Gerry Butts

Former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is testifying to the Justice Committee. His version of events leading to the SNC-Lavalin crisis will obviously be at odds with Jody Wilson-Raybould’s. In his opinion, the Attorney General’s decision on whether to interfere with the court case would not be a once-and-for-all-time one, because something could come up during the trial which might need mitigating. In other words, she could have waited until just before the sentencing to step in. Hence the “pressure” being brought to bear on her and the Justice department.

If someone ‘accidentally’ mentioned a provincial or federal election, that would have been unfortunate, because the intention was to ‘help’ SNC-Lavalin avoid losing work, and ‘middle class’ jobs, for Quebec.

The Demotion?

From the government’s point-of-view, shifting JWR from the Justice department to another portfolio was only because of the unexpected resignation of a cabinet minister. A reshuffle had to take place, so Trudeau decided which ones were going to be moved ‘sideways’. His mistake was thinking that he could solve all of his SNC-Lavalin problems by finding a new Attorney General. His second mistake was thinking that was a reasonable move.

Now he has a problem of ‘optics’: is Trudeau a leader of men (and women), or is he just a coward who hides behind his minions? You decide…