POLITICS
In the abandoned ruins of Ottawa
Paul Wells: How did the SNC-Lavalin scandal manage to rattle this government so badly? Because it reveals some truths to Canadians about this Prime Minister.
by Paul Wells Apr 4, 2019
Jody Wilson-Raybould’s and Jane Philpott’s place in or out of the Liberal caucus matters less than most of the two-month SNC-Lavalin drama. A parliamentary caucus is not a rules organization, it’s a trust organization. Liberals no longer trusted the two former ministers, in part because clearly neither trusts the Prime Minister. So out they went. How other people organize their clubs is their concern.
I’ll note a contradiction: in 2002, when the entire country knew Paul Martin was plotting to unseat a sitting Liberal prime minister, Paul Martin continued to sit as a member of the Liberal caucus. Ah yes, some Liberal friends remind me, but that’s because most of the caucus was in on Martin’s scheme. That’s true, and it raises stubborn and recurrent questions about the wisdom of Liberal caucuses. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes say, “My best thinking brought me here.” A Liberal caucus in the grip of its best thinking is a wonder to behold.
But onward. I’m left with questions from Wilson-Raybould’s recording of her December phone conversation with Michael Wernick, the soon-to-be-former clerk of the Privy Council. Sure, it’s a terrible thing when a woman records her 20th surreal conversation with people who insist they’re not pressuring her. Here’s her penalty: I’ll ignore what she said on that call and listen only to Wernick.
He describes an imminent, pressing economic crisis that has transfixed the Prime Minister of Canada. “Our intelligence from various sources,” he says, is that SNC’s board has asked consulting firms for options that could include “selling out to somebody else, moving—you know, various things.” All of this “seems to be real and not a bluff,” Wernick says.
Trudeau “wants to be able to say he has tried everything within the legitimate toolbox” to avert this disaster. He is “determined” and “firm.” “I think he is going to find a way to get it done one way or another.” He is in “that kinda mood.”
The conversation goes poorly. “I am going to have to report back before he leaves,” Wernick says. “He is in a pretty firm frame of mind about this, so I am a bit worried . . . . I just saw him a few hours ago and this is really important to him.” Fortunately, “He is still around tomorrow.”
And then, according to later replies to inquiries from both the Prime Minister’s Office and Trudeau himself, Wernick never breathed a word about this extraordinary conversation to the Prime Minister. Even though Trudeau was in Ottawa for a day after the clerk’s call with Wilson-Raybould. Even though telephones work in Whistler, where he vacationed following a pre-Christmas trip to Mali. Even though he was in the office for another day, back from holidays, before launching a cabinet shuffle.
What part of this sounds like the work habits of a serious Prime Minister?
If you, dear reader, were determined and firm and looking to get something done one way or another, if you were in that kinda mood, I bet you wouldn’t let three weeks go by without checking in on a file’s progress.
And then, if you switched out the deeply aggravating attorney general for a new one, say a solid white male McGill graduate like you and Gerry Butts—entirely by accident! It’s not as though that was the goal or anything!—I’m betting you wouldn’t let two more months go by without fixing the no-bluff 9,000-job problem.
And yet that’s what Justin Trudeau has done. The so-called deferred prosecution agreement that would have saved SNC from a trial, but that only an attorney general could order the public prosecutor to negotiate, remains available. At this writing, David Lametti hasn’t delivered the public order that would trigger its use. Now, of course, there’s been a lot going on. But was Trudeau only intent on action if he could be bold in secret? Was he only going to save those 9,000 jobs if it was easy? How thrilled are you to learn that a Prime Minister who’s determined and firm and in that kinda mood hasn’t actually done anything to get closer to effective action?
I ask because I’ve been struck by a peculiarity of this whole mess. It’s this: How did this scandal manage to rattle this government so profoundly? And the best answer I can find is this: Because it reveals truths about this Prime Minister that shake many Canadians’ confidence in him....
