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• John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail: “A prime minister who has been accused of such abuses by his own former attorney-general should no longer have the confidence of the House of Commons. This government should fall...Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony Wednesday was so utterly damning that the Liberals no longer have a moral mandate to govern.“
• Elizabeth Renzetti, Globe and Mail: “That Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s boss and his inner circle lacked the respect to listen to her “no” says volumes about the way that circle works. Or, if you prefer, for whom that circle works...Ms. Wilson-Raybould came out to quietly and methodically speak her truth, and exposed a structure that increasingly looks sleazy at its core.“
• John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail: “…the Prime Minister and his most senior advisers gravely undermined the rule of law when they repeatedly urged her as attorney-general to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin for partisan political reasons. To have then threatened her when she refused, and to have removed her from her portfolio when she would not bow to those threats, was reprehensible.”
• Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail: “That is clearly not the open and accountable government Mr. Trudeau promised. That’s trying to arrange the Prime Minister’s outcome behind closed doors, but keeping the accountability away.”
• Editorial board, Globe and Mail: “It is hard to exaggerate the seriousness of this. Her allegations go to the foundations of the Canadian justice system’s independence, and they rise to the highest levels of the government. They are all the more powerful because this accusation against the Trudeau government is being made by one of its most senior members.“
• Chantal Hébert, Toronto Star: “The Liberals will likely go in the fall election campaign with the SNC-Lavalin albatross still hanging around their party’s neck...Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was already up to his neck in the SNC-Lavalin mess. On Wednesday, former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould pushed his head down further. It will be harder for the Liberal government to dig itself out of the deep hole she dug before the next campaign.”
• Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star: “It is going to be impossible to look at Justin Trudeau’s government the same way again. Wilson-Raybould has presented that opposite image: a prime minister who made life very difficult for an Indigenous woman in his government, who was more than ready to embrace the hard cynicism of power. That image just doesn’t line up with the one Trudeau, or even his critics, have presented of this government so far. But it’s now a signature picture in the political history books.”
• Editorial board, Toronto Star: “The former minister was a highly credible witness; her story will have to be countered with facts, not slogans, and certainly not with any attempt to discredit Wilson-Raybould. That was tried after the story first broke, and backfired badly…This isn’t going to be settled with a campaign-style battle of slogans that avoids the core issue raised by Wilson-Raybould: an attempt to inject nakedly partisan considerations into what should be an arms-length judicial decision.”
• John Ivison, National Post: “Trudeau appointed as justice minister someone who said she is a “truth-teller,” an Indigenous person who said she has witnessed the consequences of the rule of law not being respected. He appointed her and then he tried to make her complicit in running roughshod over that law.”
• Andrew Coyne, National Post: “It was clear from the first line of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s testimony: the Trudeau government is now officially in crisis, the jobs of several of its top officials hanging by a thread. What is revealed throughout is an attitude that appears to pervade this government: that the law is not an institution to be revered, but just another obstacle to get around, by whatever means necessary.”
• John Ivison, National Post: “When she still failed to bend to his will, he removed her from her position as justice minister. If he thought she would respond to the “veiled threats” levelled against her, he clearly misread this woman.”
• Christie Blatchford, National Post: “It sounded and felt like a death knell for the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau…”
• Andrew Coyne, National Post: “It is nothing short of remarkable that, amid what she called this “barrage” of improper pressure, Wilson-Raybould stood her ground. Why didn’t she resign? Thank goodness she didn’t. She appears to have been one of the few people in this government with any principled belief in the rule of law. And in the end she did pay for it with her job, not once but twice.”
• Christie Blatchford, National Post: ”
  As Jody Wilson-Raybould, the deposed federal justice minister and attorney-general, read aloud her opening statement at the justice committee Wednesday, with breathtaking clarity and intelligence, the room (and likely living rooms across the country) was still. Her revelations were so shocking that it left the government of “sunny ways” under a black cloud and Canada looking like a corrupt Third World banana republic. The stink so envelops the Prime Minister himself, many of his staffers, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his chief of staff, and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, that if they had a shred of integrity, which is very much in doubt, some if not all of them would resign.”
• Editorial board, Toronto Sun: “This is not just sloppy messaging. This is not just a sign that the Liberals are too cozy with SNC-Lavalin. This is not just a sign that perhaps Trudeau is not as committed to running a clean ship as he’d previously pledged. This is a major red flag that Criminal Code violations concerning obstruction of justice have been broken.”
• Brian Lilley, Sun Media: “Wilson-Raybould dropped a bomb on the Trudeau government with her testimony on Wednesday. What kind of damage she inflicted remains to be seen but it could be deadly.”

Comments (39)

Thirty-five years ago today, Pierre Trudeau “took a walk in the snow” and resigned.

If what Jody Wilson-Raybould testified yesterday is true – and there is plenty of reason, now, to believe it is – Justin Trudeau needs to do likewise.

As just about every columnist and editorial board is writing his morning, Justin Trudeau has lot the moral capacity to govern. As my old friend John Ibbitson put it in the Globe: “A prime minister who has been accused of such abuses by his own former attorney-general should no longer have the confidence of the House of Commons. This government should fall.”

Justin Trudeau needs to talk a walk in the snow.

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Comments (44)

If Butts had to resign because of what was said in his meeting with Jody Wilson-Raybould – does Trudeau have to resign now, too?

That’s what the Opposition will be demanding to know today. QP is going to be historic.

From the Globe:

Federal prosecutors had already rejected a settlement with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. nearly two weeks before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould about the matter last fall.

Court documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show that Kathleen Roussel, director of public prosecutions, had informed SNC-Lavalin on Sept. 4 that she intended to proceed with a prosecution on bribery and fraud charges against the Montreal-based engineering giant stemming from its business dealings in Libya.

Mr. Trudeau has repeatedly said he told Ms. Wilson-Raybould in a Sept. 17 conversation that the decision on the SNC-Lavalin prosecution was hers alone to make, but that concerns were raised about the economic impact of a conviction.

Until now, publicly available information had indicated that the Prime Minister spoke to Ms. Wilson-Raybould before prosecutors made their decision, announced by SNC on Oct. 10. In fact, they spoke two weeks after the Sept. 4 decision, when the only remaining question was whether Ms. Wilson-Raybould would publicly instruct prosecutors to instead cut a deal.

Comments (29)