Riding out the SNC storm
PM needs the magic of doubt and persuasion
Contrary to what you might have read in all newspapers, the country is not going to the dogs — it’s going to the moon.
We are assured that Justin Trudeau did not arrange for Canada to join the U.S.led lunar mission just to deflect attention from Jody Wilson-Raybould’s testimony at the justice committee.
But the prime minister must have been mightily relieved to look at his itinerary for Thursday and see that it included the announcement at the Canada Space Agency headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Que., rather than answering questions about prosecutorial interference in the House of Commons. In Saint-Hubert, he was asked about the SNCLavalin scandal and reiterated that his team acted professionally and appropriately. He said he disagreed with the former attorney general’s “characterization” of events.
Among Liberals Thursday there was a palpable sense of relief, such as might be felt by someone who’s just had hip replacement surgery — it’s still painful but there is a feeling the worst is over.
They’re probably right. Andrew Scheer, the Conservative leader, has overreached by calling for Trudeau’s resignation — that’s not going to happen, as long as he maintains he and his staff acted appropriately, and Liberal polling numbers remain in the 30-40 per cent support range.
The only way he is forced out is if there is a split in Liberal ranks and that is not happening.
On the contrary, most Liberal MPs sound angry at Wilson-Raybould for putting their jobs at risk.
Politics is a team sport, they argue, and she should have done what she was told by the leader at whose pleasure she served, or she should have resigned.
That will not be a popular view in the country, or one that MPs will express publicly, but it is held widely. There is a sense in caucus that the prime minister is reaping the whirlwind after appointing as justice minister someone who was not a partisan Liberal.
But far from sending out her colleagues to besmirch Wilson-Raybould’s reputation, the Prime Minister’s Office is trying to rein in caucus anger and stop a repeat of the public haranguing directed at the former attorney general by B.C. Liberal MP Jati Sidhu. He told the Abbotsford News that Wilson-Raybould is not a team player and suggested her father may be “pulling the strings.” He later apologized for his comments but he is far from alone in thinking them.
In the absence of a caucus revolt, Trudeau should be able to ride out the storm. There is even anticipation in Liberal ranks at the prospect of being able to comment freely, now that Wilson-Raybould’s allegations are out in the open.
Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former principal secretary, who is alleged by Wilson-Raybould to have told her former chief of staff that any solution “involves some interference,” wrote to the justice committee chair, Anthony Housefather, requesting an opportunity to give his side of the story.
The committee will also hear again from Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council, and Nathalie Drouin, the deputy minister of Justice.
There is a genuine belief in Liberal ranks that, while Wilson-Raybould has told the truth, it is not the whole truth, and does not reflect the intent of the range of actors who were motivated by a desire to protect jobs at SNC.
They are going to have their work cut out for them convincing Canadians who appear to sympathize with the former attorney general’s viewpoint that the persistent and relentless nature of the attempts to make her change her mind over whether to offer SNC a deferred prosecution agreement was inappropriate.
They are going to have to be persuasive if they are planning to argue that the attorney general was not removed from her cabinet post because of a position she took and refused to change. And they are going to have to make a compelling case if they are going to refute Wilson-Raybould’s allegation that, after she was shuffled, her former deputy minister at Justice was told by the clerk of the Privy Council that her replacement could expect to have an early conversation with the prime minister about SNC.
Yet, if they can place doubt in the minds of the jury, the Liberals will probably have done enough. The SNC-Lavalin affair reduces the chances of the Liberals repeating their majority government feat of 2015. But are we going to see voters entering the polling booth in October vowing to defeat Trudeau because he may have applied undue pressure on one of his own ministers and breached the Shawcross doctrine? Unfortunately for the voters who would like to give Trudeau a one-way ticket to the moon, those people probably don’t exist in sufficient numbers to bring down a government.
THE PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE IS TRYING TO REIN IN CAUCUS ANGER.