Juno News - True North Report： Trudeau loses top adviser, Gerald Butts

00:00:00.720 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the True North Report.

00:00:05.060 My name is Andrew Lawton with you for the next half hour here, a fellow with True North.

00:00:11.040 And we have a very interesting story that is likely to probably have a few changes by the time we finish this today.

00:00:19.560 So we'll try to keep tabs on things. I've got like a bunch of different screens open. I've got my phone out.

00:00:23.940 I've got a bunch of people that will probably tell me if something changes.

00:00:27.900 But the fact of the matter is the SNC-Lavalin scandal has been pretty rapidly changing.

00:00:34.880 And not the scandal itself, but the Liberal government's response to it.

00:00:39.460 I think in the last however long this has been going on now, 11 days since the initial Globe and Mail report,

00:00:46.120 Justin Trudeau has gone through pretty much 11 different versions of the Prime Minister's response to this

00:00:53.060 and the Prime Minister's office's response to this.

00:00:55.500 And that's been the most interesting thing to watch about all of this,

00:00:59.220 is that the way Justin Trudeau keeps moving the goalposts is not the way that someone who is innocent

00:01:06.140 of those initial allegations would respond to a situation like this.

00:01:11.140 Because remember, when the first story broke, that Globe and Mail report that said Jody Wilson-Raybould

00:01:16.660 was pressured by someone in the Prime Minister's office to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

00:01:23.380 The first response from Justin Trudeau was that one line that we heard on repeat said over and over and over again

00:01:31.420 until the tape breaks.

00:01:32.380 And that is that neither Trudeau nor anyone in his office directed Wilson-Raybould to take any action

00:01:39.820 in the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.

00:01:42.360 Okay.

00:01:43.600 And then in question period, later that day, David Lamedi, the new Attorney General,

00:01:47.620 said over and over again until the tape broke that neither Trudeau nor anyone in the Prime Minister's office

00:01:53.540 directed Wilson-Raybould or Lamedi to take any action.

00:01:57.860 But then we saw the goalposts start to shift pretty quickly.

00:02:01.720 Then it became, well, I didn't know of anything.

00:02:04.160 And then all of a sudden it was about throwing Wilson-Raybould under the bus saying,

00:02:08.340 okay, well, if it did happen, she should have told us.

00:02:10.800 And then we started to hear different explanations about why Jody Wilson-Raybould

00:02:15.140 was actually demoted from Attorney General to Veterans Affairs Minister.

00:02:21.120 And there were some fun ones here.

00:02:22.700 We had the belief that, okay, some people just said she wasn't a bad, she was a bad minister.

00:02:27.680 The Anthony House father excuse was my favorite.

00:02:30.740 He said, well, she didn't speak French.

00:02:32.420 And he then said, oh, I didn't know.

00:02:34.460 I was just musing about possibilities, which is always great when the chair of the Justice Committee

00:02:39.300 does a radio interview and just starts wildly speculating.

00:02:42.620 And then when called on it, has to say, oh, no, I was just thinking of, you know,

00:02:46.360 ways that maybe, maybe we could explain this.

00:02:49.360 The chair of the Justice Committee just, you know, makes things up for the heck of it.

00:02:54.080 And then he backs away from that.

00:02:56.220 So then Trudeau gets in and said that, no, no, no, we only had to move her because Scott Bryson resigned.

00:03:02.420 And I don't know if you saw this on Twitter, but there was a great hashtag game going on.

00:03:07.580 I think it was like hashtag because Scott Bryson resigned or something.

00:03:10.720 And it was a bunch of people, including many MPs, just seeing what else they could pin on Scott Bryson.

00:03:16.840 And I'm pretty sure that by the end of it all, Scott Bryson was responsible for the Halifax explosion and Jersey Shore.

00:03:24.800 And I believe that those two were probably opposite ends of the spectrum for things that Scott Bryson has been blamed for.

00:03:32.000 Although, interestingly enough, Scott Bryson, who's now working in the private sector, his husband tweeted,

00:03:38.640 don't worry, I blame my husband for everything as well.

00:03:41.460 So I think that the Bryson family was clearly thinking this was a bit absurd as well.

00:03:46.480 But again, one of Justin Trudeau's latest excuses in the whole Jody Wilson-Raybould, SNC-Lavalin thing.

00:03:53.820 And then we've had throughout all of this, though, a consistent defense of the prime minister's office is his conduct from the prime minister's office.

00:04:03.200 And that's that, no, no, no, we never did what we're being accused of doing.

00:04:07.320 Or at least we never did it in the way or in the manner that we're being accused of doing it.

00:04:14.240 And a lot of that changed, or I would say that we have enough reason to think it's changed, with the resignation yesterday of Gerald Butts.

00:04:22.660 Now, yesterday was a holiday in Ontario.

00:04:25.860 It was a holiday, I think, in a couple of places as well.

00:04:30.980 Family Day is like a different Monday, depending on where you are. 1.00

00:04:33.820 It's a stupid holiday, but it is what it is. 0.98

00:04:35.880 But Gerald Butts, you know, on what he knows is a holiday for a lot of people, sends out a statement. 0.99

00:04:41.460 And in the statement admits that he has resigned as the principal secretary to Justin Trudeau, and the prime minister has accepted his resignation.

00:04:50.260 Now, normally, when there is a big scandal, and someone resigns in the midst of that scandal,

00:04:56.200 it's because they're the person that the government is putting the blame on, or they're the person who actually deserves the blame.

00:05:02.640 But the person who leaves, generally speaking, becomes the face of the scandal.

00:05:07.540 And I want to read for you Gerald Butts' resignation letter.

00:05:12.200 The letter that he sent that was posted, or the statement that he sent that was posted,

00:05:17.700 posted, by the way, not even by him, it was posted by Kate Purchase,

00:05:21.080 who is the communications director for Trudeau.

00:05:24.840 And then it was also posted by Trudeau himself.

00:05:30.560 Just pulling it up here.

00:05:31.860 All right.

00:05:32.200 I have resigned as principal secretary to the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, PCMP, Prime Minister of Canada.

00:05:40.120 He has accepted my resignation.

00:05:42.380 Recently, anonymous sources have alleged that I pressured the former Attorney General,

00:05:47.420 the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, to assist SNC-Lavalin with being considered for a deferred prosecution agreement.

00:05:53.660 I categorically deny the accusation that I, or anyone else in his office, pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould.

00:06:00.280 We honoured the unique role of the Attorney General.

00:06:03.420 At all times, I and those around me acted with integrity and a singular focus on the best interests of all Canadians.

00:06:10.140 The Prime Minister of Canada's office is much larger and more important than any of its staff.

00:06:14.980 I have served it to the best of my abilities, and I have at all times given the Prime Minister free and unfettered advice.

00:06:21.080 I have served the public interest, not the interest of any individual or any narrow private interest of any kind at any time.

00:06:29.040 Life is full of uncertainties, but I am absolutely certain of that.

00:06:33.800 Any accusation that I or the staff put pressure on the Attorney General is simply not true.

00:06:39.460 Canadians are rightly proud of their public institutions.

00:06:42.220 They should be because they work.

00:06:43.740 But the fact that this allegation exists, it cannot and should not take one moment away from the vital work the Prime Minister and his office are doing for all Canadians.

00:06:55.660 My reputation is my responsibility, and that is for me to defend.

00:06:59.600 It is in the best interests of the office, and it's important work for me to step away.

00:07:05.280 I want to say a word about my relationship with Ms. Wilson-Raybould.

00:07:08.280 I encouraged her to run for the Liberal Party of Canada and worked hard to support her as a candidate and then Cabinet Minister.

00:07:15.720 From my perspective, our relationship has always been defined by mutual respect, candor, and an honest desire to work together.

00:07:24.120 Then there's a paragraph about his gratitude to the Prime Minister, a paragraph about climate change, because why the hell not?

00:07:29.860 And then all of a sudden about the good, hard-working people in Canada's public service and elected office and yada, yada, yada.

00:07:37.680 So I just want to make a point here.

00:07:40.460 He's resigned, and there are how many paragraphs?

00:07:43.520 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

00:07:46.080 Eight paragraphs in this response.

00:07:48.260 And one of them is just what we call in the journalism biz here, the lead.

00:07:51.780 And that's I've resigned, and he's accepted the resignation.

00:07:54.300 Which is a good lead, by the way, because it adequately sums up that butts is out.

00:07:58.100 But of the eight paragraphs, we've got three of them just thanking people.

00:08:05.060 We've got one of them talking about how great his relationship with Jody Wilson-Raybould is.

00:08:09.600 We've got one of them about the scandal itself, or the accusations of it.

00:08:14.980 And then you've got, I guess, two.

00:08:17.160 We'll say two on that, and one on climate change.

00:08:19.220 And, you know, of this, his resignation, which is supposedly in response to SNC-Lavalin, pretty much has nothing to do with SNC-Lavalin.

00:08:29.040 And more importantly, he is not in this anywhere acknowledged that anything he did has been done incorrectly.

00:08:36.900 So Gerald Butts resigns in the wake of a scandal, insists that he did none of the things that he's accused of doing or that the office is accused of doing.

00:08:46.720 Trudeau insists that he's not done any of the things he's accused of doing or his office is accused of doing.

00:08:52.160 All of the people in the government say that the allegations are false, and Gerald Butts still resigns.

00:08:57.360 And then in the wake of the resignation of Gerald Butts, everyone in the government, including Trudeau, is tweeting about how great Gerald Butts is.

00:09:06.360 So if the guy is so great and he did nothing wrong, why on earth is he resigning?

00:09:10.860 And the point that I think needs to be made here is that there's a tendency in crisis communications for whenever a scandal happens to someone resigns.

00:09:20.500 Someone falls on the sword. Someone takes the blame.

00:09:23.160 Maybe it's their fault. Maybe it's not.

00:09:24.920 Maybe they had a small role. Maybe they were the architect of it.

00:09:29.100 But the point of these public resignations is that they give the public assurances that the person who let X happen,

00:09:36.580 in this case, the allegations of a nasty relationship between the prime minister's office and the attorney general's office,

00:09:42.960 that these things will not happen again because the people responsible are gone.

00:09:46.660 Gerald Butts seems to think that the sole purpose of a public resignation is just to make the public happy,

00:09:56.840 that it's just to pacify any concerns and not to serve any real purpose about the substance of it.

00:10:02.980 And, you know, when people say heads are going to roll over this, what they want is for the person to be who's responsible to be gone or to be brought to justice.

00:10:10.920 Remember, there's an ethics investigation, a fifth ethics investigation for Trudeau underway because of this.

00:10:17.420 But he's saying, I did nothing wrong, but, you know, just someone saying it means that I've got to step aside.

00:10:23.880 Well, how noble of you.

00:10:25.440 And, you know, I don't particularly have a lot of respect for Jerry Butts as an individual.

00:10:30.000 I think as a political operator, he's clearly a smart guy.

00:10:33.060 But we're talking about Canada's highest paid Twitter troll here.

00:10:36.460 He just, you know, sits around all day and just, you know, retweets and slanders and smears and all of this stuff, which is fine.

00:10:42.980 You know what? If that's the best use of a principal secretary to a prime minister, then have at it, Gerald Butts.

00:10:48.340 He'll have more time for Twitter now that he's no longer working for Justin Trudeau.

00:10:52.640 But the fact that he has resigned while saying that he has nothing to do with anything means that, okay, two things are possible.

00:11:00.580 Number one, all that the prime minister's office has been saying that, you know, none of this happened is accurate.

00:11:07.000 So he shouldn't have resigned or someone else is responsible, in which case he shouldn't have resigned.

00:11:12.980 The only reason he would resign is if he is trying to draw attention away from what's happening or if he actually was the one responsible.

00:11:25.920 And I think there's enough to say that it's the former, because if he did do what that Globe and Mail report said someone in the prime minister's office did,

00:11:33.940 we wouldn't be seeing these glowing tributes from the people whose employee he just left.

00:11:39.580 And my goodness, this is such a backwards way of thinking for the prime minister's office that this is going to make it all go away.

00:11:46.440 Because, in all honesty, when the PMO has been, for the last week and a bit, insisting time and time again, did nothing wrong, didn't happen, reports are false,

00:11:57.420 even though Canadians were calling BS on it, it was at least a relatively consistent message.

00:12:03.740 I mean, the way, who they blamed for the leaks and the relationship between Wilson-Raybould and the PMO, that all changed.

00:12:11.060 But the core idea didn't change, which is that, you know what, this did not happen the way it's being discussed here.

00:12:17.020 Okay, so let's talk about that for a moment, because if that was, in fact, the case, no one should have resigned.

00:12:26.460 They should be coming out swinging and saying, we're going to fight this fake news, we're going to, you know, swat at this false allegation,

00:12:33.220 we're going to stand up for truth, we're going to release the gag that's on Jody Wilson-Raybould now,

00:12:39.180 let her speak without the attorney-client privilege present, and we're going to let this air out.

00:12:45.400 But that hasn't happened. They've continued to gag Jody Wilson-Raybould, and I mean that metaphorically,

00:12:50.480 not in the, you know, women's violence way that the Toronto Star or National Post columnist got into hot water over. 0.90

00:12:56.760 But, you know, what we have happening here is this monumental, I won't use that word, but a cluster, you know what, going on,

00:13:05.720 when they're simultaneously having someone take responsibility and leave while saying that there's nothing that needs to be claimed responsibility for.

00:13:15.400 Liberal logic for you, right?

00:13:18.200 But here's where we honestly have to question whether Jody Wilson-Raybould is as squeaky clean in this as we might like.

00:13:28.640 And I'm very hesitant to make this about her, because right now, it does genuinely seem as though she is the victim.

00:13:35.580 But today, it's looking like things are changing a little bit, and I say this for two reasons.

00:13:42.580 Number one, she's remained in the Liberal caucus, and lest there had been any doubt about that, she affirmed it today.

00:13:49.100 She did a brief scrum with reporters, and she said, yes, I am a Liberal member of Parliament.

00:13:53.260 Not only a Liberal MP, but if you watched in question period today, and other people pointed this out as well,

00:13:59.720 she was a Liberal MP sitting not where the backbenchers sit, but sitting pretty much near where the ministers sit.

00:14:06.700 Not in her seat that she had.

00:14:08.740 So it's not like they just haven't gotten around to switching out the seats.

00:14:11.440 She was sitting basically with cabinet ministers and not with the backbenchers.

00:14:16.380 So she is still, at least, in the circle in some way, which is certainly a relevant piece of this.

00:14:23.680 But the big part is, she had a meeting with cabinet today.

00:14:27.780 Apparently, she requested it.

00:14:30.260 This is what Trudeau said.

00:14:31.920 The prime minister said that Jody Wilson-Raybould requested the opportunity to meet with cabinet.

00:14:37.400 That meeting happened today because of her request, the prime minister is saying.

00:14:43.460 And then they had this meeting.

00:14:45.600 It can't be divulged what happened in it because of cabinet confidentiality.

00:14:49.980 So this is just what the situation here needed.

00:14:52.420 Yet another confidential meeting that no one can really understand what's going on in.

00:14:58.800 And then she comes out and does a brief scrum and says that she's still talking to her lawyer.

00:15:04.080 We talked about it last week.

00:15:05.380 She's retained as counsel, a former Supreme Court justice, to guide her on what she can or cannot say.

00:15:11.440 And at this point, Trudeau is still not waiving solicitor-client privilege.

00:15:16.700 So we've had some speculation raised that maybe she's angling to get back into cabinet.

00:15:23.340 This is pure Twitter speculation.

00:15:25.200 I don't buy it.

00:15:26.280 I think it would look terrible on her.

00:15:28.240 And it would just send a really, really bad message about a lot of the stuff that's going on.

00:15:33.980 And then we have the fact, however, that she is still seemingly playing ball with the liberals, remaining in caucus and meeting with the cabinet.

00:15:43.680 I mean, the meeting with cabinet is the particularly concerning part here because you don't do that if you aren't in a position to at least have a frank dialogue with cabinet.

00:15:53.320 And it shows there isn't perhaps as much of a schism as we might like to think.

00:16:00.520 I'm going to read some other comments here before I carry on with what I'm thinking here.

00:16:05.760 Melanie writes,

00:16:06.920 Well, you raise a point about the closeness of these two.

00:16:16.760 I mean, this is not just some garden variety political aid that rose up through the ranks.

00:16:20.920 This is a longtime friend of Trudeau's.

00:16:23.040 They're jogging buddies.

00:16:24.380 Their friendship goes back to McGill.

00:16:26.500 Trudeau touts their continued friendship.

00:16:29.020 So even if he's not occupying the role, I have no doubt in my mind that he is still going to be an advisor in some way.

00:16:36.840 And this seems like such an amicable split.

00:16:39.320 Again, this is why it's so bizarre that I wouldn't be surprised if Gerald Butts ended up as like campaign manager in three months or something by the time this has all blown over.

00:16:48.220 Michelle writes,

00:16:50.680 Jody Wilson-Raybould said she is still a liberal.

00:16:53.040 Can you talk a bit more about that?

00:16:54.700 Sure.

00:16:54.960 I don't know what more to say about it.

00:16:56.880 She's still in the liberal caucus.

00:16:58.600 She resigned from cabinet.

00:17:00.540 So that means that she's no longer in the ministry of Justin Trudeau's government.

00:17:05.040 She is still going to be a liberal member of parliament.

00:17:08.880 She sat with the liberal caucus today.

00:17:10.920 She identified in a media statement her part in the liberal caucus.

00:17:13.980 And she still has a liberal website with red colors. 1.00

00:17:17.400 And she still identifies with liberal policies.

00:17:20.080 She's just not part of that core inner group of liberals that's running the government, at least at this time.

00:17:26.780 Now, will that remain?

00:17:29.400 I don't know.

00:17:30.340 Will she run as a liberal in the next election?

00:17:32.220 I don't know.

00:17:33.000 Although, interestingly, there are people that are dropping.

00:17:35.540 A lot of liberal MPs have said they're not running, which is rare for a first-term majority government.

00:17:41.040 Typically, you think that you're going to get a bit more life out of it.

00:17:44.680 But you've had long-time liberal stalwarts that are out, like John McCallum and Stéphane Dion and Scott Bryson and so on.

00:17:52.780 And then today, you had a liberal MP from New Brunswick who said, I'm not running again.

00:17:58.380 I think he was using the spending more time with family excuse.

00:18:01.540 And that was very much surprising.

00:18:05.240 Let's see what else.

00:18:06.060 We got a message from Michelle.

00:18:09.740 Michelle, again, is that just a cocky attitude from her? 0.90

00:18:12.300 Or is she trying to hint at something?

00:18:13.960 No, I don't think she's hinting at anything.

00:18:16.000 I think that she's just saying, yes, I'm still a liberal.

00:18:19.440 I don't think there's any hidden meaning to it.

00:18:22.300 It's really just her saying, yeah, I'm still in this party, even if I'm not a part of the ministry itself.

00:18:29.520 So she's no longer minister.

00:18:30.660 She is still a liberal MP, and there are a lot of people wondering if she's trying to angle to be back in it.

00:18:38.360 And if she comes out with a statement that completely exonerates the government, which is what I think the worst case scenario for people that are hoping for transparency is here,

00:18:49.960 there are going to be a lot of questions that need to be answered.

00:18:53.140 Why did it take so long to do it?

00:18:54.940 And I fear that the meeting she had with Cabinet today was about negotiating something.

00:19:02.100 I don't know if it was about a grilling.

00:19:03.860 I don't know if it was a negotiation.

00:19:05.500 I don't know if it was actually at her request or if it was at Cabinet's request.

00:19:10.280 But it does strike me as very odd given the circumstances.

00:19:13.900 When you're out, you're out.

00:19:16.060 I mean, Trudeau said he was baffled by her departure.

00:19:18.880 Remember, her departure from Cabinet came one day after Trudeau had made that comment about,

00:19:24.540 oh, you know, clearly she's, you know, clearly there's nothing wrong.

00:19:28.840 If there was something wrong, she would have left Cabinet.

00:19:31.900 And, well, then a day later she called the bluff. 0.94

00:19:36.340 So that's where I think that we're going to see some of the cracks form here.

00:19:40.400 But let's look at some of the liberal MPs who have spoken up in her defense, though.

00:19:44.760 I mean, Navdeep Bains, who's an innovation minister, said, yeah,

00:19:48.720 Wilson-Raybould needs to be able to appear before the Justice Committee.

00:19:53.080 Wayne Long, a liberal MP, was the one that said, yeah, she needs to testify first. 0.99

00:19:57.960 Selena Cesar Chavin, who's an MP from the Whitby area,

00:20:02.400 she took to Twitter to endorse Wilson-Raybould, as did Jane Philpott.

00:20:09.180 Not necessarily to say, you know, I support her and not the prime minister,

00:20:13.280 but just to say, yeah, this woman's great. 1.00

00:20:16.540 So we're seeing MPs that are putting their neck on the line

00:20:20.180 to take a stand in support of this woman who, let's face it,

00:20:24.900 is fairly controversial right now in the context of liberal politics

00:20:30.920 and in the context of Canadian politics.

00:20:33.640 There was another story I wanted to pull up here

00:20:36.960 that I think is a relevant one to talk about.

00:20:39.320 And I had a quote that I wanted to extract from this.

00:20:44.100 And I've had a few people in the chat bring this up as well,

00:20:47.220 including Priscilla, who said that she wanted to hear about the case

00:20:53.900 that was thrown out in Quebec.

00:20:55.260 So one of the cases here that SNC-Lavalin is facing

00:20:59.660 is about Stéphane Roy, who is a former vice president of the company,

00:21:03.320 and a Quebec judge has thrown out the fraud and bribery charges against him

00:21:09.140 after concluding the delays in his trial became unreasonable.

00:21:13.320 Now, this was about the case of the $5,000,

00:21:17.360 fraud over $5,000 for bribing Muammar Gaddafi's regime,

00:21:24.240 charged in 2014, scheduled to begin in May,

00:21:28.560 and his defense basically set a time limit on criminal proceedings.

00:21:34.020 They used a provision of law that allows them.

00:21:36.300 But the thing is, though, I mean, I don't know the intricacies of this case

00:21:39.960 enough to weigh in on the decision itself.

00:21:41.920 I'm also not a lawyer.

00:21:43.340 But what I do know is that whenever any of these SNC-Lavalin decisions comes up,

00:21:48.620 the question is always which case?

00:21:50.660 Which case?

00:21:51.640 Which Gaddafi case? 0.53

00:21:53.060 Which bribery case?

00:21:54.140 Which Libya case?

00:21:55.260 I mean, the number of cases that are active and ongoing or recent about SNC-Lavalin

00:22:00.660 is more than anyone can keep track of.

00:22:04.140 And as far as this particular case goes, I don't know.

00:22:06.840 The whole point is it's a company that has a proven track record of bribing and corruption.

00:22:13.340 A proven track record of it.

00:22:14.980 A convicted track record.

00:22:16.240 I don't need to worry about a lawsuit because of how clear and unequivocal

00:22:20.240 this company's connections to bribery and corruption practices have been.

00:22:26.120 I think the big question becomes when we're looking at any given case,

00:22:29.740 that's less significant than the overarching case, which is the one about this.

00:22:34.220 So this is not throwing out the prosecution that is connected to the Jody Wilson-Raybould,

00:22:40.220 Justin Trudeau PMO interference.

00:22:42.020 This is one particular charge within that for one former executive, and that's Stéphane Watt.

00:22:48.720 So it's not as some people have suggested that this is the whole thing going away.

00:22:54.920 It's just one particular charge.

00:22:56.400 And again, if there wasn't enough to convict, fine.

00:22:59.660 It might have been the right call.

00:23:01.060 But when all of this is coming out at once, it looks very bad.

00:23:05.980 And there's no getting out of that.

00:23:07.940 Karen writes,

00:23:08.520 Why was Jody in this closed-door caucus meeting this morning?

00:23:11.500 Justin Trudeau said she wanted to meet with him.

00:23:13.640 This is, I think, a great point, Karen.

00:23:15.560 And this is why I mentioned earlier that it's possible,

00:23:19.560 I'm open to the possibility that Wilson-Raybould

00:23:21.900 might not be as cooperative with the public as she could be.

00:23:26.860 When you meet in cabinet, you are meeting in closed doors,

00:23:31.640 you cannot divulge what happens in a cabinet meeting.

00:23:35.040 It's not allowed.

00:23:35.900 Think of it as as airtight as solicitor-client privilege.

00:23:39.200 Whatever happens in a cabinet meeting is secret.

00:23:42.680 So this meeting, she goes into knowing it's secret.

00:23:45.920 Everyone there knows it's secret.

00:23:47.800 It's possible that something may wind its way and leak out,

00:23:51.280 but there's not going to be a recording of it.

00:23:53.060 It's not going to be transparent.

00:23:54.600 It's not going to be anything other than more of what we're hearing now,

00:23:58.580 which is speculation, rumor, whispers, and all of that stuff.

00:24:01.780 So did she want to go to tell them, hey, this is all what Trudeau did?

00:24:06.860 I highly doubt it.

00:24:08.520 The fact that she came out and still maintained a liberal caucus role

00:24:12.400 and affirmed that she is in the liberal caucus suggests that this is not a woman

00:24:16.320 who is taking a scorched earth or otherwise nuclear approach to this.

00:24:21.160 And that's the whole point of this here.

00:24:24.900 Roseanne writes, I don't think the court throwing out the case today

00:24:27.520 and Jody Wilson-Raybould coming back is a coincidence.

00:24:30.320 Well, it may or may not be.

00:24:31.540 I don't think that Jody Wilson-Raybould is making her schedule in accordance

00:24:35.180 with the Quebec court docket, but stranger things have happened, I guess.

00:24:38.220 I think that all of this is happening at breakneck speeds.

00:24:42.500 That's the whole point of this case right now.

00:24:45.280 And Jody Wilson-Raybould is at some point going to have to be a lot more candid

00:24:49.820 than she has been up until now.

00:24:52.260 And I think that she'll soon find that people are losing patience

00:24:57.880 if it starts to feel like she's holding back.

00:25:00.440 Because right now, she seems like the victim.

00:25:04.180 No one trusts Trudeau.

00:25:05.720 She seems like the victim.

00:25:06.900 That will go away very quickly if she doesn't own up to exactly what happened.

00:25:11.860 And somewhat quickly.

00:25:13.720 And again, if she's genuinely seeking legal advice,

00:25:16.760 most people are probably wondering when that will end up.

00:25:20.760 Surely her lawyer, who I don't know if he's working for free or billing by the hour,

00:25:24.740 but a former Supreme Court justice probably doesn't come too cheaply.

00:25:27.980 I would like for us to finally hear from her side of things what happened.

00:25:33.340 But if there is a negotiation underfoot, we're going to be left with what looks like a full-blown cover-up.

00:25:39.580 And I know that for a lot of people, there will be no right answer.

00:25:44.120 And there will be no believable answer here.

00:25:47.280 Because let's go through the scenarios.

00:25:48.960 She does the scorched earth thing. 1.00

00:25:50.380 She comes out and says, Trudeau said this, Trudeau said this, Butts said this, Butts did this.

00:25:54.720 I was pressured.

00:25:55.440 I was strong-armed.

00:25:56.720 It was anti-woman.

00:25:57.580 It was anti-indigenous.

00:25:59.320 And, you know, Trudeau is Hitler or something like that.

00:26:01.580 I mean, if she does, like, says, levels every accusation there,

00:26:05.280 there's going to be a constituency that believes her no matter what because they hate Trudeau.

00:26:08.940 And then there's going to be a spin machine that's going to slander her, 1.00

00:26:12.920 delegitimize her, and try to make it as though she's the bad guy.

00:26:16.280 If she comes out with complete silence, people are going to start to feel that,

00:26:22.280 All right, what are you not saying?

00:26:24.220 What was your role in this?

00:26:25.480 But the worst-case scenario for people that want transparency here, I think,

00:26:30.900 is if she works some sort of agreement out where she says, No, no, no, this was all a misunderstanding.

00:26:37.880 You know, there was this little interaction here that, you know, maybe shouldn't have happened.

00:26:41.380 But in retrospect, you know, it was all fine.

00:26:44.200 And I wish I could have cleared this up sooner, but solicited her client privilege.

00:26:48.020 Trudeau welcomes her back into open arms, says, Yes, you know,

00:26:50.600 Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet while we sorted this out. 0.72

00:26:54.060 She put the country first.

00:26:55.480 We're glad to have her back.

00:26:56.960 And all is well, sunny ways, hip, hip, hooray, because it's 2019.

00:27:00.860 And in that scenario, we're looking at a full-blown cover-up.

00:27:04.840 But, but, but, here's the caveat.

00:27:07.980 And again, maybe Gerald Butts is four steps ahead of all of us,

00:27:11.180 but I highly doubt that it still calls into question why Gerald Butts and Jody Wilson-Raybould

00:27:17.220 resigned if, in fact, nothing happened.

00:27:21.200 So the fact that these resignations happened, the fact that these resignations were accepted,

00:27:26.440 suggests that someone in Ottawa thinks that they were relevant, especially Butts' resignation.

00:27:33.840 Because for Butts to resign and have everyone say, Oh, he's so great, he'll be missed.

00:27:38.480 Well, then why did you accept?

00:27:40.620 I don't buy into this whole for king and country routine that he's doing,

00:27:43.960 where Gerald Butts gets up there and says, Oh, but I'm, you know, this is all false.

00:27:48.560 I'll defend my name.

00:27:49.740 But you know what?

00:27:50.660 The country is more important than me.

00:27:52.780 I agree.

00:27:53.520 The country is a lot more important than him.

00:27:55.100 I don't agree that he necessarily was working that into his legitimate rationale for why it was time to step aside.

00:28:03.840 And this is huge.

00:28:07.640 This is huge.

00:28:08.900 This is absolutely huge for a case to have the chief advisor to Trudeau resign without any inclination of why.

00:28:18.920 Without anyone saying why, without him saying why, without Trudeau saying why.

00:28:22.600 And I can't really think of anything analogous.

00:28:24.600 You know, Harper had these little scandals along the way where people left, people resigned.

00:28:29.860 But there was always a very clear reason for why.

00:28:32.220 There was always a very markedly clear reason for why a given person had to resign in the wake of a given scandal.

00:28:39.720 And this doesn't make the questions go away.

00:28:44.020 It doesn't.

00:28:45.280 It only adds more questions to it.

00:28:47.180 So if it was a calculation and not a genuine action, it was very much a miscalculation.

00:28:54.080 And I think that will become apparent in the days ahead.

00:28:56.720 Again, it's only Tuesday.

00:28:58.080 This is the thing.

00:28:58.820 We've already had like a week's worth of news in just a day here.

00:29:02.300 It is only Tuesday.

00:29:04.220 And I saw on Twitter, actually, I think it was yesterday, someone pointed out it was a whole month ago that John McCallum resigned as Canada's ambassador to China.

00:29:12.420 A month ago.

00:29:13.660 Doesn't that feel like a distant memory at this point?

00:29:17.040 I think Jody Wilson-Raybould probably got a big, huge Valentine's Day card from John McCallum.

00:29:22.340 It's a big thank you for now.

00:29:23.680 His scandal just goes away.

00:29:25.120 Who knows what liberal will bring us a new scandal in a month's time?

00:29:28.060 No.

00:29:28.820 Folks, I just want to give a bit of a plug here, if I may.

00:29:32.440 Give me a follow on Twitter, at Andrew Lawton.

00:29:34.760 Follow me on Facebook.

00:29:35.820 My page is in the box there.

00:29:37.540 Or if you're watching later, I think it's down there.

00:29:39.760 Or maybe it's up there.

00:29:40.780 Or maybe it's nowhere.

00:29:41.880 I don't know.

00:29:42.240 There's a box somewhere.

00:29:43.320 If it has my name and it's blue, click on it.

00:29:45.160 Click like.

00:29:46.520 Also, we need your support to keep the lights on.

00:29:49.120 I realize they're not on right now, which is why it's dark.

00:29:52.440 So we need a lot of support, apparently.

00:29:54.720 You can head on over to truenorthinitiative.com and join the Andrew Lawton Heritage Club.

00:30:00.660 We've got lots of clubs.

00:30:02.380 The Andrew Lawton Club specifically gets me in your face as much or as little as you want.

00:30:08.240 That was a terrible sales pitch.

00:30:09.660 No one wants that.

00:30:10.780 Okay, I'll leave.

00:30:11.600 I'll get out of your way if you give us a few bucks a month to support our work.

00:30:15.840 But in all seriousness, we can't do this without you.

00:30:18.120 We are a grassroots group.

00:30:20.260 Have to say farewell for now.

00:30:21.780 More content throughout the week.

00:30:23.180 And I'll be back with another True North report next week.

00:30:26.400 For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.

00:30:27.880 Thank you.

00:30:28.440 God bless and good day, Canada.

Juno News - February 20, 2019

True North Report： Trudeau loses top adviser, Gerald Butts

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