The Oliphant Inquiry

The more that I see of this Oliphant Inquiry, the more embarrassed I am as a Canadian that we are even doing this. Yes, it was requested by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in an attempt to clear his name. He had been cleared of criminal wrong doing in court, likely aided by the fact that the principal witness continuously changes his testimony and admits to lying in signed documents when it suits his purpose. He has no credibility as a witness, and it was not until he was facing deportation to Germany on charges of fraud and corruption, that he started making shocking “new” accusations in an attempt to remain in Canada where he would be needed as a witness.

I understand where the current PM would grant a former PM’s request for an Inquiry to clear his name. The only reason that it is necessary is because the CBC, led in large part by Don Newman, frequently headline all Schreiber related nonsense as urgent breaking news that is as Newman would say "very interesting". Even during this current testimony, where the witness is being caught in lies and deceit time and time again, Donny is reporting on Schreiber statements of alleged Mulroney criminal acts and hypothesizing what that would mean in a court of law if it were true. But of course that would never be accepted in a court of law because the man saying it is a confessed liar who will say anything he can to avoid extradition to Germany to face fraud charges. This is crazy.

Again, I don’t blame Stephen Harper for trying to put some distance between Mulroney and the current government before this charade started. Based on how the CBC is reporting it, clearly the downside of being associated with unsubstantiated, unproven allegations outweighs the positives of Mulroney being cleared. All it takes is a simple cost/benefit analysis in a Game Theory Matrix to see how what Harper did was the right thing to do. Even so, there is likely a price to pay in the PC wing of the Conservative Party; I just hope that my “progressive” colleagues don’t listen to the Chantal Hebert’s of the world who are telling them that this mess will lead to them voting for the Liberal Party. Perhaps you might view Michael Ignatieff as a solid alternative, but I would urge you to at least wait for him to unveil some semblance of a policy platform before altering which party you support. I am not predicting that his policies will be destructive; I just have no idea what they may be because he won’t say anything beyond vague and convoluted platitudes.