Some years ago, the brilliant Quebec journalist Antoine Robitaille was keeping a notebook entitled Mots et maux de la politique (roughly Words and Woes of Politics). In it, he catalogued some of the more delectable slips of the tongue to escape the mouths of politicians in the province, in order to offer us something both humorous and dark, even tragic. I borrow his expression here because the current federal government’s lofty ambitions, proclaimed on the campaign trail, may soon unfold before us in a veritable tragicomic circus.
In recent weeks, a number of federal political commentators have started to wonder about the modus operandi of the Liberal government, as it is about to enter its tenth year in power.