Andrew Scheer accuses Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of trying to silence him over his criticism of the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Andrew Scheer has called Trudeau's bluff and said, "All right, let's take this to trial."
00:00:00.000It's been apparent throughout the entire SNC-Lavalin scandal that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are afraid of the truth.
00:00:08.900Well, that was no more apparent than this past weekend when Canadians learned that Justin Trudeau is trying to silence who is supposed to be, by law, his biggest critic, the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, Andrew Scheer.
00:00:22.920At the very end of March, Justin Trudeau had his lawyer, Julian Porter, send a libel notice to Andrew Scheer, basically saying that you are put on notice, which the Prime Minister confirmed in a statement just the other day, that we may sue you if you don't cut out the allegations that Justin Trudeau interfered or tried to interfere in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
00:00:46.420The libel notice is based on a statement that was issued by Andrew Scheer, where he said that Jody Wilson-Raybould's testimony offered, quote,
00:00:54.800concrete, unquote, evidence that Justin Trudeau was personally involved in trying to pressure the Attorney General at the time, as Wilson-Raybould, to interfere in the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.
00:01:06.460The fact that Jody Wilson-Raybould was subjected to pressure has been affirmed in her testimony, in the testimony of Michael Wernick, quite frankly, and also in the release of a phone call recording between Wernick and Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:01:20.540This has been proven that the highest rankings of the federal government, including the Prime Minister's office, were trying to put pressure on Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:01:28.960Andrew Scheer doesn't have any inside knowledge of this.
00:01:31.240He was responding to the facts that have been put out, that have been made publicly available, and drew the same conclusion that every thinking Canadian would draw, that Justin Trudeau was involved, that Justin Trudeau overplayed his own hand in this.
00:01:47.300But the Prime Minister says this is libelous.
00:01:49.940Now, one key distinction here is that truth trumps libel.
00:01:54.380If something is true, it cannot be libelous.
00:01:56.620So, if Trudeau were a private citizen, I'd say there's enough evidence out there that essentially allows people to draw the conclusion that Andrew Scheer drew.
00:02:04.940But the bigger issue here is that Justin Trudeau is the Prime Minister of Canada.
00:02:09.900The threshold for free speech in Canada to become libelous is already very high, even higher when we're talking about political speech, things that fall within the boundaries of political debate and discussion.
00:02:21.780This has been affirmed time and time again by judges at most levels of courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, that politicians and political commentators have the right to speak freely.
00:02:32.280Now, a lot of liberals are saying, oh, but Harper did this as well.
00:02:36.480Firstly, two wrongs don't make a right.
00:02:38.900Secondly, the cases are fundamentally different in that what Trudeau is suing for are comments that are reasonably and demonstrably proven to be consistent with the public record on this.
00:02:50.640But, ultimately, Trudeau is taking a page out of Kathleen Wynne's handbook.
00:02:54.960Remember, the Premier of Ontario at the time, Kathleen Wynne, tried to silence the opposition leader at the time, Patrick Brown, with a similar threat of legal action.
00:03:04.380Now, Andrew Scheer has called Trudeau's bluff.
00:03:06.380He said, all right, let's take this to trial.
00:03:09.060Because that would mean that Trudeau is all of a sudden put in a situation where he has to be on the hot seat.
00:03:14.160He has to answer under oath questions that right now he has only been skirting and avoiding.
00:03:18.360So, I share Andrew Scheer's comments in that if Trudeau wants to play this game, let's actually play it.
00:03:24.320But, right now, we've got a letter that seems to indicate Justin Trudeau is so far into his own muddled approach to this that he can't even remember what's true and what's not.