FORSETH: Expect the Liberals to go low

Despite the stunning electoral turnaround in the Toronto St Paul's byelection on June 24, Trudeau doubled down on his assertion that he is still being the man for the job. He will not resign. His ego is too big to accept that kind of accountability. Furthermore, there are no credible replacements. No, not even the untainted partial outsider Mark Carney. As for the cabinet, it is compromised as a normal course: any pretender to the throne would have to resign from that pack. Moreover, polls tell us that it would not matter who replaced Trudeau. The nation wants political change, and it is going to do it with a vengeance, regardless of who or what the Liberals put in the display window. They cannot 'empathize' or 'feel our pain' as a way out of this one.Nevertheless, the conniving Liberals will not go quietly. The dirty tricks and smear gang will be out in full force from now until at least after the next election. The Liberal off-book operatives that most MPs know little or anything about will leave a trail.It is an unspoken thing that stuff just happens against Liberal opponents and critics. No one seems to know where they come from, how they are organized, or how they are financed. Their deeds do not show as affiliated with Liberal Party money. Apparently, it is an under-the-table relationship of trading favours for later considerations.Take the SNC Lavalin scandal. It seemed a payoff time for the Liberals, so Trudeau and the PMO tried to fudge the system, but the newcomer Attorney General did not ‘cooperate’. Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould had not been part of the old "Liberal mafia-style culture." She would not play along, despite arm twisting and threats from every angle, so she was dumped from her job. She wrote a book about her story.However, the deeper story was the inexplicable motivations of Trudeau and the PMO on behalf of Lavalin. What was the real motivation for the PMO to act so unethically and bizarrely for no apparent benefit to Canada? Was it for past favours? There was also a cover-up within the company with a corporate Leadership change. The complicated mess seemed to be about insider favouritism and big money. Trudeau's extreme behavior risked Canada's reputation. For what reason? Remember that the SNC-Lavalin affair from 2018 is a political scandal involving the Prime Minister of Canada and the Prime Minister's Office interfering with the justice system. The Parliament of Canada's Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion found that Trudeau improperly influenced the-then Minister of Justice to intervene in an ongoing criminal case against Quebec-based construction company SNC-Lavalin by offering a deferred prosecution agreement.The nation should have realized from the beginning after the 2015 election that we were off to a twisting, turning unethical administration when Trudeau smiled and used his prepared line, "Well, it's 2015," just outside Rideau Hall after the swearing-in of the first cabinet. He started off with image over substance, and it has never improved. Here's another one. The Conservative administration of Stephen Harper had to contend with many adversaries. One of the strange ones was the "Stop Harper" campaign. It was an under-the-radar, well-organized, and well-financed dirty tricks caper that had "Liberal" written all over it. My point is that there is a huge gap between the pious Liberal rhetoric in and around Parliament, and their record of scandalous deeds. Canadians are catching on. Canada will just have to endure some more political pain in the coming months, before the final whimper.

FORSETH: Expect the Liberals to go low

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