Trudeau’s political woes mount
Former justice minister accuses administration of ‘veiled threats’
OTTAWA, Ontario — If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had any thought that a burgeoning political scandal could be quietly contained, that hope vanished last week, as Canadians dissected the explosive testimony from his former justice minister before a parliamentary committee.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a minister strafe her own government like this,” said Andrew MacDougall, who was the spokesman for Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister Mr. Trudeau replaced in 2015. “It just reinforces people’s perception that all politicians are kind of bent.”
During nearly four hours of testimony before the House of Commons Justice Committee on Wednesday evening, the former minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, repeatedly contradicted and undermined Mr. Trudeau’s assertions that neither he nor his staff acted improperly in trying to settle a criminal case against SNCLavalin, a multinational construction and engineering company based in Montreal.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s description of 10 meetings, 10 conversations and a series of emails about the criminal case from senior government officials dominated social media and news coverage in Canada on Thursday, as Andrew Scheer, the Conservative opposition leader in Parliament, asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to open a criminal investigation of the matter.
Mr. Trudeau, who is running for re-election this fall, is already fending off a call for his resignation by Mr. Scheer and demands for an independent public inquiry.
On Thursday night, the opposition parties led an emergency debate in the House of Commons, during which they condemned the actions of the prime minister and his circle. Liberal members reiterated Mr. Trudeau’s explanations and quoted Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony that no one acted illegally or undermined the justice system.
Parliament’s ethics commissioner is already looking at the accusations.
Mr. Trudeau has acknowledged that he and others spoke with Ms. WilsonRaybould about cutting a deal in the case, in which SNC-Lavalin has been charged with paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Libya while the country was controlled by dictator Moammar Gadhafi, but he has denied acting improperly.
The deal would have seen the company pay a large penalty but not receive a criminal conviction, which would have barred it from government work for a decade — and possibly led to its leaving Canada or cutting thousands of jobs, particularly in Quebec.
On Thursday, Mr. Trudeau rejected Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s assertion that government officials’ talks with her were improper “political interference” delivered with “veiled threats.”
Mr. Trudeau predicted that the Justice Committee, which is controlled by his Liberal Party, and the ethics commissioner, whose role largely limits him to monitoring potential conflicts of interest, will vindicate him.
But several analysts said Mr. Trudeau may find it difficult to avoid an independent inquiry.
“While the government doesn’t want to subject itself to weeks of intense scrutiny, not opening it up looks very bad,” said Emmett Macfarlane, an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
John Duffy, a former adviser in a previous Liberal government, pointed out that although Ms. Wilson-Raybould, who also served as attorney general, accused Mr. Trudeau and his aides of acting improperly, she acknowledged in her testimony that no one pressuring her about SNC-Lavalin broke any laws and specifically assured Canadians that the judicial system was not broken.
“I’m not trying to make it out that this was a civics textbook example of how things should work out,” Mr. Duffy said, adding that in the end Ms. Wilson-Raybould did not give the company a break and the prosecution has continued.
Mr. Trudeau’s opponents have cast the affair as a group made up mostly of men ganging up on a woman who was trying to uphold the principle of judicial dependence.
Norman Spector, who was chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, a former Canadian prime minister, said most people now likely view the affair “as a pretty simplistic story about the Liberals helping their friend in Quebec.”
Last month, Ms. WilsonRaybould was moved from Canada’s Justice Department to Veterans Affairs, a step now widely linked to her resistance on the SNCLavalin case. This month she quit the Cabinet, although she declined to offer a specific reason for that decision.
Mr. Trudeau said Thursday that he was reviewing her status as a member of the Liberal caucus in Parliament, where Ms. WilsonRaybould represents a constituency in Vancouver, British Columbia.
While some Liberals have said privately that several caucus members want her removed, that action has the potential to make her a political martyr.