Tag Archive: corruption

Who won and lost the French-language debate

— 10.03.2019 06:51 AM

Who won? The separatist guy, Yves-Francois Blanchet. He was calm, he was cool and he was collected. He totally dominated.

Who lost? Justin Trudeau. He needed to remind everyone that that hopey-changey guy from 2015 is still around. He didn’t, because he isn’t.  (And he was clobbered on one key point.  More on that in a minute.)

Who won a silver? Jagmeet Singh. His French was better than expected, and he played the class-warfare card expertly.

Who barely won a French-language bronze – but seized an English-language gold? Andrew Scheer, with a caveat, which is also discussed below. Because, while he may not have won the French debate in French Canada – his equivocation on abortion was pretty bad – Scheer definitely won a French-language debate in English Canada.  (I will explain.)

Anyway. Here’s my caveat about Scheer, who as I say won the debate outside Quebec, partly because no one watched it outside Quebec.

In a leaders’ debate, you need to make certain that your story that dominates. Here’s why: no matter how nice your opponent looks — no matter how articulate, no matter how charming — he or she can’t win if your message is the dominant theme of the night.

Like Andrew Scheer’s attack on Justin Trudeau’s two campaign planes. Because it (a) exposed Trudeau to be a hypocrite (b) it made him look vain (because he uses the second plane for his “canoes and costumes,” as Scheer quipped) and (c) it was the dominant theme in all the subsequent coverage in English Canada, and the Tories had graphics and ads ready to go to ensure that it dominated.  It reminded me of what Jack Layton did to Michael Ignatieff in another debate, with devastating results.

Televised leaders’ debates show us all why having the dominant narrative is so crucial. TV debates give candidates a chance to stress basic campaign themes, and in front of what is usually the biggest audience of the campaign. They also let candidates depict their opponents’ campaign message in an unflattering way. But contrary to what some media pundits claim, debates are not about defining moments.

Debates are about ratifying your side’s issues — and the issues in the campaign — and looking good at the same time. They’re not about defeating the opposition’s claims, proving something, or answering reporters’ questions, either. They’re about getting your story — your spin, your message — heard by as many people as possible. Full stop.

Now, keep in mind that last night’s debate is not going to change voters’ minds about the key issues. Most of them have their minds made up by now. But in a tight race, like this one, debates can make a huge difference.

The most successful presidential and prime ministerial performers enter debates with a single clear message they wish to get across — and they use questions and interruptions to return to, or highlight, their single key message. As Dick Morris told me once, a simple way to measure success is to count the number of debate minutes devoted to your key messages (eg. for a progressive, health or the environment) and not the opposition’s (eg. for a conservative, tax cuts or “getting tough on crime”). You win when your story has taken up the greatest number of minutes. Before they head off to bed, you want the people who tuned in to conclude that your guy or gal is humble, energetic, trustworthy, passionate, positive — and that he or she is “fighting for me.”

Losing, on the other hand, is easy. If a liberal guy or gal performs well on an issue like “getting tough on crime,” and the other side doesn’t, it doesn’t matter that the liberal did a fabulous job presenting his or her case and sounded like the best debater in the history of planet Earth. The “getting tough on crime” issue is their issue. The other side will always sound more credible when the subject matter is their issue.

Anyway: facts tell, stories sell. And when you’ve got a winning story, stick to it. Don’t talk about the other guy’s story.

The plane thing is a winning story. It hurt Trudeau, big time.


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#LavScam latest: cops interview former AG, Trudeau Libs stonewall

— 09.12.2019 06:30 AM

And, Trudeau lies and pins the blame on bureaucrats. From the Globe:

Former justice minister and attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould met with RCMP investigators this week to discuss political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., and is calling on the Trudeau government to waive cabinet confidentiality for her and all other witnesses to allow a thorough probe into potential obstruction of justice.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould told The Globe and Mail on Wednesday that RCMP officers from the national division in Ottawa, which handles sensitive political matters, had a formal interview with her in Vancouver on Tuesday.

“I have had a meeting and I have been interviewed by the RCMP, and that meeting happened yesterday [Tuesday], and I am not going to comment any further on the nature of those conversations,” she said. “Of course I am concerned about the government’s decision to deny [the RCMP’s] request for access to other witnesses. As a matter of principle, the RCMP should be able to conduct thorough and necessary investigations.”

Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the meeting was at the request of the RCMP after several telephone conversations with her following the release of a report from Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion in August.

Mr. Dion said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act when he and senior officials improperly pressed Ms. Wilson-Raybould to order the Public Prosecution Service to settle a fraud and bribery case against the Montreal-based engineering and construction giant…

The government says Privy Council Clerk Ian Shugart, who reports to Mr. Trudeau, will not waive cabinet confidentiality to allow the national police force to speak to witnesses and obtain cabinet documents relating to SNC-Lavalin.

The Liberal Leader rejected a call from Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer on Wednesday to allow anyone with knowledge of the SNC-Lavalin matter to discuss it freely with the RCMP.


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My latest: what #LavScam now means for Scheer, JWR, PMO, the RCMP and the media

— 08.18.2019 06:39 AM

Joseph Nye Welch: remember that name.

He was an American lawyer, and chief counsel to the US Army. He died long ago. But even from the grave, even after so many years have gone by, Welch has something to important to say about the sordid, seamy scandal known as LavScam.

The Ethics Commissioner had something to say, too, as it turned out. And this week, he said it: “The authority of the Prime Minister and his office was used to circumvent, undermine and ultimately attempt to discredit the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions as well as the authority of Ms. [Jody] Wilson-Raybould as the Crown’s chief law officer.”

That sentence – and the commissioner’s finding that Justin Trudeau and his thugs did, indeed, conspire to stop the criminal prosecution of a Québec-based donor to his party, SNC-Lavalin – has myriad implications for many people. Here are just a few.

• Andrew Scheer: When the LavScam story broke in the Globe and Mail, the Conservative Party leader was criticized by some in his own party for demanding Justin Trudeau’s resignation. It is clear, now, he was right to do so. It’s also equally clear that Scheer need not worry himself about Trudeau’s puerile threat to sue him for defamation. Truth, after all, is an absolute defence to a libel claim.

• Jody Wilson-Raybould: Everything that the former Attorney-General said – and Trudeau petulantly refused to let her say all she had to say – was also true. All of it. She was, in fact, pressured by Trudeau and ten of his minions (including his Minister of Finance) to cut a sweetheart deal for SNC-Lavalin on 22 separate occasions over a four-month period. She spoke the truth. And, in so doing, Wilson-Raybould revealed more integrity and courage than Trudeau could ever hope to possess in ten lifetimes.

• Trudeau’s Office: His most-powerful aide, Gerald Butts, resigned at the height of the LavScam scandal. At the time, it was unclear why. Not now. Butts should tender his resignation again – as should Katie Telford, Ben Chin, Mathieu Bouchard, Elder Marques and others in PMO. Bouchard and Marques, both lawyers, additionally deserve the scrutiny of the relevant law societies for their role in LavScam.

• The Mounties: It is known that the RCMP seized Butts’ government-issue laptop and cell phone when he first resigned. It is also known that Butts, Telford and the others “lawyered up,” and retained counsel for an anticipated criminal probe. And then…nothing. While Scheer and others demanded a criminal investigation, the RCMP gave every indication they were having an extended, collective nap. The Ethics Commissioner’s extraordinary report will force them awake. Or should.

• The Media: For various sycophantic media voices – most notably the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt and HuffPo’s Althing Raj – the SNC-Lavalin affair has been a trifling matter, and Wilson-Raybould deserved to be exiled by Trudeau and his lackeys. The damning Ethic Commissioner’s report should oblige Delacourt, Raj and other Trudeau-flatterers to radically revise that assessment.

But what, one might ask, of Joseph Nye Welch? How is LavScam relevant to him, and vice-versa?

Watching Justin Trudeau simultaneously accept the Ethics Commissioner’s report – and then condemn it, all dewy-eyed sincerity – Welch might have said what he famously said to Joseph McCarthy, during the Democratic Senator’s hunt for communists and subversives.

“Until this moment, I think I have never really gauged your recklessness,” Welch might’ve said to Trudeau. “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Justin Trudeau, at long last, does not.


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My latest: Butts, back, big bother

— 07.23.2019 11:41 AM

Kick me.

Here’s a little-known fact: The “kick me” sign — which is usually affixed to some hapless soul’s back or behind, for laughs — was apparently devised by merry-making Scots during the 16th Century.

They did it to celebrate April Fool’s. “Kick me” thereafter became so popular, it spread to the British Isles and then rest of the world.

And so, this week, the Liberal Party of Canada stuck a “kick me” sign to its collective keester, and invited all of us to do precisely that.

The occasion? Not April Fool’s, although it certainly felt like it could be. No, the “kick me” moment heralded the inauspicious return of Justin Trudeau’s former principal secretary, and his forever-BFF, Gerald Butts.

Butts showed up for some Liberal campaign meeting. People noticed.

Yes, that Gerald Butts. He of the SNC-Lavalin meta-scandal — the one who helped propel #LavScam into hashtag hagiography.

He — the one who told us a million times that he’s a coal miner’s son. Him, the one who also told the chief of staff to the Attorney-General of Canada that Trudeau’s cabal wanted to short-circuit the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a Liberal Party donor.

Him, “Gerry,” who famously said of interfering in the coming corruption trial of SNC-Lavalin that “there is no solution here that does not involve some interference.”

Him. Gerald Butts. He’s back.

Now, before everyone starts reaching for the smelling salts, there is a passable pretext to justify the return of Butts. For one thing, he’s smarter than all of PMO put together. And, the wheels started to come off PMO the moment Butts left.

The Liberal Party commenced sliding precipitously in the polls. Patronage scandals sprouted up like weeds. And, of course, there was this stirring bit of oratory, which ranks up there with the Gettysburg Address: “We have recently switched to drinking water bottles out of water, when we have water bottles out of a plastic sorry away from plastic towards paper-like drink-box, water-bottle sorta things.”

So, on the one hand, it makes a bit of sense that Butts is back. But, on the other, it doesn’t at all.

Two reasons.

One, Butts — fairly or not — became the face of LavScam. And not in a good way. Former ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott came to embody decency, honesty and a belief in the independence of our prosecutorial system.

Butts, meanwhile, came to be seen as a guy who may have done something wrong. Why would he have resigned if that were not so?

LavScam hammered the Liberal Party in public opinion. It shredded Justin Trudeau’s promise of sunny ways. And it left his oft-made claims to be a feminist — to be the indigenous reconciler, to be the guy who’d bring back ethical government — in tatters after he expelled Wilson-Raybould and Philpott for having the temerity to speak up for the rule of law.

There’s a second reason why Gerald Butts’ return is dumb, dumb, dumb. And it’s that hoary old chestnut, Liberal arrogance.

“Liberal arrogance” has recurred so many times in Canadian politics, it practically deserves its own entry in Mel Hurtig’s Canadian Encyclopedia series. Liberal arrogance — that Grit belief that they alone know what is best for Canada, and are in fact synonymous with all that is good in Canada — is deadly.

Liberal arrogance has felled many a Liberal government. It is the greatest Grit weakness. And the return of Gerald Butts signals its unfortunate return, in marquee lights.

Butts is back. LavScam is back. Liberal arrogance is back.

Kick them: they deserve it.


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JWR is vindicated, again

— 05.29.2019 10:10 AM

There is enough evidence against SNC-Lavalin for the engineering corporation to be tried on fraud and bribery charges, a Quebec court judge has ruled. 

SNC-Lavalin spent months lobbying the federal government to avoid finding itself in this position. It hoped to use a new legal mechanism — a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) — to pay a fine rather than risk conviction. 

But its efforts ignited a major political scandal in Ottawa when the former attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, accused the Prime Minister’s Office of pressuring her to arrange a deal for SNC-Lavalin. 

The court’s decision was handed down in Montreal on Wednesday. It followed an extended preliminary inquiry into accusations from federal prosecutors in 2015. 

They allege SNC-Lavalin paid around $48 million in bribes to Libyan officials between 2001 and 2011, a violation of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act.

Federal prosecutors also allege SNC-Lavalin defrauded a number of Libyan institutions out of $130 million over the same period.


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Exclusive in the Sun: JWR speaks!

— 05.21.2019 06:12 AM

The truth.

She says it’s true — the actions of the Liberal Prime Minister should be “of great concern for many Canadians, across the country.”

She says, truthfully, that Justin Trudeau has acted in a way that is “questionable.”

She says what happened her is “a wake-up call” — and, while she’s not happy about what Justin Trudeau did to her, she’s running again.

And — when, say, a Prime Minister Andrew Scheer gives her the legal green light to do so — she plans to tell all.

She plans to reveal what really happened “behind the veil” in Trudeau’s Ottawa.

The true story.

She’s Jody Wilson-Raybould, and she’s speaking out.

In an exclusive interview with the Toronto Sun this week, the former Attorney-General of Canada spoke at length about how she’s feeling, the issues she cares about, and what the future holds for the courageous woman who shook Canadian politics to its foundations in 2019.

It’s been quite a ride for Wilson-Raybould, the Member of Parliament who started the year as the most powerful lawyer in the land — and, just 100 days later, was expelled from the federal Liberal caucus.

For being a whistleblower on corruption. For speaking truth to power. For having the guts to say “no” to Justin Trudeau and the men around him, who refused to take “no” for an answer.

The fundamentals in the LavScam scandal, by now, are well-known.

For four months in 2018, Trudeau, the Minister of Finance, and their unelected apparatchiks bullied and threatened Wilson-Raybould, demanding that she rig the system to help a seamy Quebec company — SNC-Lavalin — escape criminal prosecution for corruption charges.

Wilson-Raybould refused to do so.

By the time the whole sordid affair lurched to a close, Wilson-Raybould and her cabinet ally Jane Philpott had been defamed, demeaned, and dumped from the Liberal caucus.

Trudeau had lost his two closest and most powerful advisors — Principal Secretary Gerald Butts and Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick.

And the Liberal Party commenced a truly dramatic slide in the polls.

If an election was held today, in fact, Trudeau’s formerly-invincible party would suffer a humiliating loss to the Conservatives.

With the dust now settled, somewhat, what does Jody Wilson-Raybould think about it all?

“I am still somewhat sad,” she says.

“But, mostly, disappointed over what transpired the last number of months – given how I was removed from caucus through a questionable process and treated for doing what, at the end of the day, was the right thing to do, for the right reasons.”

She adds: “Having said that, I’m embracing my new position as an independent MP for Vancouver Granville and remain inspired by the incredible reception I’ve received from thousands of Canadians and their encouragement for me to stay in politics.”

Are they encouraging her to run again? Will she?

“My time in federal politics is not over,” Wilson-Raybould says, a bit mysteriously. “I will be making a decision shortly. Stay tuned.”

The LavScam scandal — more than the Aga Khan mess, more than the disastrous India trip, more than Trudeau’s policy fumbles on China, NAFTA, pipelines and federal-provincial relations — dealt the deadliest blow to the Liberal leader’s re-election hopes.

Before LavScam, most everyone had seen a second Trudeau majority government as inevitable.

Not now.

Wilson-Raybould agrees.

Says she: “[LavScam] was a wake up call for many – a peek behind the veil of how Ottawa works. I know, like me, many of the class of 2015 who came into federal politics for the first time truly believed there was a different way to do politics. We knew what this was supposed to mean. Unfortunately our experience did not match expectations or the standards we had set ourselves. The last months have led me – and I suspect many of my former colleagues, and I know countless Canadians – to pause and consider the way the system works.”

Can that system ever change? What needs to change? Wilson-Raybould doesn’t hesitate: politics which are “less partisan,” she says.

Freeing MPs to “truly represent their constituents.” And – contrary to what happens in Justin Trudeau’s Ottawa – a Parliament “where truth is expected.”

After all that has happened — after all that she has endured — does Jody Wilson-Raybould still have a truth to tell?

If Justin Trudeau is defeated, and his successor removes the cabinet confidence/solicitor-client privilege gag he’s slapped on her, will Wilson-Raybould finally tell us what happened “behind the veil?”

Jody Wilson-Raybould doesn’t hesitate about that, either.

“I will speak the truth,” she says, adding that she will certainly do so — when she is finally “free to do so.”

Promise to give Jody Wilson-Raybould the freedom to speak her truth, Andrew Scheer.

Put it in your election platform.

The truth, as they say, will set you free.

It may get you elected Prime Minister, too.


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The “feminist”

— 05.13.2019 06:33 AM

Ah, The Feminist.

There he was again, last week, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened. All moist-eyed sincerity, all sotto voce.

The Feminist had just athletically jogged down a flight of stairs, and paused to take media questions, en deux langues. The questions were about the total and complete collapse of his planned show trial. You know: the one to destroy Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, who had had the temerity to disagree with The Feminist’s desire to hand over a fat military contract to a Liberal Party donor.

The Feminist said that the criminal prosecution of the Vice-Admiral – which The Feminist had coincidentally said was coming, well before charges were even laid – was on the up-and-up.

“The process involved in a public prosecution like this is entirely independent of my office,” he said, and lie detector machines miraculously started to stir to life, all over Central Canada. “We have confidence done in the work done by the director of public prosecutions.”

Well, that’s good to know, because the Director of Public Prosecutions Canada sure doesn’t have much “confidence” in The Feminist. Back in March, on the very morning The Feminist had refused to apologize for destroying the career and reputation of Jody Wilson-Raybould – on the very morning he refused to apologize when he and his senior staff were caught interfering in another criminal prosecution more than twenty times, over a four-month period in 2018 – the public prosecutors did something extraordinary. On Twitter.

Here is what they tweeted, in apparent direct response to The Feminist’s claim to have been “entirely independent” of a public prosecution of another Liberal Party donor. Here is what the prosectors said to the world, capturing the attention of the OECD Anti-Bribery Working Group, among others: “Prosecutorial independence is key to our mandate. Our prosecutors must be objective, independent and dispassionate, as well as free from improper influence—including political influence.”

Sound like an act of defiance? It was.

But as he lingered there, for a moment or two, none of the assembled media asked The Feminist about something else. Something important. Namely, his repeated claim to be a feminist.

It would have been a very relevant question, too. Across town, Mark Norman’s extraordinary lawyer, Marie Henein – with whom my firm has done work, full disclosure – had just held a press conference with her client. And, as things were getting underway, she had eviscerated The Feminist.

“Before we get started,” she’d said, pausing. “I’d just like to introduce the all female team that represented Vice-Admiral Norman.” She emphasized the words “all female.” Then, introductions made, she went on, and no one mistook her meaning.

“Fortunately,” Henein said, “Vice-Admiral Norman didn’t fire the females he hired.”

Did you hear that? That was the sound of a metaphorical shiv, sliding between The Feminist’s ribs, aimed at the spot where his soul is supposed to be. It was Marie Henein, who actually knows a thing or two about feminism, pointing out that The Feminist had destroyed the careers of three women – Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott, and Celina Caesar-Chavannes – simply because they talked back to him. Simply because they said “no” to a bunch of men who refused to take no for an answer.

Henein wasn’t done, however.

She next took aim at The Feminist’s months-long effort to deny Mark Norman – and, inferentially, Wilson-Raybould, and Philpott, and Caesar-Chavannes – the most basic courtesies. To deny them natural justice, which is at the root of all our laws. To deny them fairness.

Said Henein: “You should be very concerned when anyone tries to erode the resilience of the justice system or demonstrates a failure to understand why it is so fundamental to the democratic values we hold so dear,” she said, referring to The Feminist’s repeated efforts to interfere in the criminal justice system to reward a supporter (SNC-Lavalin) or to punish a whistleblower (Vice-Admiral Norman).

“There are times you agree with what happens in a court room there are times you don’t. And that’s fine. But what you don’t do is you don’t put your finger and try to weigh in on the scales of justice. That is not what should be happening.”

She could have mentioned, here, that The Feminist had “put his fingers” on a reporter at a beer festival in British Columbia a few years back, and about which he said “the same interactions can be experienced very differently from one person to the next.” Said “interaction” being what is regarded – in other contexts, among lesser people who don’t ride for free on the Aga Khan’s private jets – as “sexual assault.”

Marie Henein could have said that, but she didn’t say that.

Instead, she used the occasion of her client’s exoneration to point out something important about The Feminist.

He isn’t one.


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My latest: the Trudeau regime gets caught – again

— 05.08.2019 11:54 AM

Don’t get caught.

If your political party has been caught obstructing justice — as the political party led by Justin Trudeau assuredly was, in the SNC-Lavalin scandal — what’s the one thing you need to avoid, at all costs?

Getting caught obstructing justice again, of course.

And that’s what the Trudeau regime’s prosecution of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman would have exposed: Senior Trudeau government officials, implicated in a scheme to use the criminal justice system to punish an alleged whistleblower. In this case, the second-highest-ranking officer in the Canadian Forces.

The “crime” Norman was accused of wasn’t a crime at all. In the early days of the Trudeau government, some senior cabinet ministers and political staffers tried to interfere in a multimillion-dollar contract that had been awarded for a much-needed supply ship for the Royal Canadian Navy. As in the LavScam scandal, senior Grits wanted the contract to go to a firm that had supported them politically.

A whistleblower blew the whistle — just like in LavScam — and leaked the story to the media. The Trudeau government was livid. They went after the alleged whistleblower — just like they went after Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott for blowing the whistle on corruption.

Norman — like Wilson-Raybould and Philpott — deserved the Order of Canada, not persecution, for refusing to break the rules to help out a Trudeau government political crony. They didn’t deserve to have their lives and reputations destroyed.

Justin Trudeau — who, angelic visage notwithstanding, is a vengeful and petty little man — went after Norman, viciously. The vice-admiral was criminally charged with breach of trust. Norman vehemently denied he was the source of the leak, and hired one of the best lawyers in Canada, Marie Heinen (who, full disclosure, this writer’s firm has worked with in the past).

That’s when things got interesting.

Back in February, during the pre-trial legal skirmishing over documents Trudeau’s staff were covering up, a shocking revelation came to light. Norman’s lawyers alleged that prosecutors had been talking trial strategy with Trudeau’s personal bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office (PCO).

That’s a big no-no. As in the LavScam case, criminal prosecutions must always be independent of politics. If the likes of Trudeau can use the criminal justice system to reward friends (like SNC-Lavalin) and punish enemies (like Norman), we will have fully become a totalitarian regime. We are no longer a true democracy.

“By all appearances,” one of Norman’s lawyers told the trial judge in February, “this is a more direct influencing of the prosecution … the Prime Minister’s Office, via its right arm the PCO, is dealing directly with the PPSC (Public Prosecution Service of Canada). And the prosecution service is allowing this to happen.”

The presiding judge was not impressed. “So much for the independence of the PPSC,” declared Judge Heather Perkins-McVey.

And, it was at that moment that many of us knew that Norman’s trial — scheduled for August, just weeks before the election writs were going to drop — was never going to happen. In open court, a senior judge had taken note of political interference by Trudeau’s PMO and PCO. And, at that point, for Trudeau and his winged monkeys, it became crucial that the trial never be allowed to happen.

And, now it won’t. As Christie Blatchford revealed in a Postmedia scoop, the Trudeau government abruptly decided to suddenly drop the prosecution of Norman. On Wednesday, they stayed the charges.

After LavScam — and after the attempted show trial of Norman — we can now be left with only one conclusion:

This is the most corrupt federal government in Canada’s history.

And they must — must — be defeated.


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