Liberals shut down emergency meeting
Move called a ‘coverup’ to avoid more testimony from Wilson-Raybould
OTTAWA— Opposition MPs erupted in shows of outrage Wednesday after the Liberal majority on the justice committee shut down an emergency meeting on whether to call back Jody Wilson-Raybould to talk about the SNC-Lavalin controversy.
Liberal MP Francis Drouin, who is not a regular member of the committee, proposed to adjourn the meeting about 25 minutes after it started. The move prompted taunts from the opposite side of the room, where New Democrats and Conservatives had briefly outlined why they believe the former justice minister and attorney general should speak to the committee again about the scandal that has swamped the Liberal government over the past five weeks.
The five Liberals on the ninemember committee then voted to cut off the debate and consider future witnesses at the next scheduled meeting on March19 — the same day the government is set to table the 2019 budget, an annual event that swallows almost all the media attention on Parliament Hill. Conservative MP Michael Cooper yelled that the Liberals were engaged in a “coverup,” while New Democrat Peter Julian called the move “disgusting.”
Moments later outside the room, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of direct- ing “his majority to shut down” the discussion “and ensure that Canadians will never know the truth.” Poilievre had tried to get the committee to invite Wilson-Raybould to testify on Thursday, but his motion was swept aside when the Liberals decided to adjourn the meeting. New Democrat MP Tracey Ramsey called the move “outrageous” and “disappointing” and said it shows more than ever that the Liberal government needs to heed her party’s call to hold a public inquiry.
Drouin, the Liberal MP whose motion cut off the meeting, told reporters on his way out that the committee would meet on March 19, per the plan in place before the opposition members called an emergency session this week.
“What we discussed today was a question of procedure,” he said in French. “It’s as simple as that.”
The display at the committee Wednesday is another indication that these bodies, peopled by elected members from the House of Commons, are driven by partisan political interests, said Duff Conacher, a University of Ottawa law professor and co-founder of the ethics and transparency advocate group, Democracy Watch. He gave credit to the Liberals for allowing witnesses to testify about the SNC-Lavalin affair in the first place, but said Wednesday’s move to shut down the emergency meeting looks like a coverup.
“I don’t know who the Liberal MPs think they’re fooling. It looks bad and it smells bad, because it is bad,” he said.
Cameron Ahmad, a spokesperson for the prime minister, told the Star after the meeting that Liberal members of the committee made their own decision, and that the same will be true next week when many of the regular members return to discuss who to call to testify in the future.
“We’ve clearly said we’d respect the work of the committee,” Ahmad said. “We’ll let those processes unfold.”
Opposition members of the committee had previously called on Trudeau to extend the special order that lifted legal restrictions that prevented Wilson-Raybould from speaking about the issue. That way, she could return to discuss what happened after Jan. 14 — the day she was bumped from her role as justice minister and attorney general — and respond to testimony from Trudeau’s former top adviser, Gerald Butts, and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick.
Both have denied her allegation — detailed over almost four hours of testimony at the committee on Feb. 27 — that she was subjected to “consistent and sustained” pressure to stop the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin for economic and partisan reasons.
“This is about fairness and her being able to come back and address what has been said about her,” Ramsey said after Wednesday’s truncated committee meeting.
“Today, (the Liberals) signalled to Canadians that they’re not interested in the truth.” The committee last met March 6, when Butts denied he or anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office put Wilson-Raybould under inappropriate pressure to halt the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.
At the end of that meeting, New Democrat MP Murray Rankin proposed a motion to call on Trudeau to further waive legal limits that WilsonRaybould has said prevented her from speaking publicly about the affair. Rankin and Conservative members of the committee also wanted to invite Wilson-Raybould back to testify, along with her former chief of staff Jessica Prince and officials in the PMO accused of pressuring the former attorney general: Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and senior advisers Elder Marques and Mathieu Bouchard.
The Liberals voted down the motion and said they would discuss bringing future witnesses to the committee at its next meeting, which was scheduled for March 19 — budget day.
The plan changed when the Conservatives and New Democrat on the committee called for the emergency session that was held Wednesday. Drouin’s motion essentially cancelled the emergency session and placed the committee back on its original schedule.
Wilson-Raybould, who resigned from cabinet days after the story was first reported in the Globe and Mail, has accused Trudeau and top officials of inappropriately pressuring her to overrule Canada’s top federal prosecutor and stop the criminal trial against SNC-Lavalin, which is accused of fraud and bribery of officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011, when the dictator Moammar Gadhafi was in power. Meanwhile, Wilson-Raybould’s successor as justice minister, Montreal MP David Lametti, has not ruled out doing what she refused to do last fall: offering SNC-Lavalin a “deferred prosecution agreement.” Such a deal would see the Montreal-based engineering giant avoid a criminal conviction by admitting to wrongdoing, agreeing to co-operate with authorities, paying a fine and agreeing to oversight of its ethical compliance.