There are countries in this world that are trying to cope with genuine, history-altering issues. Venezuela has a despised president who will not leave. The United States has the political train wreck of Donald Trump. Britain has the inept Theresa May and her self-inflicted Brexit disaster. New Zealand, that most peaceable of countries, suddenly confronts the slaughter of Muslim citizens while they are at prayer.
Canada, for lack of genuine trauma, turns a molehill into a mountain. The government is in crisis and may be thrown out of office in October. Over what? Over – let us remember – over a disagreement as to whether the pressure brought to bear on the country's attorney general by her cabinet mates and political colleagues was "appropriate" or "inappropriate."
There was a genuine difference of opinion among them, a disagreement. Her colleagues thought the pressure was appropriate; she thought it inappropriate. But no one ordered the attorney general to do anything. Her original decision – to confirm the decision made by her director of public prosecutions to proceed with criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin – still stands. Yet the government has been under unrelenting siege for 47 days over a difference of opinion: at what point does "appropriate" become "inappropriate?"
Geoffrey Stevens: Playing with fire in the SNC-Lavalin farce
Canada, for lack of genuine trauma, turns a molehill into a mountain.
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