Last we heard, the former MP from Maryam Monsef’s Peterborough electoral district was still arguing over the length of his prison sentence. Former MP Dean Del Mastro, having failed to do the honourable thing by committing ritual seppuku after being found guilty of election fraud, has continued various appeals against his conviction. Maybe he likes seeing pictures of himself in prison shackles. News editors certainly do.
And if you think that the Del Mastro incident should be cautionary, Minister Monsef has now been compared to the irrepressible Paul Calandra, the gone but hardly forgotten Conservative MP from Oak Ridges—Markham. Mind you, that comparison could be overkill. Instead of dealing in facts answering questions for the former prime minister, Calandra told the House fairy tales.
Though it is often difficult to write about the outrages of our parliamentarians in Ottawa with a straight face, political commentator Chantal Hèbert might have been reaching in her recent article in the Toronto Star to cast Monsef as being as obfuscating as the infamous Calandra. The basic difference just might be that Calandra knew what he was doing. Monsef, in taking her turn, might just be as naïve as she appears. We suspect that in last year’s election, Monsef’s pet gerbil could have put on a red jacket and won Kawartha–Peterborough riding for the Liberal Party.
But we need to bear in mind that Maryam Monsef MP is not the most experienced gerbil in parliament. Her ego might be getting ahead of her intelligence. Her only previous political experience was a run at being elected mayor of Peterborough. That endeavour ended poorly.
But our newly minted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got this crazy, but charming, idea of having a balanced gender cabinet. It was a great idea but he had to sort through a limited number of female candidates to come up with enough material for a cabinet. Ms. Monsef might not have been a first choice. She might look nice but her answers in parliament are not the most scintillating. So far, she has been propped up in her job by House Leader Dominic LeBlanc but he has his own fish to fry.
And nobody is convinced of Ms. Monsef’s knowledge of Canada’s democratic institutions nor of her management skills to run even a small department. Her limited experience with the voting systems of Iran and Afghanistan would have to be discounted as she left that part of the world when very young. Frankly Justin Trudeau should have given her more time to learn the ropes of an MP before throwing the democratic institutions portfolio at her.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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