‘Didn’t really clear anything up’

In his public remarks Thursday, Justin Trudeau conjured the memory of his father, saying his example had instilled a deep respect for justice in him.

Last week marked the 35th anniversary of Pierre Trudeau’s “walk in the snow,” a contemplative stroll during which he decided to resign as prime minister.

On Thursday, his son walked from his office through Ottawa’s snowy streets before television cameras to deliver a very different message at the press gallery.

He faced a significant challenge: defending his staff without appearing to undermine testimony from the widely respected Jody Wilson-raybould, who was the country’s first Indigenous attorney general.

Throughout the news conference, he affirmed much of Wilson-raybould’s account of the backroom manoeuvring to get her to cut a deal for Snc-lavalin, an engineering firm from his home province of Quebec facing corruption charges.

But he cast his involvement as a pure-minded effort to protect pensioners and jobs.

Peter Donolo, who was director of communications for a former Liberal prime minister, said Trudeau did not really clear anything up.

“This isn’t going to change anybody’s mind,” Donolo said of Trudeau’s remarks.

“I think he failed to show true contrition,” said Janet Brown, an independent pollster and political analyst based in Calgary. “There wasn’t a real acceptance of responsibility.”

Social media burned with posts criticizing him for not apologizing.

“He did express regret about the breakdown of the relationship,” said Andrew Mcdougall, a lecturer in political science at the University of Toronto. “Whether that was enough is another question.

“We’re at the point in this story where both sides have shared their views, so he was trying to just get it behind him,” he added. “Unless there’s more to come, it’s up to Canadians to decide who is telling the truth.”

Although in some ways the accusations seem mild — no money changed hands and no laws appear to have been broken — the political wreckage from the perception of back-room dealing by the government has been huge.

A weekly tracking poll released by Nanos Research on Tuesday put the Conservatives at 35 per cent public support, with the Liberals at 34 per cent. A Jan. 8 Nanos poll put the Liberals at 39 per cent and the Conservatives at 33 per cent.

With about seven months to go before a federal election, Trudeau tried to convince the country that he still believed in conducting politics in an open, transparent way.

He also tried to repair the damage caused by the resignations of the two female ministers — one, WilsonRaybould, a former Indigenous leader — and show that he remained a feminist and was still committed to righting the country’s wrongs against Indigenous people.