Dollars for Dauphin hits a snag:
The New Brunswick nursing home charity demanding Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau return a $20,000 fee it paid him for a fundraiser last year spent $3.2-million on management and administration in 2012 compared to $2.3-million on its charitable programs, its report to Revenue Canada shows.
Hmm. If you're dumb enough to pay Justin Trudeau $20,000 to give a speech, you're probably dumb enough to mismanage your own finances.
The Prime Minister is no doubt delighted by Justin Trudeau's little difficulties. He hopes that people will forget the names Wright, Duffy and Wallin. Cutting a $90,000 check is one thing, taking money from widows and orphans, or something fairly close to that, makes for much better copy. Like I've said before in this space, Justin is Stephen's best friend. No matter what nonsense the PM gets up to, the leader of the third party will do something stupid to distract attention.
He's like a magic charm.
The speaking engagement stuff is pretty old. The Sun News Network covered the issue months ago. Apparently the MSM has finally picked up the story and run with it. The summer approaches and everyone is getting a bit tired of seeing Senator Duffy's bloated image on their TV screens 24/7. There's a good week or two of this issue to play out. Not much in the way of depth. Nothing illegal or technically unethical. Nigel Wright might have broken the law with his personal check. Justin Trudeau has, strictly speaking, done nothing wrong. But it looks really bad.
As everyone and their dog now knows Justin is the son of Pierre and Margaret. Justin's maternal grandfather was a cabinet minister, his paternal grandfather was a millionaire lawyer. The kid grew up at 24 Sussex Drive and has been swimming in money ever since. His career path has been set to gentle glide since graduating university, right at a moment in history when young people, even young people with useful skills, are having a hard time finding decent work.
While not unduly obnoxious, the Son and Heir does give off the impression of being entitled to his entitlements. A key difference between Justin and David Dingwall, who entered that famous phrase into the political annals, is that Dingwall actually sort of earned his entitlements. Young Justin believes he is entitled to get paid $20,000 for emitting the kind of bland platitudes other MPs emit for free. And why not? The other MPs are nobodies. Like daddy said.
A fool and his money are soon parted. Some of the money used to pay for Justin's amateur emoting was, unfortunately taxpayer money. If a private charity wants to waste their money, that's between them and their donors. If a school board wants to throw money at the Once and Future King, that is a public issue and one that should be examined. Perhaps they were trying to curry favour with someone who might one day be in a position of power. This sort of low grade lobbying happens all the time, which is the bigger scandal that the MSM is too bored and ignorant to care about.
One might hope that this is a sign that the MSM is turning on Justin. Though it probably isn't. The MSM has their pets but they also need good copy. From time to time personal favourites need to be sacrificed to meet deadlines. Nothing personal. Strictly business. The impact is minimal anyway. We're two years away from another election. Plenty of time to build up Justin into his father's worthy heir. If they should succeed it will cost the taxpayers a heck of a lot more than $20,000.
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