Pinocchio and the Woodpecker

That headline describes our Prime Minister and his Deputy succinctly.

 Trudeau can lie with a straight face, with passion, or with tears, but without a shred of remorse.
 
Freeland punctuates her lies with hand gestures and a frequent bobbing of her head to emphasize her sincerity, making her resemble a woodpecker.
 
Neither connects their statements with a duty to follow through with action. They talk at us, not to us, and ignore their ethical and fiduciary responsibilities to the public.
 
Governments have no money. They are stewards of money confiscated from the people they are sworn to serve through an increasingly complex taxation system.
 
Governments have no lawful authority to engage in charity. If governments decide they want to provide funds to a local charity, they should be required to pass the hat and make personal contributions.
 
Government cannot engage in foreign aid at present. The funds they administer are for the benefit of a province or Canada. While the province or the nation is mired in debt, spending on foreign aid must be illegal. Balancing the books is not sufficient. The accumulated debt must be paid down first.
 
The Prime Minister and his Deputy are adept at avoiding the regular sitting of the House of Commons and the debates and questions that proper business entails. Instead, they have avoided calling or recalling parliament since June 22, 2019. The Fall session, 2019, lasted for seven days.
 
The Spring session 2020 lasted for 24 days. On March 13, 2020, parliament was suspended due to COVID-19. The suspension was extended in April over the objections of Conservative MPs.
 
On May 26, a third suspension was approved until September 21 and was opposed by Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs. That motion included provisions for a June 17 sitting day to review and approve government spending and four sitting days during the summer.
 
Instead of regular sitting days, the government agreed to create a temporary COVID-19 committee made up of all MPs. Under the current extension rules, it met four days a week until June 18. The latest version of the committee allows some MPs to be in the House and others to participate remotely via videoconference. Before the May 26 agreement, the committee generally met twice a week online and once a week in person. The COVID-19 committee ceased to exist after its 25th meeting on June 18.
 
The Liberal government calls the COVID-19 committee a virtual Parliament, but Conservative MPs say it is a fake Parliament. While the temporary committee allows opposition MPs to question the government, the committee doesn’t debate or propose legislation.
 
Other differences with regular sittings include the lack of opposition days where an opposition party can control the agenda and put forward a motion for a vote. Rule changes have also limited the opposition’s ability to receive written responses to questions, which are normally a major tool used by opposition MPs to force the disclosure of spending details and other information that can be embarrassing to the government.
 
Parliament was due to resume on September 21, 2021, but the Prime Minister and Deputy avoided that by calling an election. Another successful dodge of accountability.
 
With the election behind them, the Prime Minister and Deputy are in no hurry to get down to the business of governance. They need time to contemplate. A new Cabinet has to be sworn in.
 
Parliament will not resume sitting until November 22 and will recess on December 17 until January 31. That will add 20 sitting days to the 2021 Calendar. The first five days will be taken up by the election of a Speaker, election of Committee Chairs and other routines of a new parliament. That leaves 15 days to transact business, and the backlog is enormous.
 
We have endured pronouncements by Trudeau, Freeland and various Ministers since March 2020. There have been no debates or votes by parliament. The meetings and votes of the COVID committee cannot replace parliament.
 
The Prime Minister and Deputy have engineered a vaccine mandate for parliament in a purely cynical effort to embarrass opposition members. They violate Charter Section 3 - Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein. So much for our rights and freedoms.
 
Adding fuel to the “we don’t give a damn about people” attitude of this government was Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough’s announcement about shifting the government’s COVID-19 support programs from ones that were more “passive” to those that “incentivize work.”
 
Depending on workplace policies, unvaccinated people could be turned away from a job or barred from returning to work, making them ineligible to claim unpaid leave or unemployment insurance (EI).
 
“There won’t be any government support. They’re considering it that they’ve voluntarily left their job, so they wouldn’t be eligible for Employment Insurance.”
 
Governments have designated unvaccinated people as enemies of the state and society. They claim that unvaccinated people are uncooperative and a danger to others. COVID is a virus, unvaccinated people are not.

Governments are demanding submission, not co-operation. There is a vast difference.
 
(I am betting on the Woodpecker to replace Pinocchio. Oh the joy!)