As Paul notes, sources are now claiming Maxime Bernier tendered his resignation Monday morning and it was the Prime Minister’s Office who put off accepting it until the evening. This would seem to reflect negatively on both the Prime Minister’s afternoon statement and Mr. Bernier’s publicly released letter of resignation.
As Paul notes, sources are now claiming Maxime Bernier tendered his resignation Monday morning and it was the Prime Minister’s Office who put off accepting it until the evening. This would seem to reflect negatively on both the Prime Minister’s afternoon statement and Mr. Bernier’s publicly released letter of resignation.
And then there’s everything the likes of Peter Van Loan said in the House that fateful day. Let’s go to the highlight reel.“Mr. Speaker, our Minister of Foreign Affairs and our Prime Minister have been showing considerable leadership on the world stage…
“The Minister of Foreign Affairs has done a lot of good work with the Minister of International Cooperation…
“Mr. Speaker, today we had an example of the fine job the Minister of Foreign Affairs is doing, in the address by the President of Ukraine, who said that the people of Ukraine very much appreciated the position taken by the Government of Canada in support of his country’s membership in NATO. That is an example of the leadership provided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.”
And then, of course, there was all of this from the honourable House leader yesterday.
“With regard to the breach of the rules, however, as soon as the Prime Minister was aware that a cabinet rule had been breached, the Prime Minister took action.”
“Mr. Speaker, the mistake made by the member for Beauce was a mistake pertaining to classified documents. The Prime Minister took action as soon as he learned that cabinet rules were breached.”
“The Prime Minister’s Office had no information about the documents prior to yesterday. After he was informed of the situation, the Prime Minister took action.”
“This is something for which the government became aware of only yesterday and we took action immediately in that regard.”
“Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Prime Minister’s judgment, as soon as he heard about the documents, he took action and accepted the minister’s resignation.”
“He knew the rules with regard to documents. We take those rules seriously. As soon as we were aware of the problem action was taken.”
For good measure, when confronted with the suggestion that this government too often fails to be forthcoming, Van Loan offered this: “Mr. Speaker, the government is quite happy to tell the truth.”