By Ray Rivers

February 26th,2019

BURLINGTON, ON

After the dust had settled on the three by-elections, the Liberals came out one seat ahead. It was the one they used to own – in Outremont, Quebec. The Tories cleaned up in York-Simcoe to nobody’s surprise. But the prize was in Burnaby South where NDP leader Jagmeet Singh easily won, confounding the pundits, though it was a seat previously held by his party.

Jagmeet Singh now has a seat in the House of Commons; now the hard part for him begins.

Political analysts will struggle trying to dissect Singh’s victory in that ethnically diverse riding of Burnaby South. The Liberals placed second, ahead of the Conservatives but well below where they might have been thanks to some unfavourable headlines. To begin with their initial candidate had to resign after making racist comments. She’d argued that her chances of winning were good since more voters were of Chinese origin, like her, than Indian (Sikh), like Singh.

The Liberals rushed to replace her but clearly had lost valuable campaign time and ended up with a parachute candidate. In fact, Singh was the only candidate from a major party who actually lived in the riding, having moved there from Ontario. He had campaigned hard for this win, as if his future depended on it. And it did.

Party leaders are rarely defeated, perhaps in the spirit of fair play among voters. But the odds were out on Singh. Some committed Conservative and Liberal voters may have decided to stay home just to give Singh a chance. Still with an overall turnout of 30%, this was a more representative poll than either of the other two by-elections that night. But perhaps it was the weather helping the turnout – always kinder to voters in La La land.

It is no secret that Liberals had been musing whether their chances in the next election would actually be better with Mr. Singh sitting in Parliament or the NDP scrambling for a new leader. But then scrambling for a new leader didn’t hurt the Ontario Tories last election. And it’s also no secret that some in his own party were having misgivings about their last choice for NDP leader. They were not so quietly saying that there would be no second chance if Singh lost.

But there may have been other factors. For example, the provincial NDP is locked in a legal and political fight with Alberta’s NDP and the Trudeau government over the Trans Mountain pipeline, and Singh’s own objections to the pipeline, and the oil sands in general, no doubt played a role in his victory. Burnaby is the terminus of the pipeline and potential bitumen spills and enhanced tanker traffic are real concerns.

The NDP and Greens were alone in this opposition to more oil, but the absence of a Green Party candidate meant that Singh got all of those anti-pipeline votes as well. And on the topic of vote splitting, Maxime Bernier’s new People’s Party made a decent first showing in this riding, getting a third of the right-wing vote, and holding the real Conservatives back from getting to second place. But then the wild west is where the more libertarian/reform minded parties tend to do well, so that should not have been too surprising.

Jody Wilson Raybould – probably not a woman you want to argue with.

The Liberals were also undoubtably hurt by the Wilson-Raybould/SNC Lavalin issue. The riding of the former Attorney General (AG) is just down the hall from Burnaby. Sometimes the mere mention of a scandal is enough to sideline any politician. And Trudeau and the Liberal brand have already been damaged, tarnished by allegations of political interference in favour of the Quebec based industrial giant, SNC Lavalin.

Nothing happened! Lavalin is going to court to face the music. But the mere fact that the PM or one of his staff or his senior bureaucrat may have spoken to the AG about this matter is being referred to as pressure. And this is where it gets crazy. Because the AG is just another Liberal politician and a fellow Cabinet minister, and would have been expected to discuss the SNC case with her colleagues in that capacity. But was she pressured?

Jody Wilson-Raybould is a very accomplished person with an extensive and impressive resume. She was a BC provincial crown attorney, land claims negotiator and Regional Chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations. Recruited into the Liberal family as late as 2013 by Mr. Trudeau she was appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General following the 2015. election. There is an historical connection between Justin and Jody, since their fathers had tangled in discussions leading to Canada’s constitution.

Wilson-Raybould is to testify before the Commons Justice Committee this week, so that everyone may find out what her ‘truth’, as she calls it, really is. Mr. Trudeau, for his part, has not addressed why he chose to demote her just months away from the next election. She had completed a milestones report of the many accomplishments during her three years as AG, which included legislation on marijuana, medially assisted dying and impaired driving legislation.

Jody Wilson Raybould: Handles media well, doesn’t appear to do selfies.

There are some who would detract as to how well she had served her time as AG. But she also has a lot of followers, particularly since she resigned from the Trudeau Cabinet. Wilson-Raybould has stated that she is a Liberal and plans to run in the next election. So one has to ask why she is doing this. Why is she creating a crisis that might well sink any hope of the Liberals retaining government and Mr. Trudeau continuing as Prime Minister?

But perhaps that is the plan. Jody’s father once told Pierre Trudeau that he wanted one of his daughters to become PM. Perhaps once Justin has been defeated she’ll take over.

Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links:

Election Results –    Trans Mountain –     Jody Wilson- Raybould –

By Ray Rivers

February 23RD, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

It is bizarre that it has got this far and has gone on for this long.

Recognized as Canada’s national newspaper, though only second by circulation, the highly respected Globe and Mail has created a political scandal out of apparently thin air. The paper has relied on unsupported allegations to make its case that there has been political interference in the administration of federal legal proceedings against SNC Lavalin.

The good days when the Prime Minister appointed Jody Wilson Raybould Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

It may have been only a couple of weeks since the Globe’s story hit the pavement but somebody needs to start tallying up the costs for this story, which has grown a lot of legs but no teeth. Already the former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould and the PM’s Principal Secretary, Gerald Butts, have both resigned. The Commons Justice Committee has had to start special hearings and the Ethics Commissioner has been called in. Lavalin has suffered its first financial loss in six years and its shares are plummeting.

Then there is all the ink that has been spilled over what more and more appears to be the Globe’s non-story. The PM has been consistent. He said the Globe was wrong on day one. Then he followed up emphatically stating that neither he nor his office gave the former AG or her staff direction on the file – in fact reiterating that he had instructed her that the decision to intercede on SNC was hers and hers alone.

The Clerk of the Privy Council, the most senior bureaucrat in Ottawa has identified three critical meetings, where Wilson-Raybould might have felt there had been pressure, including one with him, one between Butts and her senior assistant, and one she had had with the PM back in September, which started out as a meeting on the indigenous file.

President knew how to apply pressure to the members of Congress.

Now the Globe has modified their story from allegations of political interference to somebody pressuring the AG. Pressure? What else does one expect in political life but pressure? Going for that nomination, running an election campaign, debating other candidates, being on call by constituents once elected, standing up in the House, attacking and being attacked. I’m sorry but if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

In the matter of SNC, Canadians should expect that our politicians would look long and hard at options to, essentially, putting a Canadian icon, Lavalin, out of business for something a handful of former executives did almost two decades ago, in a land so far away and as corrupt as Libya. Imagine the pressure the over 8,000 Canadian SNC employees will feel if their company shuts down or is sold to a foreign entity, as had happened with Alcan and Rona.

Of course Lavalin might win its court case. But is the cost of prosecuting worth it, when a modern legal disciplinary alternative to lengthy and costly trials for these kinds of white collar crimes exists?

The elected government makes the laws and the prosecutor applies them, but even in TV’s Law and Order there is ample discussion among the parties about the best way to prosecute, and when to accept plea bargains.

She was no longer the Minister of Justice.

The former AG is set to address the Justice Committee early this coming week so we might finally all understand what she means by pressure – assuming those are her words. But even if she felt there was pressure and that others were being insensitive – it obviously wasn’t the pressure that forced her to resign. She resigned well after being shuffled out of the AG’s office.

What goes on in the PM’s Cabinet room is top secret and Cabinet solidarity is at the heart of our governance system. Breaking confidentiality has serious consequences as two federal officials are finding out for allegedly leaking details on shipbuilding contracts. So where did the Globe and Mail get their information? And if it was from the former AG, or anyone Wilson-Raybould had communicated with, wouldn’t that make a mockery of her current protestations about attorney-client privilege?

The PM has told us that he shuffled Jody Wilson-Raybould out of the AG’s office for a number of reasons. Wilson-Raybould understood that being minister of aboriginal affairs would have been an inappropriate appointment for her, given her background. But there are also a number of legal issues coming forward which affect the indigenous communities, including self-government, first nations reconciliation and the Trans Mountain pipeline. Any one of these might find her in a potential conflict of interest situation as Canada’s AG.

Are newspapers in place to make news as well as report it?

The role of newspapers is typically to report the news, not to make it. The Globe has decided on the latter in this case. Perhaps the Globe’s editors were just trying to liven up or balance out the federal political scene. Perhaps they wanted to sell more papers. Or perhaps they were hoping to influence the outcome of the next election with a story replete with unsupported innuendo.

Unless the former AG reveals something earth-shattering with her testimony at the Justice Committee, this will be a sad mark on the pages of the Globe. Trudeau has clearly been affected by all the commotion, losing his friend and chief organizer Butts in the process. Trudeau came to office embracing feminism and an obligation to lift Canada’s indigenous people beyond their current state.

In Jody Wilson-Raybould he, no doubt, saw the embodiment of that ambition. He recruited her, brought her into federal politics, and placed her in one of the most senior appointments in his cabinet. It is no wonder that he seems hurt and unhappy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes a selfie.

The PM is responsible for appointing and shuffling cabinet ministers at his discretion, and they serve at his pleasure. Trudeau has delegated more authority to his ministers than any PM since his father. That he would be accused of overriding, directing, influencing or pressuring a minister of his Cabinet, and the Attorney General in particular, must indeed be a bitter pill for him to swallow.

And with all the accusations by the G&M, opposition calls to bring in the RCMP, pundits demanding the PM resign, is there little wonder that the smile has departed from even this PM’s face. So anyone wanting a selfie might want to keep that thought until the Globe and Mail prints a retraction of the story.

Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.

Background links:

Justice Committee Analysis –     PM’s Discretion –

Wilson- Raybould –     More Reasons Why –    SNC Legal Options –

Shawcross Rule –    Wilson-Raybould Future –   

Understanding Jody –     Butts –

Indigenous Issues –    Cabinet Secrets –