Blunt message from Canada’s top bureaucrat
Privy Council head delivers rare warning to justice committee
‘I’m worried that somebody is going to be shot in this country, this year, during the political campaign.’
Ottawa’s top civil servant is “deeply concerned” about the increasingly divisive and violent rhetoric in Canadian politics, telling MPs he’s “worried somebody is going to be shot” in this year’s general election campaign.
In an unprecedented statement to the House of Commons justice committee, Michael Wernick told MPs he’s worried Canadians could lose “faith in the institutions of governance in this country.”
“I worry about foreign interference in the upcoming election campaign … I worry about the rising tides of incitements to violence when people use terms like ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ in open discourse,” Wernick told the committee Thursday.
“I’m worried that somebody is going to be shot in this country, this year, during the political campaign.”
Wernick, a career public servant who has served in senior positions in both Conservative and Liberal governments, was testifying at the committee about his discussions with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould about SNC-Lavalin.
But Wernick clearly had a lot more on his mind than the scandal that has swamped Justin Trudeau’s government for the last two weeks.
As the Clerk of the Privy Council, Wernick provides non-partisan support to the prime minister, in addition to overseeing the federal civil service.
Wernick also has been tapped by the Liberal government to inform Canadians of foreign interference in the 2019 election.
Clerks are not exactly household names, and rarely make such highly-publicized interventions on the public stage. But the justice committee invited Wernick to testify, and so he found himself in the middle of a political storm.
Lori Turnbull, the director of Dalhousie University’s School of Public Administration, said she took from Wernick’s testimony that he “perceives a decline in civility in politics in Canada,” and felt it important enough to tell the committee.
When asked if that was the role of the Clerk, Turnbull, who worked at the Privy Council Office between 2015 and 2017, said yes.
“It’s the role of the public service to tell politicians what the situation is even if they don’t want to hear it,” Turnbull said.
“Maybe even if it’s not what they ask.”
Wernick specifically criticized Conservative Sen. David Tkachuk over his comments to the “United We Roll” protest on Parliament Hill earlier this week.
“I know you’ve rolled all the way here, and I’m going to ask you one more thing. I want you to roll over every Liberal left in the country,” Tkachuk told protestors.
“I think that it’s totally unacceptable that a member of the Parliament of Canada would incite people to drive trucks over people after what happened in Toronto last summer,” Wernick said.
Wernick told MPs he was not suggesting politicians and partisans should avoid vigorous — even heated — debate on policy issues.
But he warned that debate has devolved in countries that used to be considered beacons of democracy — notably the United States.
“I want to be very clear. Partisan politics in a democracy is entirely appropriate. You should go at each other hammer and tongs to convince Canadians to send you back here,” Wenick said.
“When that debate starts to cause Canadians to lose faith in their institutions, I worry that we’re on the slippery slope to what we see south of the border.”