I’m about to talk to the Construction Association folks about this in a few minutes. It was just released.
UPDATE: Ipsos has confirmed Reid, here. Oh, and Trump is more popular than Trudeau. That, too.
Justin Trudeau’s PMO has made history: so intent were they on smearing Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Liberal leader and his apparatchiks violated the confidentiality of the judicial appointment process – and they smeared a respected jurist who was tending to his wife. Who had breast cancer.
It got a reaction. One that none of his predecessors ever did.
Here’s the Canadian Bar Association’s reaction:
“There is a process to get informed input about the merits of the applicants. It rightly goes on behind closed doors. Keeping the deliberations confidential respects the privacy of applicants and guards against interference. Breaching confidentiality by releasing the names and commenting on the suitability of the other applicants after the appointment demeans the selection process and ultimately all those who hold the office of judge.”
And here is the Manitoba Bar Association:
“It is vital any deliberations leading up to any appointment remain confidential. The recent breaches of confidentiality…[are] highly disconcerting. It demeans the entire selection process…The Manitoba Bar Association is also deeply concerned about comments made about Chief Justice Joyal…[which were] entirely improper and indeed false…It is appalling.”
Justin Trudeau is uniting people, alright.
Against him.
That’s what the Globe and Mail is suggesting in another shocker this morning. I have wondered the same thing.
Huge reporting by Fife and Team. And, if true, this moves things closer to obstruction of justice. Big time.
The Prime Minister’s Office will neither confirm nor deny the assertion by former attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould that senior advisers to Justin Trudeau had inside knowledge of discussions within the independent Public Prosecution Service about the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould has alleged that the Prime Minister’s Office [PMO] told her chief of staff about an apparent internal dispute between director of public prosecutions Kathleen Roussel and one of the federal prosecutors handling the SNC-Lavalin bribery and fraud prosecution.
In testimony before the Commons justice committee last month, Ms. Wilson-Raybould described a Sept. 16, 2018, conversation between her then-chief of staff, Jessica Prince, and the Prime Minister’s Quebec adviser, Mathieu Bouchard, and senior adviser Elder Marques about negotiating an out-of-court settlement with SNC-Lavalin.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould says she plans to provide follow-up written testimony this week to the committee to show there was high-level political interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter.
Hate to sound like a guy who teaches at a law school and all that, but I am and I do. And so, Judy Sgro, John McKay, Susan Delacourt and Trudeau patronage recipient Bob Rae et al.: stay in your lane, please. Violating a cabinet oath is a serious offence. Violating solicitor-client privilege will get a lawyer disbarred, too.
Get with it, folks. Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott have both said they want to talk, and they have things to say.
Justin Trudeau, our Feminist-in-Chief, just won’t let them.
UPDATE: My smart lawyer friend Ed Prutschi suggests Sgro, McKay, Rae et al. may be counselling an indictable offence, here.
What’d happen, @SusanDelacourt, if @Puglaas violated solicitor-client privilege? She’d be disbarred, that’s what. And if @janephilpott broke her cabinet oath? Beauchesne says she could be prosecuted by the House. #cdnpoli #LavScam https://t.co/505MLoqY1U
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 22, 2019
It’s revealing, but not surprising, that the political party that cooked up #LavScam is urging two principled women to break their oaths – which will result in disbarment/prosecution if they do so. A basic understanding of law and ethics isn’t a Trudeau PMO strength. #cdnpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 22, 2019
From the bulging Political Irony file: if @Puglaas and @janephilpott violate cabinet confidences, as PMO's supplicant's are urging them to do, they could be charged with Breach of Trust – as, um, Vice-Admiral Norman has been. By PMO's supplicants. #cdnpoli #LavScam
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 22, 2019
From the very first time I met Jane, and spoke at her riding association many years ago, I believed her to be principled and brilliant. And the kind of person we need in public life.
It will find a way out.
**
Q: When you left cabinet, did you have a strategic goal in mind? What was the point of resigning?
A: I resigned because I could not maintain solidarity with cabinet on the specific issue of the management of the SNC-Lavalin issue. I felt that there was evidence of an attempt to politically interfere with the justice system in its work on the criminal trial that has been described by some as the most important and serious prosecution of corporate corruption in modern Canadian history.
A: No. There’s much more to the story that should be told.
Q: What sort of stuff?
A: I believe the former attorney general has further points to make. I believe that I have further issues of concern that I’m not free to share. There was a reference by Gerry Butts in his testimony of the fact that I spoke to the Prime Minister on January the 6th about SNC-Lavalin’s desire to have a DPA [deferred prosecution agreement]. This was more than a month before the story became public. And I ordinarily would have not been allowed to share that information. But of course it’s already on the public record from the Justice Committee. I think Canadians might want to know why I would have raised that with the Prime Minister a month before the public knew about it. Why would I have felt that there was a reason why former Minister Wilson-Raybould should not be shuffled?
Q: In what forum would you like to discuss all of this?
A: My sense is that Canadians would like to know the whole story. I believe we actually owe it to Canadians as politicians to ensure that they have the truth. They need to have confidence in the very basic constitutional principle of the independence of the justice system.
Q: Mr. Butts said, essentially, ‘Come on, this doesn’t rise to the level of harassment, or bugging, or even sustained engagement. It’s 20 interactions over four months. It’s two phone calls and two meetings per month.’
A: The constitutional principle of the independence of the justice system is such that the attorney general of our country should not be subjected to political interference in any way. Whether there is one attempt to interfere or whether there are 20 attempts to interfere, that crosses ethical and constitutional lines.
Q: Now there’s an Ethics Commissioner investigation. Michael Wernick seemed to have a lot of confidence in the Ethics Commissioner. Do you think that can capture everything that needs capturing?
A: My sense is that they will not have the appropriate tools to be able to get at all of this.
Q: What’s missing?
A: If nothing wrong took place, then why don’t we waive privilege on the whole issue and let those who have something to say on it speak their minds and share their stories?
Q: The Finance Minister [Bill Morneau] said your resignation from cabinet was an expression of personal friendship with Jody Wilson-Raybould. What do you make of that?
A: I think that’s an insult.
Q: How so?
A: I don’t make decisions on any policy — and definitely not on a matter of principle — based on friendship. I made the very difficult decision to step down because my conscience demanded it.
…they love guns. White supremacists, neo-Nazis, homophobes, Holocaust deniers, Islamophobes, committed racists all share one thing: they are gun nuts. Back when the Heritage Front was the largest and most active hate group on the planet, they made holding a valid Canadian Firearms Acquisition Certificate a condition of membership.
So, what New Zealand has done here, in less than a week, is a big and positive step. The gun nuts will say that it won’t eliminate illegal guns, and they’re right, but they’re fundamentally dishonest, too. They know it will mean fewer assault weapons – weapons that are simply designed to hunt humans – getting into the wrong hands.
So, kudos, Kiwis. Your Prime Minister is pretty amazing, I’d say.
Good on her. She’s got guts and integrity to spare.
We haven’t heard the last from Celina.
Whitby, Ont. MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes has quit the Liberal caucus and will sit as an independent.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the decision after the weekly caucus meeting.
“I have just been notified by my office that Celina Caesar-Chavannes has decided to sit as an independent. I want to thank her for her service to the Liberal Party and to her constituents, and wish her the best in her continued service to her constituents,” he said.
Caesar-Chavannes already had announced she will not seek re-election in the October election.
She told the Globe and Mail that when she first told Trudeau about her plan not to run, he became hostile towards her.
“He was yelling. He was yelling that I didn’t appreciate him, that he’d given me so much,” Caesar-Chavannes told the newspaper.
The Prime Minister’s Office insisted that Trudeau displayed “absolutely no hostility” in the exchange.
THREAD. A member of the Team Trudeau campaign secretly follows around two former cabinet ministers on budget day, and takes photos of them when they meet with others. Without consent, without approval. And then he gives the photos to a reporter friendly with Team Trudeau.
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 20, 2019
Talk is cheap.
If the Trudeau government is serious about stopping the spread of hate, here’s something they can do this week.
Will they? (Oh, and one Minister was looking at ways to bring back a version of section 13. Guess who she was?)
The federal government’s words about combatting hate are fine. But they need to match words and action. So: bring back section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act now. It was a #LPC MP who championed its repeal under a #CPC government. So, fix it. https://t.co/cqKM1A5DM5 #cdnpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 17, 2019