Harper did not hide from scandal

Last week, I summarized the developing situation regarding the resignation of Jody Wilson-Raybould from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.

There are growing questions around allegations that the Prime Minister’s Office pressured Wilson-Raybould, then the justice minister to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with SNCLavalin, rather than proceeding with criminal prosecution.

Since that time, some significant new details have emerged.

Later last week, Liberals on the parliamentary Justice Committee blocked Wilson-Raybould and staff from the Prime Minister's

Office from appearing at the committee to answer questions.

Over the recent Family Day long weekend, we learned that Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s most trusted adviser, was resigning, claiming he did not want to become a distraction in this growing controversy.

This week, Liberals on the justice committee have done a flip flop and now will support Wilson-Raybould appearing before the committee, although it is unclear what questions she will be able to answer as Trudeau has thus far refused to waive client/solicitor privilege.

To date, the reasons why Wilson-Raybould resigned remain unknown.

As Trudeau continues to refuse to waive privilege and has ducked questions about calling an inquiry, Canadians remain in the dark.

From my perspective, this is alarming considering that Wilson-Raybould and now Butts have both resigned over an issue that Trudeau continues to hide behind privilege to avoid the truth from coming out.

The reason I use the term “hide” is to make a comparison to the fact that when the Senator Mike Duffy investigation was underway, former prime minister Stephen Harper waived client/solicitor privilege to assist the investigation in a transparent and accountable manner.

My question this week does not involve this situation, but rather pertains to a recent funding announcement made by the Liberal government. Last week, the Liberals announced $40 million in funding to Blackberry to help develop autonomous vehicle technology. Full credit to CBC, which covered the event and then asked the CEO of Blackberry “if his company needed the government subsidy.” The answer was a candid no.

In other words, $40 million was just given away by Trudeau to a company that did not require the subsidy.

More recently, we learned that the Liberal government has appointed a retired Radio Canada journalist to be the director of the two debates for the upcoming federal election.

The leadership debates, one to be in English and the other French for upcoming October 2019 election is a part-time position with a term that expires in March of 2020 and a reported salary between $124,000 and $187,000.