Juno News - With Butts' return, Liberals pretend SNC scandal never happened.

Gerald Butts is back in the good books of the Liberals, taking on a senior role in the campaign to re-elect Justin Trudeau. Andrew Lutton explains why this is a good thing, and why we need to move on from the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

00:00:00.000 Oh, Jerry Butts, how can we miss you if you're not going anywhere?

00:00:06.060 Right now, friends, we're living in a parallel universe.

00:00:09.220 SNC-Lavalin never happened.

00:00:11.240 Jody Wilson-Raybould was never the Attorney General.

00:00:14.220 Michael Wernick and Jerry Betts never tried to interfere in an independent prosecution.

00:00:18.800 No, all is forgiven.

00:00:20.780 Tout est pardonné, as they say over in SNC-Lavalin territory in Montreal.

00:00:25.520 This is a bizarre turn of events.

00:00:27.780 Gerald Butts, the senior advisor, the longtime friend of Justin Trudeau,

00:00:32.100 is back in the good books of the Liberals,

00:00:35.340 taking on, according to the Liberals, a senior role in the campaign

00:00:38.940 to re-elect Justin Trudeau and his government to continue to represent Canada.

00:00:44.060 This is unsurprising, and I may say that I told you so.

00:00:48.360 I warned people about this months ago,

00:00:50.440 that there would be an issue where the Canadians would start to move on from SNC-Lavalin,

00:00:55.600 the media would stop paying attention, and people would view it as just old news.

00:01:00.380 And it may be old news, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

00:01:03.560 And it certainly doesn't mean there should be impunity for those who were involved.

00:01:08.020 Gerald Butts resigned.

00:01:09.400 He didn't admit guilt.

00:01:10.540 He didn't admit wrongdoing, despite the damning allegations from Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:01:14.920 He just said that he didn't want to be a distraction,

00:01:17.680 that he didn't think that it was fair to the government and to Justin Trudeau,

00:01:20.920 that Butts was still kicking around when this stuff was circulating.

00:01:25.540 So him coming back and him taking on this leadership position in the campaign

00:01:29.640 is ultimately an endorsement of the idea that I put forward months ago,

00:01:34.300 that there's nothing to distract with.

00:01:37.080 No one's caring.

00:01:38.200 No one's paying attention.

00:01:39.200 No one's asking Justin Trudeau any more questions about SNC-Lavalin.

00:01:43.840 And this is just shameful.

00:01:45.140 One of the biggest Canadian political scandals in quite some time,

00:01:48.080 certainly the biggest of Justin Trudeau's premiership, and people just move on.

00:01:52.540 The only casualty is someone who wasn't even an elected representative of the Trudeau government.

00:01:57.740 It was Michael Wernick who resigned as clerk of the Privy Council,

00:02:01.420 again, without really acknowledging any real wrongdoing.

00:02:05.140 What's next?

00:02:05.700 Is Wernick going to take a senior campaign role?

00:02:07.600 Because this is apparently what you do after leaving your job in disgrace.

00:02:11.640 You then just go on to the campaign team and all is forgiven.

00:02:15.260 Canadians have not forgotten, or at least shouldn't have,

00:02:19.940 even if the media is no longer raising these questions to the government.

00:02:24.080 We cannot have this scandal become a footnote in history.

00:02:28.740 And Gerald Butts' return reminds us how close that is to happening.

00:02:32.780 For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.

Juno News - July 28, 2019

With Butts' return, Liberals pretend SNC scandal never happened.

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