MINISTER QUITS AMID SCANDAL
PM fires back as Wilson-Raybould exits cabinet, hires lawyer
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau often trumpets his devotion to the rule of law.
Now, the SNC-Lavalin scandal suggests the Liberals will overrule the law when it suits them.
This federal tendency is regionally selective, of course.
When the courts shut down the Trans Mountain pipeline last Aug. 30, the Liberals bravely took the ruling on the chin.
They bowed deeply to the rule of law and began more consultations. And that was it.
But when a giant Quebec company faces criminal prosecution on charges of corruption, the Liberals, including the PM himself, get on the phone.
The allegation is that former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to drop plans for criminal prosecution, in favour of a negotiated settlement without trial.
After the Globe and Mail broke the story last week, it simmered along for a few days, and then exploded Tuesday when Wilson-Raybould suddenly quit cabinet.
On Monday, Trudeau said the fact that she was still in his cabinet as veterans affairs minister showed there was no problem.
“Her presence in cabinet should actually speak for itself.” Now, so does her absence. After she quit, Trudeau harshly criticized his ex-minister, saying he was surprised and disappointed she left.
If she felt something was being done wrong she should have told him personally last fall, he said repeatedly. Two things about that. Wilson-Raybould has not said a public word about the allegations of pressure. That was reported by the Globe based on sources.
And Trudeau, while he was levelling his ex-minister, again didn’t explicitly deny she had been pressured.
The treatment was so tough you have to wonder if the PM is starting to worry about cabinet solidarity. Treasury Board president Jane Philpott put up a tweet effusively praising Wilson-Raybould.
The economic and political stakes are, of course, enormous. SNC-Lavalin does massive business abroad and across Canada. It has contracts with the Alberta government, including a big one at Foothills Hospital.
Quebec media and leaders stand solidly behind Lavalin, as they do Bombardier, despite the fishy odour both companies often exude. Any attack on them is an affront to the province.
It’s Quebec. A federal election is coming. Do we really imagine nothing would happen when Lavalin could end up in criminal court?
This pattern is so predictable that I find myself wishing the Liberals would try some tricky behaviour to get Trans Mountain moving. At least we’d know they care.
Wilson-Raybould is a B.C. First Nations woman and lawyer of high accomplishment, but little deep knowledge of Ottawa. For a newbie like her, a sacrificial faceplant on the reality of Canada was probably inevitable.
But she may not be done yet. Wilson-Raybould has engaged a former Supreme Court justice to advise her on what she’s able to say publicly.
The silence demanded by solicitor-client privilege may not apply to some aspects of her conversations about SNC-Lavalin.
(For the many mystified by these complexities, in her role as attorney general and justice minister, she was the solicitor and the government was the client.)
U of C law professor Lisa Silver, an expert on these matters, outlines the duty of a minister in that position who finds herself being improperly pressured from the political side.
“The minister’s role is to say, ‘You can’t call me up and say that — and, in fact, no, I’m not going to even talk to you about it.’
“And if there’s really a great deal of pressure, you’re supposed to get out of there — say, ‘I’m in conflict, my role as minister of justice and attorney general is being compromised and I’m out of there.’”
Now, Wilson-Raybould is indeed out of there — maybe a little late, but potentially dangerous to the Liberals because she obviously wants to talk.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald. dbraid@postmedia.com Twitter: @DonBraid Facebook: Don Braid Politics