With Butts' return, Liberals pretend SNC scandal never happened.
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
172.08339
Summary
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.
Transcript
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.
00:00:11.240
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.
00:00:20.780
Tout est pardonné, as they say over in SNC-Lavalin territory in Montreal.
00:00:27.780
Gerald Butts, the senior advisor, the longtime friend of Justin Trudeau,
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.
00:00:50.440
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.
00:01:10.540
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,
00:01:39.200
No one's asking Justin Trudeau any more questions about SNC-Lavalin.
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.
00:02:05.700
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.