National Post (National Edition)
ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR WHEN CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN.
Round 2 a cornucopia of entertainment
You know how, when the circus comes to town, or a big fair, it’s always tricky deciding where to go first: The ferris wheel, or the games of chance? The haunted house, or the rollercoaster? Cotton candy or the little doughnuts?
So it was with the justice committee Wednesday, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former principal secretary Gerry Butts and Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick, in Round 2 at the committee, duelled for the attention and regard of Canadians, from coast to coast to coast, as the PM is so fond of saying.
Where to go first?
Let us begin with Mr. Butts, who was unctuous, slippery, flattering beyond all bearing. Has he ever met a person for whom he doesn’t have the highest regard and admiration, with whom he isn’t friends, who isn’ t of the most sterling reputation and unassailable character?
He has not.
He reminds me of an acquaintance who is torn by two conflicting but equally strong impulses, one to fellate each person he meets, the other to undermine him.
But this was not about the deposed attorney-general Jody Wilson-raybould “and Gerald Butts’s friendship or working relationship,” he said, though they were of course friends, and he’d had her and her husband to dinner at his house with his wife and kids.
(Beware the person who refers to himself in the third person, unless that person plays hockey for a living.)
This wasn’t about who was right or wrong; why, everyone was well-intentioned. There was no malice. JWR was always told the decision on whether to prosecute Snc-lavalin or give them a deferred prosecution agreement was hers to make, “and it would be for all of us to explain. Most importantly, it would be for many thousands of people (the SNC employees who would presumptively lose their jobs) to live with.”
(You see? If JWR stubbornly carried on with the Snc-lavalin prosecution and the company relocated or lost value and people lost jobs, it would be her fault, but the Liberals would all wear it.)
He wasn’t there (he’d invited himself, just as SNC tried to invite itself to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement with the government) to quarrel with JWR or “to say a single negative word about her personally.” Heaven’s no.
Fellas like him, you see, are always motivated by the most noble intentions.
Then he proceeded to reveal that in the cabinet shuffle that saw her lose the justice/attorne y-general portfolios, she believes because she refused to help out SNC and resisted the pressure that was coming down upon her, JWR was first offered and then turned down the Indigenous services portfolio.
Butts was shocked, he said.
Why, he’d never seen such a thing before. JWR said she had spent her life fighting the Indian Act and couldn’t now be in charge of programs administered under it.
He gave his best advice to Trudeau, told him he couldn’t allow a minister to dictate where she would or wouldn’t go; that would lead to chaos. Thus, she was briefly moved to veterans affairs, from whence she resigned from cabinet.
Then he explained that he was surprised to hear that she had experienced the Dec. 5 dinner they had, about which she testified she told him people needed to back off SNC and he said they needed a solution, as pressure. He believed it was entirely benign, even “the best discussion we had had in a while.”
And did he mention that “she was going to meet someone after our dinner”? Was he suggesting something here and if so, what? It wasn’t in his written remarks.
Anyway, he certainly accepts “that two people can experience the same event differently ”; if ever you wondered where the PM’S explanation of the Kokanee grope came from, you may now know.
Ditto the PM’S “jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra of late, postJWR and post-treasur y Board boss Jane Philpott resignations, by which of course, the PM always meant Snc-lavalin jobs.
Toward the end of his testimony, Butts was moved to tell the committee as a whole (he already had complimented them individually) that “I appreciate the opportunity to come here and speak with colleagues.”
Wrong: Whatever one may think of the various MPS, they were elected. They have a legitimacy that Butts, a political appointee, can never have. A final note about Butts.
In reply to one of the committee’s best questioners, Conservative Lisa Raitt, and after he’d referred to texts and messages he sent JWR or she him, Butts allowed that he “acquired the ability” through his lawyer to get access to his phone.
Compare that, if you will, to the accused former ViceChief of the Defence Staff, Mark Norman, whom this government is so avidly prosecuting. His lawyers have been asking for access to his emails and texts since October. Thus far, no access.
As for Mr. Wernick, well, how can he be expected to remember the discussions he had with JWR?
He wasn’t wearing a wire, for Pete’s sakes. He actually said this at least twice in answer to questions and to explain his remarkable lack of memory.
He didn’t make any contemporaneous notes. He didn’t make any sort of recording. He doesn’t have an independent recollection of that meeting, or this one, except, you know, he just doesn’t remember the “conversation flowing” quite like that.
He was completely unrepentant about the wild opening statement he made in his first appearance at the committee, where he predicted an “assassination” in the next election, and was roundly criticized for being partisan.
He took great offence at that, and arrived with social media posts he suggested were an “attempt to intimidate a witness” or “breach of privilege” by trolls.
When his toughest questioners dared interrupt him, Wernick pushed back. “Excuse me sir! Excuse me sir!” or appealed to the chair. At one point, he said, “I know many members (of the committee) said they believed every word” of JWR’S testimony, and reminded them that “part of what she said was that nothing veered into criminal” conduct.
To which, the non-liberal members of the committee cried, “That’s the bar? It’s not criminal?”
And there you have it. That’s where the bar is. Easy to see who’s above it, and who is not.