The Theatre of the Absurd
For those of us who enjoy watching political theatre, there was a double billing in Ottawa on July 28 and 30. The “Kielburger Keelhauling” played in a four-hour marathon on Tuesday, followed by the seemingly shipwrecked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his girl Friday, Katie Telford for almost as long on Thursday. These performances before the parliamentary finance committee proved good entertainment for the audience on live television, but with many lines definitely blurred between fact and fiction.
The Kielburger brothers, who cofounded the WE Charity, were trying to impersonate Bill Clinton’s appearance before the Grand Jury prior to his impeachment trial in 1998. His was a textbook display of non-answers and evasive tactics in dealing with Ken Starr’s prosecutors – reaching his zenith, or nadir, depending on your point of view – when he answered the lawyer: “It depends what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is?” He was known as Slick Willie in his native
Arkansas, and the Kielburger Kids tried their best to be just as slick, but certainly didn’t do themselves nor their multi-layered organization any favours.
Childish evasive tactics remained the order of the day when the PM spent 90 minutes before the same committee on Thursday, and those listening close enough could hear Little Richard’s early rock ‘n roll standard: “Slippin’ and
Slidin’” playing in the background, as he tried to be slick, too.
Following the PM’s most uncomfortable turn in the hot-seat, up rode Telford swearing to tell the truth as she took her turn in the saddle of the bucking bronco.
Many watching her on Thursday remembered that fictional moving bill she claimed as expenses when relocating from Toronto to Ottawa in 2015. A large chunk of the over $80,000 she charged taxpayers, including over $23,000 made out to herself in cash, had to be returned. Not a great start for someone pledging to bring transparency, honesty and integrity into the Prime Minister’s Office, but she’s now settled into her job of preparing her boss for parliamentary jousting.
Hopefully, the farcical fiasco at Ottawa’s Theatre of the Absurd goes into summer recess for a short while.
Bernie Smith Parksville, B.C.