This was probably not the scenario Bill Morneau envisioned when he decided to leave his Bay Street executive position and run for the Liberals in the 2015 federal election.
The finance minister has quickly fallen from star candidate status to liability, as underlined by Prime Minister Trudeau’s awkward attempts to block reporters from questioning him while making an announcement aimed at mending the government’s relationship with small businesses.
Trudeau took questions from reporters this morning — even questions directed at Finance Minister Bill Morneau https://t.co/ho70NmFgpe pic.twitter.com/etIib5g9Ay
— CBC Politics (@CBCPolitics) October 16, 2017
“While Prime Minister Trudeau wanted to appear he was trying to get things back on track, it just raised more questions about his confidence in his finance minister and where they’re at in this whole mess,” says Kelsey Johnson, Ottawa-based agriculture reporter for iPolitics (on Twitter @johnsonthree), discussing the latest developments in the federal tax policy saga.
After months of criticism from the small business community, including farmers, the heat has been turned up on Morneau in recent weeks with the bungled plan to tax employee benefits and conflict-of-interest and ethics-related questions about his ties to Morneau Shepell and a villa in France.
Here’s our chat about the tax announcement made on Monday, whether it’s a ‘win’ for farmers, and why Bill Morneau is still the point-person for the Liberals as they wade through their own tax mess:
(We also chatted about another mess — NAFTA negotiations. Listen to that discussion here.)
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