Trudeau appoints a former Liberal MP to investigate LavScam
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Summary
The Prime Minister has appointed former Liberal Cabinet Minister Anne McClellan to look into the SNC-Lavalin scandal and see how it was handled, and to make recommendations to the government. This only exacerbates the scandal, and shows just how tone deaf the Prime Minister is to all of this.
Transcript
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Now that the Prime Minister is back from his taxpayer-funded, sun-filled vacation in Florida
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for spring break, it seems that the SNC-Lavalin scandal is not going anywhere anytime soon.
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The Prime Minister undoubtedly hopes his budget, which comes out tomorrow, will dominate the
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news cycle and take SNC-Lavalin out of the headlines, but I don't think that's going to happen.
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Today, the scandal claimed its fourth high-profile resignation, that of the Clerk of the Privy
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Now, whether Michael Warnick retired, resigned, or was pushed out, I think remains to be seen.
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Equally, the Prime Minister then appointed anti-pipeline activist Joyce Murray to the
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position of President of the Treasury Board, one of the highest-profile positions in Cabinet,
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and from which all of the money that government runs on flows.
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It's difficult to see how that squares itself with the acquisition that the Government of
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Canada did for the rights to the TMX pipeline that they acquired last year for $4.5 billion.
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But worse than that, much worse than that, the Prime Minister appointed former Liberal Cabinet
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Minister Anne McClellan to look into the SNC scandal and see how it was handled and to
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Prime Minister, Canadians expect and deserve to have faith in the institutions and the people
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The events of the last few weeks have raised important questions about the relationship
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between the Federal Government and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
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I'm therefore announcing that the Honourable Anne McClellan will serve as special advisor
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to examine these questions and provide independent recommendations to us.
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As former Minister of Justice and Attorney General and Deputy Prime Minister, she is uniquely
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Her work will be another important step towards maintaining Canadians' confidence in their institutions.
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First off, McClellan was a senior Cabinet Minister in the governments of Jean Chrétien, and then
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following that as Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Paul Martin.
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She was as close to the levers of power as you could possibly get.
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And I might remind you that while she was the Justice Minister from 1997 to 2003, liberal
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scandals that bubbled to the surface in those days were so prevalent, and she did nothing.
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There was Shovelgate, the HRDC scandal, the billion-dollar boondoggle, the granddaddy of the
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mall sidewinder, and then finally ad scam, which prompted the Gomery Inquiry and ultimately
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There's no doubt, as Justice Minister, all of these things happened directly under her eyes.
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And now she's expected by this Prime Minister to look into another Liberal scandal, into another
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Quebec company buying influence in the Liberal Party of Canada and the government of Canada,
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Couple that with the fact that Anne McClellan also sits as a mentor on the board of the
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Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, you can see clearly that the conflict of interest that
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is prevalent throughout all of this, this only exacerbates the scandal, in my view, and
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shows just how tone-deaf the Prime Minister is to all of this.
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We're all about to hear from the luz provocation to the whisky disaster.
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We everything that attempts to get a fear as a hydro in the face doing very well.
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It's been the first thing that we're trying to under profile, in this case, this past
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is definitely going somewhere else and we're trying to stress out эту
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att eagerly find out how to treat people with their license to achieve their plan.