PM aide must ‘disavow’ reported Bannon ties
NDP leader says Gerald Butts should step away from, reject Donald Trump’s strategist
OTTAWA— NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is calling on the prime minister’s senior adviser to “immediately disavow” his reported friendship with Donald Trump’s controversial strategist and alt-right champion, Steve Bannon.
In an article published online Tuesday, the New Yorker reported that Gerald Butts struck up a friendship with Bannon after they first met in the wake of the U.S. presidential election last year.
Before joining Trump’s team during the campaign, Bannon was an executive at Breitbart News, a farright website popular with people who hold white supremacist and Islamophobic views.
“Bannon, of course, is viewed by white supremacists as a leader,” Mulcair said in an interview Wednesday.
“On these issues there’s no grey area. When it comes to connections to people who spew hate and (have) a record of encouraging violence, then you’ve got to stand up full-square and say: ‘No, this is no friend of mine. I’ll have nothing to do with it.’ ”
Butts did not respond to questions from the Star on Wednesday.
Cameron Ahmad, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office, said in an emailed statement the Liberal government has worked to increase Canada’s “strong and constructive working relationship” with the U.S.
“The prime minister has worked directly with the president, and staff and officials have worked closely with members of the administration on an ongoing basis, strengthening our relationship and discussing its importance to jobs on both sides of the border,” he wrote.
“We are committed to maintaining and growing our strong relationship in order to support growth and jobs in both our countries.”
The reported relationship between the two men comes at a fractious time; the U.S. media is full of whis- perings of Bannon’s possible dismissal from the White House after last weekend’s deadly protests involving racist and neo-Nazi groups and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va. Trump’s response to the protests — in which he claimed “both sides” were to blame for the violence that erupted — has been roundly criticized, while white supremacist leaders such as former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke have praised the president for his “honesty and courage.”
Any friendship between Butts and Bannon would, on the surface, seem unlikely. Butts is one of the chief advisers to a feminist Liberal prime minister known for his “sunny ways,” and used to be the director of the World Wildlife Federation’s Canadian chapter.
Bannon, on the other hand, comes from a far-right populist background and led a website that has published headlines such as “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy” and once called a right-leaning commentator a “renegade Jew.”
He has described the site as “the platform of the alt-right,” a euphemism for white supremacist, antiestablishment political thought, and has since derided the mainstream media as the “opposition party.”
Yet at the same time, both Bannon and Butts have their respective leader’s ear as an adviser and are credited with helping to pave their paths to power.
The New Yorker reported that Ban- non sees Butts as a “sort of left-wing version of himself.” The article described Bannon’s push to get Trump to raise taxes on the wealthy, which was one of the Trudeau government’s first moves after it assumed power in 2015.
“There’s nothing better for a populist than a rich guy raising taxes on rich guys,” Butts told Bannon, according to the report.
Greg MacEachern, senior vicepresident of government relations with Environics Communications, said the Trudeau government matched key staffers with U.S. administration officials after Trump was elected. It has previously been reported that Butts was matched with Bannon during this process.
And in the lead-up to this week’s first round of the talks to rehash the North American Free Trade Agreement, Justin Trudeau, his cabinet ministers and his top staffers have fanned out across the U.S. to make their case that the trilateral pact is good for jobs on both sides of the border.
MacEachern said a big reason the “friendship” report is getting attention is because Bannon and racist groups in the U.S. are prominent in the news. He added that getting close to people like Bannon is simply part of the job for someone like Butts.
“They don’t have the luxury that most Canadians have to be critical of President Trump,” he said, pointing to the stakes of the NAFTA renegotiations. The government has repeatedly credited the trade agreement with creating hundreds of billions of dollars in trade with the U.S.
“From all accounts, the Trudeau government, including ministers and staff, did a very aggressive push to get in early and get to know key players,” he said.
Bruce Anderson, chairperson of Abacus Data and Summa Communications, said keeping open lines of communication with the U.S. government is a “perennial requirement” of Canadian administrations.
“To me, it doesn’t really matter what the political DNA of these individuals is, it matters that they’re able to have a conversation,” he said.
Greg MacEachern said that getting close to people like Bannon is simply part of the job for someone like Butts