Ex-aide Butts to testify on SNC-Lavalin scandal
PRIME MINISTER’S FORMER TOP AIDE TO TESTIFY AT COMMONS JUSTICE COMMITTEE
• Gerald Butts, the former right-hand man to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will publicly defend himself against allegations he attempted to interfere in the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.
Butts wrote to the House of Commons justice committee on Thursday asking for a chance to speak.
“I watched the testimony of the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould yesterday,” Butts’s letter said. “I believe my testimony will be of assistance to the (committee) in its consideration of these matters. I respectfully request the opportunity to attend the committee. I need a short period of time to receive legal advice concerning my evidence and to be able to produce relevant documents to the committee.”
Butts, one of Trudeau’s closest friends going back decades, resigned as the prime minister’s principal secretary on Feb. 18, saying he felt it was the right thing to do to defend himself and allow the government to continue its work undistracted.
He is among nearly a dozen people including Trudeau, the finance minister and the country’s top civil servant who Wilson-Raybould said pressured her in the fall of 2018 to drop the corruption case against SNC-Lavalin and negotiate a remediation agreement instead. Remediation agreements see a company admit wrongdoing and pay a fine but avoid a criminal conviction.
In her testimony before the justice committee on Wednesday, Wilson-Raybould alleged that she was subjected to “veiled threats” and a four-month “sustained effort by many people in the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
She described a Sept. 17 meeting with Trudeau during which she said he told her “there is an election in Quebec and that ‘I am an MP in Quebec — the member for Papineau.”
“I was quite taken aback,” she testified. “My response, and I remember this vividly, was to ask (Trudeau) a direct question while looking him in the eye. I asked: ‘Are you politically interfering with my role, my decision as the AG? I would strongly advise against it.’ The prime minister said ‘No, No, No — we just need to find a solution.’ ”
Speaking to the media in Saint-Hubert, Que., on Thursday morning, Trudeau said he did not agree with Wilson-Raybould’s version of events, and said he’s still reflecting about whether she will remain within the Liberal caucus.
“I and my team always acted in an appropriate and professional manner,” Trudeau said. “So I am not in agreement with the characterization of events that the former attorney general gave in her testimony. We have always defended and looked to protect jobs in Canada and we will always do so.”
Trudeau said the RCMP has not contacted him or other government officials about the affair, to his knowledge. On Thursday, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer wrote to the head of the RCMP to launch an investigation, contending that the Liberals broke laws under the Criminal Code related to obstructing justice and interfering with the attorney general. He also repeated calls for Trudeau to step down.
Asked who was telling the truth, Trudeau said the government’s ethics commissioner is investigating and will come to a conclusion. Federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion started his investigation two weeks ago.
Speaking in Toronto on Thursday, Finance Minister Bill Morneau defended his own role in conversations with Wilson-Raybould. “I never raised this issue with Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould,” he told reporters. “She approached me to tell me that my staff was approaching her staff, which I think is entirely appropriate.” Wilson-Raybould testified that she asked Morneau to tell his staff to stop raising the issue of a remediation agreement for SNCLavalin with her office, but his chief of staff Ben Chin continued to do so.
“My staff, appropriately, would make her staff aware of the economic consequences of decisions, about the importance of thinking about jobs,” Morneau said. He said he did not watch her testimony live because he was in a meeting, but said she is “entitled to her opinion.”
The Liberal-dominated justice committee has asked Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick and Deputy Justice Minister Nathalie Drouin to reappear following their testimony last week. They and Butts will likely testify on March 6.
The committee has declined to hear from other key players in the scandal, including Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and Wilson-Raybould’s former chief of staff Jessica Prince. Wilson-Raybould told the committee about two meetings involving Butts. On Dec. 5, 2018, she met him at the Château Laurier hotel. She testified that Butts “took over the conversation and said how we need a solution on the SNC stuff.” She alleged he told her that the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, which separated the prosecution service from the Justice Department, “was set up by (former prime minister Stephen) Harper,” and that he “does not like the law.” On Dec. 18, Prince met with Butts and Telford. According to a text message sent by Prince to Wilson-Raybould after the meeting, Butts had said: “Jess, there is no solution here that doesn’t involve some interference.” Wilson-Raybould also told the committee about a phone call with Wernick on Dec. 19 that she said made her think of the “Saturday Night Massacre,” a reference to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s firing of the independent prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal.
She testified that Wernick told her Trudeau “is quite determined, quite firm, he wants to know why the (deferred prosecution) route which Parliament provided for isn’t being used ... He is gonna find a way to get it done one way or another.” Less than three weeks later, on Jan. 7, Trudeau told Wilson-Raybould she was being removed as justice minister.
Liberal MPs on the justice committee said they’re inviting Butts, Wernick and Drouin to appear for “clarification” on some issues. “We believe that it is important that Mr. Butts respond to the account of the meeting of the 18th provided by Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould, in addition to the other allegations about him and PMO colleagues mentioned in her testimony,” said the statement. “Given that Mr. Wernick and Ms. Drouin appeared prior to cabinet confidence and solicitor client privilege on the SNC file being waived for testimony before the committee, and given that they were both mentioned by Ms. Wilson-Raybould in relation to the December 19th phone call and subsequent events, we would like to hear from them about their recollection of the events and conversations mentioned in Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony.”