Some lies come back to haunt you, Mr. Carney

Did he lie?

Politicians fib all the time, unfortunately. Some of them, like Donald Trump, lie a lot and get away with it.  They’re mostly forgiven.

But some lies, some falsehoods, some untruths - some misstatements, to use the Nixonesque phrasing - aren’t forgivable. They’re lies about big and important things. Voters remember those.

So, did Mark Carney lie about the Gordie Howe International Bridge fiasco?

Sure looks like it. Sure seems that way. When the sordid details seeped out, like sewage, it became apparent that Mark Carney had been far less than forthright.  Canadians had paid to build the Gordie Howe bridge, but Trump refused to let it open on his side until he got what he wanted - half of the net revenue, paid into a fund totally controlled by the Americans.

A couple weeks ago, Mark Carney was asked about those details, which his government had tried to keep secret. Carney said Canada would only split net profits with the Yanks - not net revenue. (Big difference.)

This week, Carney was confronted with the yawning gap between what he said, and what we now know. The Prime Minister was, as he usually is with impertinent media people asking questions he doesn’t like, a supercilious aristocrat. Said he: “Could I have explained it better on a Sunday morning at Stampede, with a cowboy hat on? Yes, I could have explained it better.”

Ah yes, the old Wearing A Cowboy Hate At Stampede defence. Works every time.

Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar - who, full disclosure, is a good friend and the representative for the Calgary neighbourhood where this writer grew up, a short C Train ride  South of the Stampede grounds - has been focussed, laser-like, on the bridge bungle. Shuv, as he is called, is a human rights and foreign affairs expert, and he was in Windsor Friday morning to make some important points about Carney’s abject failure to tell the truth.

“The agreement directly contradicts what the Prime Minister told Canadians after announcing the bridge,” Majumdar wrote in a letter to the Minister in charge, Dominic LeBlanc. “It’s time to come clean and tell Canadians where our money is actually going.”

Earlier, Majumdar was even more direct: "Canadians are sick and tired of being made into a punching bag by President Trump and have the self-respect to fight for their existence and their country. They deserve a government that is willing to do the same thing.”

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