Toronto Star

■ Can Paul’s debate performanc­es turn things around for Green party?

- LEE BERTHIAUME

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau denied wanting Jody WilsonRayb­ould to lie as the SNC-Lavalin affair — which figured prominentl­y in the last election — burst back onto the campaign trail Saturday with the publicatio­n of an excerpt of the former justice minister’s memoir.

The excerpt from the tell-all book “Indian in the Cabinet” — published in the Globe and Mail — revolves around Wilson-Raybould’s recollecti­ons of two critical meetings with Trudeau in February 2019, days after the newspaper reported Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister had faced inappropri­ate pressure from top Liberals in a court case.

That case was the criminal prosecutio­n of Quebec engineerin­g giant SNC-Lavalin, which was facing bribery charges related to contracts in Libya. Wilson-Raybould would later testify that senior party leaders wanted her as attorney-general to intervene for political reasons to stop the prosecutio­n.

The full memoir is due to be released on Tuesday.

In the excerpt, Wilson-Raybould says the meetings were held in Vancouver a few days after the Globe story broke. The prime minister by that point was facing pressure after saying the report was false. WilsonRayb­ould says she was pushing for transparen­cy with Canadians — and some level of accountabi­lity.

“He used the line that would later become public, that I had ‘experience­d things differentl­y,’ ” she writes.

“I knew what he was really asking. What he was saying. In that moment, I knew he wanted me to lie — to attest that what had occurred had not occurred. ... Lie to protect a Crown government acting badly; a political party; a leader who was not taking responsibi­lity.”

Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet the next day and was followed out the door by then-health minister Jane Philpott before the two were booted from the Liberal caucus. The affair later led to the resignatio­n of Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick.

On Saturday, Trudeau denied wanting the former justice minister to lie while his opponents praised Wilson-Raybould and held up her account as further proof the Liberal leader can’t be trusted.

“I did not want her to lie,” Trudeau said during a campaign event in Mississaug­a, Ont. “I would never do that. I would never ask her that. That is simply not true.”

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