who refused to back down.
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By 2019, she was promoted to health minister, just in time for the pandemic, during which she was excluded from briefings to the prime minister by the Public Health Agency.
As the government’s chief spokesperson for vaccines, rapid testing and other life and death issues, she courted controversy on an almost weekly basis.
She told reporters that border measures were highly ineffective the week before Canada closed its border.
She said rapid testing was responsible for “worsening the outbreak” in other jurisdictions, even though Health Canada had approved a number of antigen tests.
She took repeated flights to her home in Thunder Bay, Ont., on “pressing constituency business” while advising others against non-essential travel.
She criticized reporters who questioned whether data from China could be trusted by saying they were “feeding conspiracy theories” and insisting that China had “very early on” alerted the World Health Organization to the emergence of COVID (the WHO team investigating the origins of the virus later said China refused to hand over key data).
When she was asked in the House whether Canadians should take the first vaccination shot offered or wait for the promised mRNA vaccines, she advised Canadians to seek medical advice. Later that day, Trudeau said Canadians should take the first shot that was made available.
There have been other occasions when Hajdu has repeated with absolute confidence supposed facts that were subsequently found to be less than accurate.
But the point is made. I don’t know the minister and I bear her no ill will. However, the charge that Conservative MPs are “against Canada” is as 2024 as Pierre Poilievre’s fondness for verbing the noun.
The upside for the Conservative leader is that the whiff of Liberal arrogance wafting across the aisle will do more to restore party unity on the Opposition side of the House than anything he could say or do.
National Post jivison@criffel.ca Twitter.com/IvisonJ
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