Juno News - Is Canada's top ＂non-partisan＂ official shilling for Trudeau？

00:00:00.800 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another True North Report. My name is Andrew Lawton, fellow with True North, with you to unpack the latest and greatest of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

00:00:12.460 And I will preface this by saying that I deserve a medal because I have suffered through, I think, about like seven hours of parliamentary testimony today so that you don't have to.

00:00:23.080 I will condense what happened in that seven hours to a good, manageable, you know, seven-minute chunk for you.

00:00:29.600 And I deserve the Order of Canada for that because I don't even think the people in the committee room were listening for all seven hours.

00:00:36.580 But I did it. I did it. I made it through it. I'm very glad that I worked from home and I could just like camp out on my couch for the seven hours because doing it at a desk would have been very unpleasant.

00:00:47.040 Almost as unpleasant as being on the receiving end of a cross-examination by Lisa Raid, which I think is probably right up there with, you know, like the Chinese torture you read about.

00:00:59.340 Like she is just so effective in that role. I would not want to be in the hot seat when she is questioning.

00:01:05.080 But thanks very much, everyone, for tuning in. We have a lot to really get through here.

00:01:10.260 And I have to stress, when I say that being cross-examined by Lisa Raid is probably like going through Chinese torture, I don't mean that she's wrong.

00:01:18.140 I just mean that it's not going to be pleasant. It was very pleasant to watch.

00:01:22.060 Lisa Raid just absolutely killed it today. 1.00

00:01:24.800 I think there were a lot of conservatives and a lot of Canadians that were watching this.

00:01:29.340 If you, like me, were going through the seven hours and just like literally on the end of the seat going like, yeah, you go.

00:01:34.840 It was actually more interesting to watch her than it was to watch the first 80% of this year's Super Bowl. 0.56

00:01:42.800 Now, admittedly, that's not saying much because I think, you know, watching paint dry was more exciting than the first 80% of this year's Super Bowl.

00:01:51.460 But it was great. I mean, because she wasn't just entertaining to watch.

00:01:55.120 The reason she was entertaining was because she was actually pointing out the logical inconsistencies that were coming from the testimonies of Michael Wernick and also the testimony of Gerald Butts.

00:02:10.220 And this is hugely important.

00:02:12.120 This is so tremendously important right now because this situation has become a he said, she said, he said, she said situation.

00:02:20.980 I mean, there's no way around that.

00:02:22.280 Jody Wilson-Raybould testified last week.

00:02:24.820 I covered it extensively.

00:02:26.440 I thought it was a very good testimony.

00:02:29.100 But still, we have to rely a lot on Jody Wilson-Raybould's own memories, recollections and contemporaneous notes.

00:02:36.340 And I think the word of the day today was contemporaneous.

00:02:38.540 If you were taking a shot every time someone said contemporaneous, you are right now sprawled, passed out on the ground outside committee room in Parliament.

00:02:47.120 And the other part of this is that the versions we heard today were not really much better fleshed out.

00:02:57.460 They were coming from the notes and memories and recollections of Gerald Butts and of Michael Wernick and of Nathalie Drouin, who is the deputy minister of justice.

00:03:06.340 And she testified today alongside Michael Wernick.

00:03:10.500 So this is where I want to go with this here because when push comes to shove, I want to separate the testimonies of Gerald Butts and Michael Wernick.

00:03:22.220 I felt that in all honesty, Gerald Butts was a more reliable witness than Michael Wernick.

00:03:29.320 And when I say that, I don't mean that I believe everything that he said, but he was a more reliable witness in the sense that when he testified, there was a ring of truth to it.

00:03:38.460 He gave a very good explanation, I thought, for why the cabinet shuffle took place.

00:03:43.940 He believes and is claiming, as though he believes, that Jody Wilson-Raybould's demotion to Veterans Affairs had absolutely nothing to do with the SNC-Lavalin case.

00:03:54.580 One of the interesting perspectives I've seen online is that it seems like he may actually believe this, like his government and his party and his office has talked itself into believing it.

00:04:06.080 Whereas you take Michael Wernick, Michael Wernick was flippant, he was smug, he was defensive, he was very glib about all of this.

00:04:14.700 And the one takeaway that I got from Michael Wernick here is that this is a man who should lose his job, not just for what may have happened in the SNC-Lavalin case,

00:04:24.800 but here's a guy who should probably lose his job simply for the approach that he has with his career.

00:04:31.260 And I'm going to read a couple of quotes that came that I think illustrate this.

00:04:35.640 But I want to go through really point by point a lot of the issues that came up today.

00:04:39.760 You know, Gerald Butts started his testimony with, of course, the Aboriginal land acknowledgement,

00:04:45.480 because that is just what you have to do when you're a white person in Ottawa.

00:04:50.240 You have to make it about Aboriginal affairs. 0.98

00:04:53.920 And Gerald Butts does it, and then he says that he's not here to say a bad word about former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:05:01.180 He's got a lot of respect. He doesn't want to disparage her. He's not going to be mean to her.

00:05:04.940 And then, like, immediately after that, he says, but, you know, I'm here because, you know, I just disagree with, you know, everything she said last week.

00:05:11.960 And I think that her characterization of this stuff needs to be corrected.

00:05:15.480 So he basically says, and this is like the condensed version of what Jerry Butts said, you know, I'm not here to say a bad word about her,

00:05:23.400 but everything she said was a lie, and here's why.

00:05:25.540 So, but he refused, refused every single time he was asked to go down that road of saying, yes, I am saying she's wrong.

00:05:34.180 Yes, I'm saying she's lying. Yes, I'm saying she's remembered this incorrectly.

00:05:39.240 So he doesn't even have the fortitude to really come out guns blazing and say, yeah, you know what?

00:05:46.600 I think that she is wrong, and we're right, and this is what the truth of the matter is.

00:05:51.860 So that I find interesting, and I don't know if it's that they don't want to get pulled into this, you know, quagmire of having to be calling a woman a liar.

00:06:00.560 But, I mean, this is the identity politics.

00:06:02.500 If you live by the identity politics sword, you're going to die by it.

00:06:06.420 But I found that very interesting. 1.00

00:06:08.460 So he's like, yeah, you know, we're not here to say a bad word about her, but she's a dirty, stinking liar. 1.00

00:06:13.540 And, yeah, so what do you want to ask me, folks? 1.00

00:06:16.280 But he was very candid.

00:06:18.700 When he talks about the timeline of the meetings that were had between the Prime Minister's office and Jody Wilson-Raybould's office,

00:06:26.340 he said, and this is an exact quote that I took contemporary, well, I can't even say the word now, contemporaneously.

00:06:32.660 I said contemporaneous, so I've got to take a drink now.

00:06:34.920 Excuse me.

00:06:36.800 He said, all we ever asked the Attorney General to do was consider a second opinion.

00:06:44.080 So that's key.

00:06:45.000 All we ever asked the Attorney General to do was consider a second opinion.

00:06:49.520 Now, this implies a couple of things.

00:06:51.680 Number one, it implies that apparently they don't believe Jody Wilson-Raybould thought of all of the circumstances and situations and permutations and conjugations of this before making her decision.

00:07:03.560 It says that, no, we actually don't believe that she did all of this beforehand.

00:07:12.160 And also it says that we didn't respect when she had reached the conclusion.

00:07:16.360 And this is so critical here because Gerald Butts said unequivocally that he didn't know Jody Wilson-Raybould had made a decision until last week.

00:07:27.380 So she made a decision September, I think it was 16th or 19th.

00:07:30.720 He says, no, I only learned, you know, last week when she testified that she apparently made a decision then.

00:07:35.540 Michael Wernick this afternoon, just about an hour ago, testified to the contrary, that he knew Jody Wilson-Raybould had made a decision back in September.

00:07:45.340 But he said, despite her making that decision, it was never a legally binding or legally final decision because the attorney general has the purview to make a decision up until the point a judge renders a verdict.

00:08:00.380 And this is a lengthy legal way of saying that one of the things that really came up here is that Jody Wilson-Raybould may have in her own mind come to a conclusion, but she still could have changed it.

00:08:12.180 And she was within that time frame of when she could have changed her mind.

00:08:17.460 So this is fascinating because Michael Wernick's admitting that conversations he had with Jody Wilson-Raybould after she had made up her mind were part of that whole considering her to give a second opinion thing that Gerald Butts had indicated.

00:08:33.280 And this is fascinating because, you know, Michael Wernick is not supposed to be the guy that is driving policy.

00:08:40.580 He's not supposed to be the guy that's driving an agenda.

00:08:44.160 He's not supposed to be the guy that is driving what a government is deciding.

00:08:49.260 He's the guy who is the head of the civil service, the head of the federal public service, the top ranking bureaucrat in Canada's government.

00:08:57.180 He's supposed to be there to make the trains run on time and to implement whatever the government has decided.

00:09:02.720 But he was going beyond that role and actually, as I said last week, running interference.

00:09:09.560 And this was the allegation that Jody Wilson-Raybould had made.

00:09:14.100 And when it comes to, you know, that whole policy that they were pushing to give a deferred prosecution agreement to not just to give a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin,

00:09:25.020 but to interfere in the prosecutor's decision and then doing it.

00:09:32.100 And this is what Gerald Butts said.

00:09:33.880 He said, yes, you know, we were trying to raise the 9,000 jobs, the 9,000 jobs in Quebec, the 9,000 jobs here, the 9,000.

00:09:41.220 I mean, we kept hearing it, 9,000 jobs, 9,000 jobs.

00:09:43.840 And he says that this is something that they were considering and that the government had an obligation to consider it.

00:09:50.980 And he even at one point, like, Jerry Butts started, like, talking about his upbringing in Cape Breton and trying to bond with Lisa Raitt.

00:09:57.540 Because that's, you know, he's scared when he's like, you know, I'm afraid of Lisa Raitt's questions.

00:10:02.040 So I'm just going to, like, try to bond with her about growing up in Cape Breton or something.

00:10:06.220 It didn't work.

00:10:06.840 But he said, you know, oh, yes, when the coal mines would shut down there and we'd all be very sad.

00:10:12.680 And he was talking about this.

00:10:14.380 But the job considerations are political considerations.

00:10:19.080 And it doesn't mean they're not justifiable political considerations, but they are political considerations.

00:10:24.780 But there was a point that Jerry Butts actually admitted that he was bringing up this dialogue and his office was bringing up this dialogue.

00:10:32.780 But he says that protecting Quebec jobs is not a political consideration.

00:10:38.820 It's a public policy consideration.

00:10:42.040 So he admitted, and this is what happened.

00:10:44.340 He admitted doing what Jody Wilson-Raybould accused him of doing.

00:10:48.740 But where she views it as political interference, they're saying, no, it's not.

00:10:52.820 Because they're trying to put it under the mask of public policy.

00:10:57.480 Well, public policy is a reflection of the political agenda of a country and of a government.

00:11:05.240 And this is something that's very important.

00:11:07.220 And this is not something that was first brought up to the government when the Globe and Mail story came up.

00:11:12.440 And this was what I would say is probably one of the juicier revelations from Scott Bryson's testimony.

00:11:19.440 He said that when the cabinet shuffle took place in January, and they were trying to do everything because Scott Bryson left.

00:11:27.280 That was another take a drink moment there.

00:11:29.560 All the Scott Bryson references.

00:11:31.660 But Scott Bryson left cabinet.

00:11:33.660 They needed to find a Treasury Board president.

00:11:35.980 Jane Philpott goes over.

00:11:37.860 Then that leaves Indigenous services.

00:11:40.300 Jody Wilson-Raybould didn't want Indigenous services because she rejects the Indian Act, which I don't fault her for. 0.99

00:11:47.060 So they have to find a role for her. 0.97

00:11:49.600 But Jody Wilson-Raybould apparently said to the Prime Minister in January, you know, I've got concerns about this shuffle.

00:11:56.340 Jody Wilson-Raybould's going to feel it's a demotion.

00:11:59.200 And, you know, she's probably going to think it has to do with this SNC-Lavalin thing.

00:12:03.440 And Gerald Butts called this far-fetched.

00:12:06.280 And he said Trudeau was surprised by the question and didn't really care about the implication that someone might think that and someone might raise that question.

00:12:17.460 So this whole thing happens.

00:12:20.060 This timeline is laid out by Jerry Butts.

00:12:22.000 And what was interesting here is that this tells us very little that we didn't already know.

00:12:30.120 I mean, we got a little bit more color about the cabinet process.

00:12:32.520 But again, he admitted that, yes, they were trying to get Jody Wilson-Raybould to take into consideration a second perspective and a second opinion and telling her, yeah, you know, we'll even hire a former Supreme Court justice to help you get some outside legal advice.

00:12:50.340 While repeatedly telling her, the decision is yours, the decision is yours, the decision is yours.

00:12:57.100 And, you know, one thing strikes me as odd here.

00:12:59.920 And I want to compare this to the Michael Cohen testimony we had last week.

00:13:04.960 Not that I see similarities in the people or the situations, but the narrative.

00:13:10.160 Where one thing that Michael Cohen said that I found interesting was that, you know, Trump would never tell him something outright.

00:13:16.460 He would just say, you know, this is the way it's going to be.

00:13:20.600 And Trudeau, Butts, Wernick have all said repeatedly, no, no, no.

00:13:25.920 In fact, we kept telling her.

00:13:27.660 We kept telling her the decision was hers. 0.70

00:13:29.760 We kept pointing out, it's your decision, Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:13:32.800 It's your decision.

00:13:33.580 It's your decision.

00:13:34.200 And it sounds like they were trying to make that claim more for the record than for the truth of the matter.

00:13:42.600 It sounds like they wanted to make sure that there was something that they could look back and say, no, no, no.

00:13:47.500 We kept telling her the decision is hers. 0.78

00:13:49.700 Like, that's only something you do if you're trying to overcompensate for interfering.

00:13:55.160 That's the only thing that you really do when you're actually interfering is you try to, like, lay down all this evidence of, no, no, no.

00:14:01.620 I'm not interfering.

00:14:02.500 I'm not taking away your right.

00:14:04.220 I'm not saying you can't do this.

00:14:06.700 And that seems very deliberate when all of these people have said, no, no, no.

00:14:11.300 I know.

00:14:11.980 Because, again, they're all saying, well, I don't recall that.

00:14:13.920 I don't recall that.

00:14:14.780 I don't recall that.

00:14:15.940 But I recall saying this.

00:14:18.160 So they're either making it up after the fact or they said it specifically for this point so that they know if they were to look back on it, they could say, ah, yes, we told her the decision was hers and hers alone.

00:14:30.260 Maybe it was said, however, with a bit of a wink.

00:14:32.520 So this was, I think, the crux of Gerald Butz's testimony here and why there were some concerns with it.

00:14:40.860 And what was interesting is that he was reading all of these old text messages, emails.

00:14:46.840 One of the questions that I raised, thankfully, Lisa Raitt raised it in committee, was how did he have access to his prime minister's office email, text messages, phone records, all of that.

00:14:57.080 He claims that he got it through his lawyer.

00:15:01.360 So he went to his lawyer and said, you know, I need all of this information.

00:15:04.920 His lawyer procured it for him.

00:15:06.820 The liberals legitimately on the committee voted against supplying that evidence to the committee.

00:15:13.080 So the text messages that he was reading, the emails he was reading, the calendar logs, the phone logs, all of these relevant details.

00:15:21.160 The conservatives, or sorry, not the conservatives, the NDP put a motion forward saying, have these admitted into evidence.

00:15:28.160 No, sorry, it was Lisa Raitt that put it forward.

00:15:30.940 And the liberals voted against it.

00:15:32.660 So the liberals legitimately voted against the committee that they sit on having the required and necessary evidence to do its investigatory duties.

00:15:44.120 And we're supposed to believe that they're not viewing this as or turning this into a sham.

00:15:50.240 They also voted against having Gerald Butz sworn in under oath.

00:15:54.600 They voted against having Michael Wernick sworn in under oath.

00:15:58.640 They voted against having Natalie Drouant voted sworn in under oath.

00:16:03.080 So the liberals have actually voted against, on the record, recorded under their names, a recorded vote, doing the things that you would require to have something have a little bit more oomph and a little bit more clout in these things.

00:16:18.240 So this is, I think, a fascinating, fascinating journey of events.

00:16:21.800 Because the liberals are not even pretending that they support this process and they support having some teeth to their committee on here.

00:16:30.240 And Michael Wernick has treated this as a farce as well.

00:16:34.220 His very first thing, not even in his statement, but before his statement, he held up this big dossier of things.

00:16:41.780 And he's like, I'm submitting into the record basically mean tweets that he was getting.

00:16:46.920 So this is laughable.

00:16:50.100 He was saying that, you know, Michael Wernick has been getting mean tweets from people across Canada on his official Twitter account, clerk underscore GC or whatever.

00:16:58.780 So he was submitting like printouts of the mean tweets because he thought that all of a sudden he was appearing on Jimmy Kimmel and that he would get the opportunity to read them later on.

00:17:08.200 And we're supposed to believe that Canadians responding to his allegations of impropriety are somehow exculpatory.

00:17:19.500 I don't quite know how that is.

00:17:21.260 But he said that it amounts to intimidation of a witness before a committee.

00:17:26.340 So this is the guy, 37-year career public servant.

00:17:29.780 He's seen it all.

00:17:30.600 He's been through governments, liberal governments, conservative.

00:17:33.280 And he gets a bunch of mean tweets in a week and he's like, you know, crying boo-boo about it and claiming that he was intimidated.

00:17:41.580 So he may have been testifying today under duress.

00:17:44.840 I suppose we'll find out soon enough if this is the case.

00:17:48.340 Julian Siegel writes on Facebook, asking no matter how nicely or courteously for reconsideration is interfering.

00:17:56.180 Yeah, no, you're very right about that, Julian.

00:17:57.880 And this is, of course, a response to Gerald Butts' claim that, you know, all he was doing was trying to make sure that Jody Wilson-Raybould was considering a second opinion.

00:18:09.100 Well, when she has decided and when she has made it clear to a number of people, not to Gerald Butts, he says, but made it clear to a number of people that she has decided, saying, well, have you thought about this?

00:18:21.920 That's pressure.

00:18:22.940 That is interference when she has already made up her mind.

00:18:26.680 But I want to focus a bit more on the Wernick side of things here because he admitted, so Jody Wilson-Raybould accused him of raising the fact that Quebec had an election coming up as being a concern.

00:18:40.320 He did not dispute that allegation.

00:18:42.180 He says, yeah, I did it.

00:18:43.500 I raised that not because it was a political concern, but because, you know, we as a government federally are generally speaking supposed to stay out of provincial issues.

00:18:53.500 And if we do this, it might cause issues in the Quebec election.

00:18:56.680 Which, I mean, he's splitting hairs.

00:18:58.880 He's defending it, but he's admitting that he did it.

00:19:01.960 He's admitting that he raised those concerns, which Jody Wilson-Raybould took as someone saying, yeah, we've got some political considerations here.

00:19:10.140 And remember, this was the conversation where Trudeau, based on Jody Wilson-Raybould's allegations, said, I am a member of Parliament in Quebec.

00:19:19.140 I am the MP for Papineau.

00:19:20.840 So Michael Wernick says what he was accused of saying is true, that, yes, he raised Quebec election issues with Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:19:32.300 But I wanted to go to a quote that he gave about what his role is.

00:19:39.280 Because the bigger question here than did the government interfere in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, or did it try to interfere, is whether Michael Wernick has been running as the chief nonpartisan bureaucrat in Canada, nonpartisan, political interference for the Liberals.

00:19:57.400 And there seems to be a lot of evidence mounting today that suggests, yes, in fact, he is.

00:20:03.400 And he was trying to explain his role.

00:20:06.480 And again, this may just be a wording issue.

00:20:09.020 Maybe I'm the one splitting hairs here.

00:20:11.140 I'm going to read the words, explain my thought process.

00:20:14.080 If you disagree with me, please do tell me in the comments.

00:20:16.740 They're down there in some corner, I don't know.

00:20:19.760 They're down there on your screen, though.

00:20:20.940 He says, part of my job is to keep the government's agenda moving.

00:20:28.200 Now, again, this is, I'm entirely possibly reading too much into this.

00:20:34.740 But he said unequivocally, part of my job is to keep the government's agenda moving.

00:20:39.900 The word agenda starts talking about the political implications of what Justin Trudeau's government is trying to do.

00:20:47.600 Advise counsel, yes.

00:20:49.680 But agenda means that he is basically spinning for what Trudeau is doing.

00:20:55.640 And when Trudeau's government was at odds with the attorney general, who is supposedly a nonpartisan role, but a partisan figure.

00:21:06.080 And this is the interesting thing.

00:21:07.840 The attorney general of a country is supposed to be independent, but she's a member of the cabinet.

00:21:12.780 She's a liberal MP.

00:21:14.020 It's difficult to split the minister of justice hat from the attorney general hat.

00:21:18.480 But her decision was one.

00:21:21.140 Trudeau, as a political figure, had a different perspective.

00:21:24.240 And even though the government position was what the attorney general decided, he was lobbying the attorney general with the prime minister.

00:21:33.720 And I know this is confusing and circular, and we're talking about figures here that are real people, but I'm talking about them in the roles because this is where it gets so significant.

00:21:44.760 So what Wernick was doing was actually lobbying.

00:21:48.060 He was not enacting the agenda.

00:21:50.080 What should happen is he gets the marching orders and he says, okay, this is what we're doing.

00:21:54.500 This is what the government of the day has decided.

00:21:56.300 So it's difficult to not see that he has a political role that he has been playing. 0.97

00:22:04.700 Brad writes, it's pathetic what the liberals are doing. 0.64

00:22:07.460 JB runs, writes here, I love the eye roll of the chairman of the Justice Committee. 0.95

00:22:12.840 Shows how much the liberals think of the inquiry.

00:22:15.580 And let's see, Elizabeth writes, terrible government.

00:22:19.020 Kevin writes, agreed.

00:22:20.500 The not so hidden agenda is lobby money, donations, and corruption.

00:22:24.240 Yeah, and we expect all of these things from SNC-Lavala.

00:22:27.500 Like, we expect them to be corrupt.

00:22:29.480 We also expect the government is going to fight back on it.

00:22:34.440 So basically, when Michael Wernick gets up there and says, I'm a public servant, I'm nonpartisan, he's doing this well discussing the viability of election prospects with the cabinet minister and with the prime minister.

00:22:45.160 So I think it's safe to say that we are not talking about a significantly different perspective of what happened than what was laid out by Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:22:57.340 And I want to, again, point out this juxtaposition here.

00:23:01.960 Gerald Butt said this morning that he didn't know a decision had been made by Jody Wilson-Raybould until last week.

00:23:08.540 Wernick said that he knew back in September.

00:23:11.040 And there were other discussions that took place that we were told of last week between Jody Wilson-Raybould's staff, Jody Wilson-Raybould, and other people in the PMO.

00:23:21.960 So Elder Marquez, Matthew Bouchard, and the chief of staff to Bill Morneau, Ben Shin.

00:23:26.980 And the reason this is important is because Elder Marquez and Matthew Bouchard know more than Butts does, but they report to him.

00:23:35.920 So Butts was either not paying attention to things that were happening in his office, or he was deliberately obfuscating about what he knew and when he knew it.

00:23:46.220 And that's where having the evidence, having the text messages, having the phone logs, having all of these things is a particularly important thing to do.

00:23:55.120 So Michael Wernick's smugness and flippancy, I think, is and should be quite offensive to Canadians.

00:24:03.380 And, you know, the one takeaway that I got from this is that in his worldview, and this is a guy, again, who's no spring chicken.

00:24:08.920 He's been doing this for close to four decades.

00:24:11.580 In his view, the public service shouldn't have to be accountable to the people.

00:24:15.960 And it was clear he was growing increasingly frustrated and resentful of the fact that he's had to answer any questions about his conduct.

00:24:25.280 And I think that's the very worst stereotype of the public service, that these people operate in the shadows, they're unelected, they're not held accountable.

00:24:33.160 And there was one point where he was getting questions from Lisa Raitt that he didn't like.

00:24:37.720 And he said, you know, you know, the Attorney General herself said last week, no criminal conduct has taken place.

00:24:45.340 And when he said this, the liberal or sorry, the NDP and conservative members of the committee actually started laughing at him.

00:24:52.580 And one person, I don't know who it was, heckled like as though that's the only bar that matters.

00:24:57.340 So his view is that, you know, as long as we didn't break the law criminally, we're in the clear.

00:25:01.920 No, I mean, we're talking about some more significant questions of political interference here that go beyond just that basic standard of obstructing justice that we hear about from the criminal code.

00:25:16.260 Tommy writes, why do they even bother letting anyone testify if they're not under oath?

00:25:20.400 Where is the RCMP in all of this?

00:25:22.640 Well, the testifying under oath thing I find interesting.

00:25:25.960 I mean, the fact that they voted against it is important.

00:25:29.920 Their view is that, you know, it's just not necessary.

00:25:32.840 I'd say everyone testifying should always be under oath.

00:25:36.760 Whereas the Liberal Justice Committee chair, Anthony Housefather, who I thought, again, has done a fairly good job on this up to this point, has said, well, you know, it's already a crime to lie before a committee.

00:25:48.360 So we don't need to to put them under oath.

00:25:50.540 But but for symbolism alone, voting against putting someone under oath just sends a very bad message.

00:25:57.040 But, you know, when we have the the other comments here, I mean, Sharon writes, what a farce.

00:26:03.300 This committee is voting down three motions, liberal corruption at its best.

00:26:08.520 Yeah, they're voting against putting them under oath, voting against tabling evidence.

00:26:13.640 I mean, this was was interesting.

00:26:15.040 So Gerald Butts was reading from his from his prepared remarks.

00:26:19.640 He worked with a lawyer on them, but he was reading from his prepared remarks.

00:26:22.980 He read text messages.

00:26:24.400 So he said, you know, I texted this.

00:26:26.520 Jody Wilson-Raybould texted this.

00:26:28.680 And the Conservatives were saying, OK, let's submit these text messages so we can see them and see the context and see the text. 0.80

00:26:35.960 And this is what happened, which was just so ridiculous.

00:26:39.220 He said, well, I've read them in their totality. 0.85

00:26:43.780 And the liberals on the committee were like, oh, that's good enough.

00:26:46.440 He says he's read them.

00:26:47.820 We don't need to see them.

00:26:49.160 So they justify in their own warped sense of justice that, OK, well, we can vote against putting them there.

00:26:56.000 Imagine if in like a criminal case, like you could just say, I'm reading this letter that a man wrote where he said I'm going to, you know, murder my wife.

00:27:03.800 And, you know, we're going to convict him for murdering his wife.

00:27:06.180 And, OK, submit the letter into evidence.

00:27:08.100 No, no, no.

00:27:08.540 He read it.

00:27:09.320 He read it.

00:27:09.920 It's good.

00:27:10.200 He's already read it into evidence.

00:27:11.920 We don't need to see it.

00:27:13.240 Like this is the farce that they're trying to pass off as being justice here.

00:27:19.260 Laura writes, I cannot help but wonder what Trudeau is trying to keep our attention away from because this whole testimony committee appears to be a farce.

00:27:26.400 Well, you know, the thing is that they're not succeeding in keeping people's attention away from this.

00:27:32.140 You know, the Liberals this morning announced that they're working towards a national pharmacare plan.

00:27:38.240 And it had to be like the most or the least viewed announcement as far as any political announcement in the history of political announcements have gone.

00:27:45.760 They had the former Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins out and they were doing this and like no one paid any attention.

00:27:52.480 Like I had CBC on and I was reading Twitter and news and all of this for like eight hours today.

00:27:58.300 And I didn't see anyone talking about it.

00:28:00.200 I heard like five minutes about it on the morning radio and that was it.

00:28:03.880 So I think the Liberals are trying to get people to look away, but it's not working.

00:28:08.720 But this committee, Liberal-dominated committee, has proven it is unable to investigate Liberals.

00:28:16.760 And you can see this from the line of questioning.

00:28:18.820 The question that the Liberals are asking the Privy Council clerk and the questions that the Liberals are asking Gerald Butts, they're like pretending to be tough questions.

00:28:28.280 So you see like Randy Boissoneau from Edmonton is like, you know, he's puffing his chest out and he's looking in and he's going, now, Mr. Butts.

00:28:35.420 But again, like they're drinking buddies.

00:28:37.500 Like this is not a serious, hard-hitting question.

00:28:41.400 It's not.

00:28:42.280 So they're trying to make it look like they're taking this more seriously than they are.

00:28:47.280 But if you want to see how unseriously they're taking it, just look at the actual votes.

00:28:51.540 And when it comes to it, they voted against transparency, they voted against justice, and they voted against due process.

00:29:00.240 And it's that simple.

00:29:01.340 And then you've got like the Blois-Québecois guy, Louis Plomondon, who's like wasting five minutes at the beginning saying, you know, it's my God-given right to, you know, have testimony in English and in French.

00:29:10.620 Like they're more offended about the lack of official bilingualism than they are about the lack of due process in all of these other areas.

00:29:17.980 So this is now, as Corey points out, stalled until the 19th.

00:29:22.420 Liberals are hoping people lose interest.

00:29:24.660 I believe that the committee needs to recall Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:29:28.240 This was the other thing that happened.

00:29:29.840 The liberals voted against bringing Jody Wilson-Raybould back to the committee to testify, whereas she, I think, needs to be able to respond to the refutations of her claims that were given by Wernick and by Gerald Butts.

00:29:44.200 And this is, if they do not let her testify again, they will have no credibility and no moral authority whatsoever.

00:29:52.880 We've got to wrap things up.

00:29:54.260 We will be following this in the days and weeks to come.

00:29:56.940 But if you have a liberal member of Parliament, call them and demand justice.

00:30:01.740 We're at that point where people need to speak up.

00:30:04.740 For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.

00:30:06.260 Thank you, God bless, and good day, Canada.

00:30:08.080 Thank you, God bless.

Juno News - March 07, 2019

Is Canada's top ＂non-partisan＂ official shilling for Trudeau？

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