Politics and pride: an oft-interesting mix

Opinion

It was “pride week” in Canada last week. No, not the one you think. That is genuine and spirited meant to lift people up. This other pride week was political; it let people down. It came courtesy of Prime Minister Mark Carney, trucker convoy leader Tamara Lich, and former Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson.

Pride-swallowing was the order of the day for Carney during his Oval Office meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday. He laid it on thick. Buttering up the Buttercup-in-Chief, the prime minister lauded any Trump accomplishment he could think of to plant a positive vibe with this notoriously narcissistic man. He called him “transformative” and even sported a red tie in a “make like MAGA” sartorial gesture. It worked. Trump returned the gesture calling Carney “a world-class leader.”

For swallowing his own pride to try and get the president to rescind tariffs on Canada and get a renewed free trade deal with the United States, Carney was mocked by the opposition and media. “Elbows up” became “bending the knee.”

Nonsense. Carney was doing what he needed to do. Forge a closer, congenial relationship with the one and only person who matters in getting a deal good for Canada. Ego-stroking is a feature, not a bug, when it comes to diplomacy. Especially for Donald Trump. Carney’s pride swallowing was strategic and political not weak or personal. Not so long ago, Justin Trudeau was being equally pilloried for having no personal relationship with Trump. Now, it’s the opposite. The reality is that Carney sacrificed some personal pride and political currency for a greater good. If it works, none of the ‘ick’ anyone felt watching the PM’s very public Oval Office ovation for Trump will matter. If it doesn’t, then more than Canada’s pride will be hurt.

Then there’s the righteous pride of Tamara Lich. She received an 18-month conditional sentence after being found guilty of mischief and counselling others to ignore a court order during the Ottawa trucker convoy occupation. She was unremorseful. “I’ll serve 100 years in prison before I will ever apologize,” she said afterwards. “To whom shall I apologize?” she went on, “The thousands of Canadians who stopped planning to take their own lives when the convoy started?”

Nonsense. Public health measures and vaccines saved tens of thousands of lives in Canada. If “pride goeth before the fall,” according to the Book of Proverbs, then hubris always accompanies a fall. It fits with the martyr complex she and her comrades-in-arms have displayed from the outset. No remorse, no contrition, and no awareness of anyone but themselves. Were people in Ottawa “afraid, threatened, or terrorized”? Sure, she says, but that wasn’t her fault. It was because the mayor and government had labelled the convoy as “an angry mob coming to overthrow the government.”

Never mind that her fellow defendant, Chris Barber, publicly called for bringing “Canada to its knees” via the convoy protest. Never mind the convoy leadership issued a public “memorandum of understanding” calling for the Senate and Governor-General to force the federal government to “…uphold and enforce all Canadian and International Human Rights Laws that are clearly laid out in the MOU or RESIGN their lawful positions of authority Immediately.” When you’re in the right, pride dictates that everyone and everything else is wrong.

It was a case of defiant pride for defying convention by Heather Stefanson. She was fined $18,000 by the Legislative Assembly last week following a report by the province’s ethics commissioner that she acted improperly to try and issue an environmental permitting licence to Sio Silica after her party lost the last election. This was in defiance of the caretaker convention that forbids outgoing governments from making decisions binding on a new, incoming government.

Manitoba’s first female premier now achieves another more dubious “first.” She is the first premier to ever be sanctioned and fined by the legislature. Dismissive of the caretaker convention itself, according to the commissioner’s report, Stefanson has been equally dismissive of accepting any accountability for what she did. Her public response has been that since “no licence was issued to the applicant by my government,” nothing wrong was done.

Nonsense. Page after page of the report detailed her government’s active interference against the caretaker convention principle. “She had a higher leadership responsibility that she failed to meet,” wrote the ethics commissioner. How did the former premier exhibit leadership? A revealing excerpt from his report shows how. First, she sought an alibi. Then, she passed the buck. Finally, she backed the bus over two of her own colleagues. All in one text. “After she got off the phone … Ms. Stefanson texted Kelvin Goertzen and Ron Schuler at 10:12 p.m.” states the report: “Hi guys. Sorry to bother you but a very serious issue just came across my desk today where Jeff Wharton tried to ram through Sio silica permit using ministerial authority. I have diffused (sic) everything. But we need to chat. Derek (Johnson) was involved and I’m not sure I can trust him moving forward.”

Out of public life now, Stefanson is accountable to no one but her own conscience. It must be an uneasy living arrangement.

Unlike a peacock, this pride and politics plumage was an unedifying spectacle.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.