National Post (National Edition)
PM needs to ‘man up,’ Saskatchewan Liberal says
REGINA• Justin Trudeau cancelled a trip to Regina on Tuesday and not all Saskatchewan Liberals were disappointed.
The president of the Saskatchewan Liberals says local members are divided on whether the federal party should replace Trudeau as leader in light of continuing fallout from the Snc-lavalin affair.
Reid Hill, who is also a member of the Liberal Party of Canada executive for the Regina-lewvan riding association, said the mood among local Liberals is one of “frustration.”
“Especially the federal members,” said Hill, “it’s hitting them hard.”
The Saskatchewan Liberals are separate from the federal party, but many — including Hill — are members of both.
Earlier Tuesday, Trudeau’s office cancelled two Regina events for the prime minister and he returned to Ottawa to deal with the burgeoning scandal.
Hill said few want to abandon the party. But he’s heard that many are nonetheless “pissed” about the affair, which centres on allegations that politicians and senior officials pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-raybould to spare the Montrealbased engineering firm Snc-lavalin a criminal trial on bribery charges.
Though there are some who will stand by Trudeau no matter what, Hill has heard from others who want the party to change its approach to the ensuing “mess.”
“Either he just needs to man up and admit it, or it’s maybe we need to have a discussion moving toward the election on who leads the party,” he said.
“If there’s no way out of this, and a loss or reduction to a minority is coming, what is the answer out of this? Do we have the discussion of is it all on one man? Does Trudeau have to take the fall here?”
Hill’s read on the situation is not shared by all. Another well-connected federal Liberal in Saskatchewan, who did not want to go on the record to comment on the Snc-lavalin case, said she doesn’t know of any Liberals in Saskatchewan who are divided on the matter.
“There may be some,” the party member said. “If so they haven’t told me.”
Hill’s comments came the day after Treasury Board President Jane Philpott quit cabinet. In her resignation letter Monday, she said she had “lost confidence” in how the government was dealing with the Snc-lavalin affair.
Trudeau was set to visit a Regina Canadian Tire store on Tuesday to discuss how residents could use their carbon tax rebate payments to save money at home. He was then scheduled to speak at the Conexus Arts Centre in support of “inspiring women” to become Liberal members of Parliament.
Hill said he knows party members who had bought tickets to attend and were “100-per-cent disappointed” to hear the evening talk had been cancelled that morning. But others may have seen it as a blessing. He suspects that recent events may have affected the party’s chances of picking up another seat in the Regina area.
“Do we even want him to come out here because of this? That’s also a discussion,” said Hill. “If he comes out here is that even going to hurt us more? Probably.”
According to the party, Trudeau had to return to Ottawa Tuesday for “private meetings.” According to a web posting of Trudeau’s itinerary, the meetings will continue into Wednesday when his former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, testifies before a Commons committee probing the affair.
Jim Farney, head of the politics and international studies department at the University of Regina, said the cancellation is almost certainly due to Philpott’s resignation.
“I think it’s moving into crisis mode,” he said. “You’ve lost your Treasury Board minister essentially two-and-a-half weeks before the federal budget drops. You’re going to have to do another cabinet shuffle. You’ve got what amounts to a revolt in cabinet on a scale that we’ve never seen in Canadian politics and you probably don’t have a really good sense of where your caucus is at — so you’ve got to get home.
“You’ve got to sit down and make sure everybody stays loyal.”
The Snc-lavalin affair isn’t the first time a gulf has opened up among Saskatchewan Liberals due to decisions in Ottawa. Hill pointed to the federal carbon pricing backstop as another difficult issue for members of the provincial party.
“It is one of the largest divisive topics in the Saskatchewan Liberal Party,” Hill said.
He places the latest crisis in a similar category. It shows how much the federal party has “pandered” to Quebec, in his view, as well as to Ontario. Hill thinks both issues can be seen as symptoms of the heavy influence eastern provinces have on federal politics.
“We expect it to happen,” he said, “and basically it drives us nuts.”
YOU’VE GOT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A REVOLT IN CABINET.