GOLDSTEIN: Canada — The Great Convenor of the Great Reset

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International Affairs Minister Melanie Joly gave us a glimpse into the mindset of the Trudeau authorities final week when she described Canada’s position in worldwide affairs as a convenor of conferences.

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“We’re a middle-sized energy and what we’re good at is convening and ensuring that diplomacy is occurring and convincing different international locations to do extra,” Joly stated on CTV’s Energy Play.

This interpretation of Canada’s position within the worldwide order is according to the Trudeau authorities’s notion of itself because the Nice Convenor of conferences within the Nice Reset — when the world will embrace inexperienced vitality, rising triumphantly from the pandemic, inflation, a world vitality disaster and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s struggle on Ukraine.

This shouldn’t be shocking given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s notion of his job, as described by then battle of curiosity commissioner Mary Dawson when she dominated in 2017 that he broke 4 sections of the Battle of Curiosity Act by accepting free holidays on the Aga Khan’s non-public island within the Bahamas.

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Trudeau instructed Dawson he didn’t have any considerations about taking part in a Might 2016 bilateral assembly with the Aga Khan, throughout which he reaffirmed a $15 million authorities grant to one of many Aga Khan’s charities agreed to by the Harper authorities, as a result of he didn’t take into account it a “enterprise assembly.”

This despite the fact that employees from the Prime Minister’s Workplace, senior authorities officers, then heritage minister Joly and representatives of the Aga Khan basis had been all current.

Dawson stated Trudeau instructed her he believed:

“The conferences he attends as Prime Minister will not be enterprise conferences. Slightly they’re high-level conferences centred in relationship constructing and making certain that every one events are shifting ahead collectively.

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“Particular points or particulars are labored out earlier than, subsequently or independently of any conferences he attends …

“He stated his position in any assembly is to additional develop a relationship between the person and Canada.”

Dawson rejected Trudeau’s argument, discovering he ought to have recused himself from this assembly and an earlier one with the Privy Council Workplace and that his failure to take action violated Part 21 of the Battle of Curiosity Act stating, “a public workplace holder shall recuse himself or herself from any dialogue, determination, debate or vote on any matter in respect of which she or he could be in a battle of curiosity.”

As Alex Marland, professor of political science at Memorial College in St. John’s instructed The Canadian Press on the time, whereas the PM’s position usually includes being a facilitator, “the prime minister is all the time working in a enterprise surroundings the second that particular person turns into prime minister. It’s completely ridiculous to me that you can someway say ‘no, I’m not doing this as prime minister’.”

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What Trudeau’s conduct within the Aga Khan affair revealed was his failure to know that how he perceives his position as prime minister is irrelevant to the problem of how others understand his position as PM, because the decider of presidency insurance policies.

It additionally demonstrates why Joly, in attendance on the Might 2016 assembly as Canada’s then heritage minister, would develop the view that Canada’s position in worldwide affairs is as a convenor of “excessive stage conferences centred on relationship constructing and making certain that every one events are shifting ahead collectively” with “particular points or particulars” to be labored out by others “earlier than, subsequently or independently of any assembly (Trudeau) intends.”

It’s as a result of that’s what her boss thinks. The issue is, that’s not management.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com