Others keep speaking for Jody Wilson-Raybould. All the more reason to make sure she gets a chance to speak “my truth,”
Justice Minister David Lametti should clear the way for Jody Wilson-Raybould to speak
Yet another person (another man, not to put too fine a point on it) had a go on Thursday at telling us what Jody WilsonRaybould experienced in the increasingly messy SNC-Lavalin affair.
Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council and, as such, Canada’s top bureaucrat, gave the most robust explanation of the Trudeau government’s conduct in the matter that we have heard so far.
In three hours of extraordinary testimony before the House of Commons justice committee, in which he ranged from his fear that someone might be shot during the next election campaign to his revulsion at the “vomitorium” of social media, Wernick did what the politicians themselves, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on down, haven’t been able to do over the past two weeks.
He presented a detailed defence of why the government believes there was “no inappropriate pressure” put on the former justice minister to give SNC-Lavalin a legal break in its bribery and corruption case. For a bureaucrat, he was remarkably unbureaucratic.
All the more reason to make sure that Wilson-Raybould herself gets a chance to speak, as she puts it, “my truth.”
Others have been speaking on her behalf, or telling us what they think she thinks. On Thursday, Wernick went so far as to spell out why she never wanted to be Indigenous affairs minister, “and be seen as the Indian agent for her own people.”
We’re sure Wilson-Raybould appreciates that explanation. But wouldn’t it be far better if she wasn’t left to sit quietly off-camera while others took turns elaborating on what she wants or doesn’t want and whether she felt pressured to act in a particular way on the SNC-Lavalin file?
Fortunately, Wernick himself provided a surprisingly clear explanation of why she should be able to appear before the justice committee unfettered by the restraints of solicitorclient privilege, the reason invoked by the government for why it is supposedly so awkward and complex to allow her to speak in her own name.
In short, according to Wernick, if one accepts that the government left it up to Wilson-Raybould, in her capacity as attorney general, to decide whether SNC-Lavalin should benefit from a deal allowing it to avoid a damaging trial, then she wasn’t actually acting as a solicitor, or legal adviser, to the government in that matter.
“She was not giving advice to the PM,” he said succinctly. “She was the decider.” No advice, ergo solicitor-client privilege does not apply. And therefore there’s no reason, no legal reason at least, why Wilson-Raybould should be prevented from giving her own version of events.
Unfortunately, the government itself hasn’t come around to this straightforward way of seeing things. Justice Minister David Lametti is still wrestling with the issue and could not guarantee on Thursday that a way will be found for WilsonRaybould to testify freely at the justice committee next week.
Lametti should try harder. He should take a page from the Clerk’s way of thinking and clear the way for Wilson-Raybould to speak. No matter how many times we hear from others that no improper pressure was brought to bear, the story will be incomplete until we hear both sides and can draw our own conclusions.