Trudeau vulnerable in Fall election amid growing damage from SNC-Lavalin file: Chantal Hebert

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Trudeau will share his BS with us tomorrow at 8 PM

Liberals still don’t get it

SNC had the largest human rights decision ever made in Canada awarded against them for paying Canada Line workers $3.77 an hour in BC when the minimum wage was $9.0o an hour

And Liberals want to be connected with this scum?

Go figure!

Raitt, Rankin and on the CBC Parkin stole the show today regardless of the suffocating Liberal talking points

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/03/06/i-do-not-ever-give-advice-that-is-partisan-top-civil-servant-insists.html

Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned on principle

Trudeau’s arrogance in failing to apologise for interfering in her portfolio and like Butts blamed Wilson-Raybould

Trudeau’s gets a failing grade for his presser this morning

Using code, Trudeau admits his own errors in Wilson-Raybould affair

Prime Minister Trudeau finally addressed the SNC-Lavalin affair in detail at a news conference in Ottawa early on Thursday morning, March 7, and came close to openly admitting that moving Jody Wilson-Raybould out of the justice ministry might have been a mistake.

Reporters for both CTV and CBC grilled the PM on the issue of the former minister's move from justice to veteran's affairs, which seems to have precipitated the entire affair.

They quoted Trudeau's former principal secretary Gerald Butts' testimony to the House of Commons justice committee the previous day. Butts told the committee that when it became necessary to shuffle the cabinet, because of treasury board chair Scott Brison's resignation, Butts, and his boss, Trudeau, decided the best person to take on Brison's role was the treasury board vice-chair, then Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott. They also decided the ideal person to replace Philpott would be the only Indigenous person in the cabinet, Wilson-Raybould.

Philpott cautioned them against moving Wilson-Raybould. She said the then justice minister might believe the move was motivated by her stance on SNC-Lavalin, and would not take that sitting down. Trudeau and Butts ignored that advice. When they told Wilson-Raybould she would move to Indigenous services she shocked them by flatly turning it down, not because of SNC-Lavalin, but because as an Indigenous person who had fought the Indian Act all her life, she did not feel comfortable administering that same act.

Butts told the justice committee his advice to Trudeau was that if he let Wilson-Raybould stay at justice he and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) would "lose control of cabinet." In Butts' view a prime minister and his personal entourage should be nearly all-powerful. Elected members of Parliament should know their place. When their leader offers them a job, whatever that job, they should gratefully and humbly accept, without complaint or reservation. The corollary to that view is that Jody Wilson-Raybould had to be moved, somewhere, to set an example, pour encourager les autres.

And so, heeding his senior adviser's counsel, Trudeau made an offer to Wilson-Raybould which in his mind she could not refuse: veterans' affairs. The former justice minister was not happy, and pointedly asked if her move was related to SNC-Lavalin. The prime minister assured her it was not, and she reluctantly accepted.

When, not too long after that, Trudeau told reporters the fact that Wilson-Raybould was still in cabinet meant she accepted any decision the new attorney general might take on SNC-Lavalin, Wilson-Raybould resigned from veterans' affairs.

In his news conference on Thursday the prime minister admitted that he now thinks he might have made a mistake in Wilson-Raybould's case. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to move her, just to set some sort of example about how elected politicians must kneel before the (unelected) PMO. Trudeau did not admit his error in so many words, of course. He said there are "lessons to be learned" from this decision and that things "could have been done differently."

The prime minister also came close to admitting that he had made a mistake in repeating the practice of his predecessors, going back to his father's time, of creating a nearly all-powerful secretive, unaccountable and unelected PMO. He promised he would now seek expert advice as to how to change that system. Trudeau did not allude to the fact that he had explicitly promised to roll back and limit the power of the PMO both during the 2015 election campaign and immediately after the election.

It would have been better if, at his news conference on Thursday, the prime minister had been blunt and forthright in acknowledging where he now believes he erred. He chose instead to use coded and politically careful language. We should give him some credit for at least being willing to admit that he now recognizes, to use his favourite expression, he "has lessons to learn."

Karl Nerenberg has been a journalist and filmmaker for more than 25 years. He is rabble's politics reporter.

Photo: Justin Trudeau/Facebook

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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/03/using-code-trudeau-admits-his-own-errors-w...

This is outrageous that Trudeau demoted his justice minister to help disgusting SNC Lavalin!!!

Trudeau delivered 3 clear messagers by his behaviour today:

1 Fuck you to Women!

2 Fuck you to Indigenous Peoples

3 Fuck you to Working People

It is becoming clearer and clearer where Trudeau's priorities lie, and whose back he is really covering.

Trudeau really should have come out and apologised, and told the truth this morning.

Unfortunately for all Canadians, including himself, he didn't apologise and he didn't tell the truth.

And Canada will be worse off because of it. 

Five Facts to Help You Assess the SNC-Lavalin Affair

Did Trudeau and his people do wrong? Some points to consider.

One thing we learned in the wake of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s testimony is that Canadians should quit feeling smug about the hyper-partisan, fact-free state of politics in the U.S.

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The reaction, from Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s immediate and unsupported call for Justin Trudeau’s resignation to Liberal attacks on Wilson-Raybould’s ability to withstand the pressure of her former job as attorney general — when, in fact, her ability to withstand pressure seems one of the few certainties at this point — was marked mostly by partisan rhetoric. Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault went full Trump, calling the justice committee’s investigation a “witch hunt.”

Ignore the tidal wave of spin and misinformation. Here are five things to consider as you assess the rights and wrongs of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

First, it was legitimate for the prime minister, cabinet members and political staff to try to persuade Wilson-Raybould to step in and reverse the decision that SNC-Lavalin should face bribery and corruption charges over its activities in Libya.

Wilson-Raybould said as much in her opening statement to the committee. “It is appropriate for cabinet colleagues to draw to the attorney general’s attention what they see as important policy considerations that are relevant to decisions about how a prosecution will proceed,” she told the justice committee.

The key word is relevant. The prime minister’s office — the centre of power in Ottawa — wanted the company to be allowed to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement, an option added to the Criminal Code last year after lobbying by SNC-Lavalin. The criminal charges would be stayed, SNC-Lavalin would pay a penalty and promise not to break the law, and there would be no trial. And no conviction, meaning SNC-Lavalin wouldn’t be barred from receiving federal government contracts. (According to one analyst, those contracts could be worth about $1.4 billion a year, about 15 per cent of SNC-Lavalin’s total revenue.)

The Criminal Code sets out objectives when considering a deferred prosecution agreement, including “to reduce the negative consequences of the wrongdoing for persons — employees, customers, pensioners and others — who did not engage in the wrongdoing, while holding responsible those individuals who did engage in that wrongdoing.”

So it was within the law — and I’d say ethical boundaries — for politicians and senior officials to claim criminal prosecution might cost jobs.

Second, it is wrong ethically — and perhaps legally — for those same people to press Wilson-Raybould to shut down the prosecution because it’s bad for the Liberal Party of Canada. That would be a fundamental subversion of the justice system, a confirmation that there is one law for the politically well-connected and another for the rest of us. Wilson-Raybould says that she was repeatedly pressured to intervene on the basis of partisan political interests.

Third, presenting information to the attorney general — even pressuring her — is acceptable if her ultimate right to make the decision independently is respected. That independence is critical to a functioning justice system. As soon as politicians can decide who face charges and who doesn’t, justice ends and cronyism and corruption begin. Again, Wilson-Raybould’s evidence suggests that line was crossed by pressure from the most powerful long after her decision was made, including “veiled threats.”

Fourth, Trudeau had the right to fire Wilson-Raybould at any time and install an attorney general who would do what he wanted on SNC-Lavalin. But the prime minister should not be allowed to pretend that’s not what happened.

Trudeau continues to maintain that Wilson-Raybould was only demoted because MP and Treasury Board Scott Brison resigned, and some changes to cabinet had to follow. It’s a laughable claim, especially as new Attorney General David Lametti has said he’s open to overturning the SNC-Lavalin decision.

Fifth, and finally, it’s important to note that to this point no one has contradicted or disputed Wilson-Raybould’s version of events.

Trudeau has said repeatedly that he disagrees that any of the pressure was inappropriate, as has his Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick.

But they are not the people to judge what is appropriate. A key issue in the SNC-Lavalin affair is the massive centralization of power in the prime minister’s office and the way it can be wielded to benefit special interests. It’s hardly surprising those accused of misusing that power would believe they had done nothing wrong.

No one has denied pressuring Wilson-Raybould or raising partisan political concerns as reasons to allow SNC-Lavalin to avoid prosecution. No one has challenged her evidence to the committee about meetings and phone calls and “veiled threats” aimed at heading off the criminal charges.

Perhaps they will. The justice committee will hear from more witnesses.

Until then, ignore the spin and misrepresentations from all sides, and focus on the disturbing evidence so far, the law and what you consider to be acceptable ethical behaviour. 

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/03/04/Five-Facts-SNC-Lavalin-Affair/

Today was just another example of Liberal spin

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-trudeau-isnt-feeling-it-and-concedes-only-to-an-erosion-of-trust

No problem Unionist

Another teachable moment? 

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-is-not-sorry-he-rarely-is/

Parliament is in recess, the Liberals were hoping SNC scandal would blow over during the break but it has only gotten worse.

I am now beginning to concur with others who have said that Trudeau will have to step down if the Liberals have any chance of winning the next election. 

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/03/08/Trudeau-Lessons-Learned-Name-Some/