Old Boys Club is still in command

SNC scandal reveals little has actually changed

In 2006, the Tories enacted an eye-glazer called the Federal Accountability Act, which created the independent director of public prosecutions. The legislation was a campaign promise made by former prime minister Stephen Harper and was designed to stop the type of political interference in the justice system that the Liberals had indulged in for years.

The Act provided “conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability.”

The rule required that the newly created position of public prosecutions would be answerable only to the country’s attorney general and be politically independent. Unless otherwise instructed by the attorney general, the director had the authority to make binding and final decisions.

This Act is what the current scandal in Ottawa is all about. But the underlying issue is really about gender. Put simply, the Ottawa Old Boys Club exerted its authority inappropriately — a manoeuvre still commonplace even as females move onto cabinets, boards, managements and politics.

The origin of all this kerfuffle is that former Liberal attorney general Jody Wilson-raybould adhered to this Act, repelling an assault by high-ranking Liberal colleagues to intervene in the prosecutorial process.

The “Boys” pushback began with the chief of staff of the finance minister, then the finance minister, then the prime minister’s principal secretary, then the prime minister, and finally the clerk of the Privy Council. There were phone calls and meetings between September and December to get her to change her mind, culminating in her removal in January as attorney general and her replacement with a man who has indicated he is favourable toward giving the Boys Club what they wanted from her.

Clearly, the targets of the barrage were all female from the attorney general to her female chief of staff, her female deputy minister and, indirectly, the female director of public prosecutions. When it was all over, the attorney general and her chief of staff lost their jobs.

The prime minister characterized this controversy as “an erosion of trust” that he should have recognized. But this analysis is an excuse. Wilson-raybould said she repeatedly explained her position, the law, and that she had made up her mind. She also asked them to stop their efforts, but they escalated the process by utilizing increasingly important men to lobby her. They heard her arguments, but did not listen. She said they told her they needed a “solution,” a euphemism insulting to her because she had followed the law by upholding the director of prosecutions.

In his testimony, Trudeau’s former principal secretary Gerald Butts said the two sides had “different perspectives” and that there was nothing inappropriate about the process. But two days before he spoke, Wilson-Raybould’s fellow Liberal cabinet minister, Jane Philpott, had a different opinion and quit cabinet on principle precisely because of the process.

There are a few lessons to draw from all this. For starters, thank goodness for the Act, or “Harper’s law,” as Wilson-raybould said Butts disdainfully labelled it. Secondly, Canada’s current cabinet may have equal gender representation, but the Boys Club is in charge.

Lastly, women are collaborative and use language in that way. They also expect their male counterparts to do the same. But they don’t, as Butts illustrated in his opening remarks. He said he wasn’t there to quarrel with Wilson-raybould, or to say a negative word, but then he archly said he would give “evidence” that her version of events was “very different” (read inaccurate).

The bottom line is that men respect and seek authority and expect their female counterparts to align with this.

Wilson-raybould assumed her male colleagues would respect her decision and the prime minister and his “men” expected that authority would work until it didn’t. Then they sidestepped her.