OUT... BUT FAR FROM OVER
TRUDEAU GOES ON THE ATTACK AFTER WILSON-RAYBOULD’S SHOCK RESIGNATION
In the words of parody news anchor Ron Burgundy: “Boy, that escalated quickly."
Jody Wilson-raybould’s letter resigning from cabinet Tuesday — in which she thanked all Canadians but, conspicuously, not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — has left the impression that we have a caricature of a government, as buffoonish and clueless as Burgundy and his news team.
Trudeau, a self-proclaimed feminist, appears to have been mansplaining when he said Wilson-raybould’s presence in cabinet “should speak for itself.” A matter of hours later, the former justice minister tendered her resignation, which really does speak for itself. She obviously did not agree with Trudeau’s characterization of events Monday, when he said Wilson-raybould had confirmed to him that in their conversation about Snc-lavalin in the fall, the prime minister had told her any decision involving the director of public prosecutions was hers alone. Did Trudeau let Wilson-raybould in on how he was going to characterize that conversation? Apparently not.
Events are rapidly spinning out of control and Trudeau looks like a prime minister who acts impetuously and fails to think through the consequences of his actions.
The Liberals clearly felt they had contained the fallout from the allegations, first reported Thursday by the Globe and Mail, that the Prime Minister’s Office pressured Wilson-raybould to intervene in the criminal prosecution of Snc-lavalin.
David Lametti, Wilson-raybould’s successor as attorney general and justice minister, told the Canadian Bar Association Monday that, while he sits at a certain distance from his cabinet colleagues, he does not sit in isolation. “But there is a line that cannot be crossed. Telling the attorney general what a decision ought to be: that would be interference.”
Lametti believes the government in which he sits was on the right side of that line.
Trudeau’s assertion that he had told Wilson-raybould it was her decision whether to take over the SNC case from the director of public prosecutions and negotiate a remediation deal that would essentially let the Quebec engineering company off the hook suggests something short of “interference” applies here.
Prior to Wilson-raybould’s bombshell resignation, it was a safe bet no one would be able to prove anyone in the PMO crossed the line Lametti described.
There must have been high hopes that Wilson-raybould would stick to the script.
After all, she had accepted another cabinet post, even while apparently being demoted for not doing her boss’s bidding on SNC.
But in her resignation letter, she said she has retained retired Supreme Court justice Thomas Cromwell as counsel, seeking guidance on what she can say publicly. This affair might have been starved of oxygen without fresh information, but not now.
The blame for this turn of events may lie with whomever whispered in the ear of a reporter from The Canadian Press at the weekend that Wilson-raybould was known to be “in it for herself” and “very Jody-centric.”
You don’t resign from cabinet, with its $82,000 salary top-up and chauffeur-driven car, unless you are seriously aggrieved.
we must stand together for the values that canada Is built on JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD
I was surprised and disappointed by Jody’s decision. JUSTIN TRUDEAU
It is a valid question why she wasn’t disturbed enough to refuse the position of veterans affairs minister when it was offered in the first place.
But now she’s out of cabinet, and potentially out of the Liberal caucus (she said Tuesday she will continue to sit as the MP for Vancouver-granville). She remains bound by solicitor-client privilege but the pressure on Trudeau to waive it will be irresistible.
In what is turning out to be an annus horribilis for the Liberals, a local difficulty has just become an existential crisis.
Ironically, Trudeau’s salvation may be processes already in place: the justice committee and the investigation by the ethics commissioner (if it can be expedited before the election in October).
Mario Dion has said he will scrutinize the Snclavalin affair to see if any public office holder contravened section nine of the Conflict of Interest Act, by using his or her position to influence the decision of another person to further the private interests of a third party.
Dion told the CBC recently he hates it when his office is described as a “lapdog.” He said he would rather be criticized for being too tough than too lenient. He is only one year into a seven-year term.
It may be that if he finds evidence of wrongdoing, the incentive will be to crack down hard to help the miscreants out the door, rather than be cowed for fear of repercussions.
But on the evidence available (which is scant to be sure) it is hard to see a scenario where laws have been broken.
If Dion judges Trudeau to have lied about the conversation with Wilson-raybould in the fall, or if someone in the PMO is deemed to have breached section nine of the act, then the government will have been found guilty of that most egregious of administrative sins — the bungled cover-up.
Impetuous and short-sighted as Trudeau is, this seems unlikely. Sources outside the Prime Minister’s Office say Wilson-raybould was asked by the PMO to take over the SNC file from the director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, on the grounds that a successful conviction of SNC could block it from bidding for federal contracts for 10 years and result in thousands of job losses in politically sensitive Quebec.
Yet she refused. So while there were discussions, likely heated discussions, there does not appear to have been “interference.” SNC has appealed Roussel’s decision not to negotiate a remediation deal and the case is currently before the courts.
But the political damage to Trudeau is not confined to whether or not he broke the law, or even levied undue influence.
It is incontrovertible that he gave Wilson-raybould the hook after she refused to do his bidding, thus proving himself indistinguishable from all the grubby leaders that went before him.
On the sunny day in June that he announced the 2015 election would be the last held under the first-pastthe-post system if the Liberals formed government, he accused Stephen Harper of having turned Ottawa into a “partisan swamp.”
“Promoting partisan interests at the expense of the public trust” had added to the cynicism choking the political system, he said.
“For Stephen Harper, it’s just another day at the office,” he said.
Yet instead of doing politics differently, Trudeau has proven to be as hypocritical and vindictive.
For a feminist who says his most important relationship is with First Nations, demoting the first Indigenous woman to be named justice minister for exercising the independence of her office turned out to be just another day at the office.