Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has been demoted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, CTV News is reporting.
Mendicino, along with Justice Minister David Lametti and Treasury Board President Mona Fortier, have all been booted from cabinet.
4 other Liberal MPs out
So far, four other Liberal MPs have announced they won’t be seeking re-election, including Transportation Minister Omar Alghabra, the enforcer of vaccine travel mandates who oversaw the failed $55-million ArriveCan app. MP Carolyn Bennett, who has been living on the public’s dime since 1997, also announced her departure.
Mendicino was embroiled in controversy after controversy while he was Canada’s Public Safety Minister.
After news broke that one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers and rapists, Paul Bernardo, was being transferred from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security facility, Mendicino said the development was “shocking,” implying that was the first he had heard of the matter.
Since then, it has been revealed that Mendicino’s office was informed of the Bernardo prison transfer three months prior to Mendicino acting as if he knew nothing about it.
Mendicino and the Emergencies Act
And in April 2022, two months after the Trudeau Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act on the Freedom Convoy protesters and froze dissidents’ bank accounts, Mendicino said “it was on the advice of law enforcement that we invoked the Emergencies Act.”
In fact, he repeated that lie several times, including in the House of Commons.
According to the Ottawa police, they never asked for the Emergencies Act to be invoked. Then-RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki also said she never asked for it.
Mendicino subsequently attempted to walk back his claims.
Poilievre calls out Mendicino
“It’s clear that the Minister made false statements in the House of Commons,” Pierre Poilievre later said.
Poilievre added, “And it wasn’t just about something trivial. He wanted to give Trudeau cover to invoke the Emergencies Act, freeze people’s bank accounts, and trample on civil liberties.”
