Chris Selley: Trudeau's mea culpa over his electoral reform debacle is truly mind boggling

I cannot recall seeing such an implausibly ambitious plea for clemency for such a transparently cynical record. It says a lot that he would even attempt it

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-trudeaus-mea-culpa-over-his-electoral-reform-debacle-is-truly-mind-boggling?fbclid=IwAR0_QI-8Pc3DWhOvuNQz5WnFWcqjudqQbgfGt2NAE2jHhxVTgMIDKKgeM9Y

Pre-campaign books about politicians are always interesting when the author gets significant access to the subject, because it gives the subject a chance to offer a well-thought-out and carefully considered case for his election or re-election to an impartial reporter. It’s not a press conference full of headline-hungry hacks marinating in Red Bull; it’s a civilized, coffee-scented sit-down with a journalist whom the candidate considers — at the very least — fair-minded and not liable to knife him in the back. With a greasy, no-holds-barred campaign in the offing, here’s his chance to make a more civilized case to the electorate.

Parliament Hill reporter Aaron Wherry’s new book, Promise and Peril: Justin Trudeau in Power, offers some fascinating insights along those lines, not least on the question of the Trudeau government’s signature debacle. I don’t mean SNC-Lavalin (although nothing is challenging it for second place). I mean the Liberals’ promise, later doubled and tripled down upon and then abandoned in jaw-dropping fashion, that 2015 would be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post system.