Jody Wilson-Raybould dare Justin Trudeau to kick her out of the Liberal caucus. Who do you think is going to blink first? And what s going to happen to the other dissenters in the party if she s kicked out?
00:00:00.000Hello, my rebels. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott, and the other dissident liberals.
00:00:07.660And by the way, I think you could see more. I'm recording this before the Liberal Party votes on the fate of Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:00:17.240Because if they are kicked out, don't be surprised if other liberals quit with them in solidarity.
00:00:23.140I think Selena César Chavannes would. I think you might have some other Liberal MPs who've decided not to run again, so they don't have anything to lose.
00:00:32.000And I think you might find some people who just say, you know what, we're going to lose this next election, and I want to be on the side of principle.
00:00:39.160And you know what, even if they don't follow Jody Wilson-Raybould, love the door, do you think she's going to suddenly not be talkative?
00:00:46.700Do you think she's going to be more sympathetic to them if she's fired than if she's in?
00:00:52.940It's just a pickle, and what a pleasure to watch this kind of mutiny on the left.
00:00:56.920We never see it on the left. They're so unified. It's the right that quarrels, so I'm having too much fun.
00:01:01.820I hope you enjoy the conversation. I give you some facts and figures, quotes from some letters, and I interview my friend Andrew Lawton on the subject.
00:01:08.840Hey, before I get to the good stuff, can you take a minute and help me out?
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00:01:37.300Okay, without further ado, here's my comments on Jody Wilson-Raybould and the Liberal Party.
00:01:43.080You're listening to a Rebel Media Podcast.
00:01:46.240Tonight, Jody Wilson-Raybould dares Justin Trudeau to kick her out of the Liberal Caucus.
00:01:51.100Who do you think is going to blink first?
00:01:52.860It's April 2nd, and this is The Answer LeVance Show.
00:01:57.520Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:02:01.280There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:02:05.040The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:02:13.080You know, the Liberals have been trying so hard to talk about other things for nearly two months now.
00:02:21.780Anything other than the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
00:02:24.800Even their awful decision to bring in a job-killing, price-hiking, poverty-creating carbon tax.
00:02:31.980Well, it's fizzled as a channel changer in the media.
00:02:35.000I mean, that's like fixing a headache by hitting your thumb with a hammer to distract.
00:03:02.060Sheila Copps, the former deputy prime minister under Jean Chrétien, has gone pretty nuts on Jody Wilson-Raybould in a series of increasingly extreme tweets.
00:03:14.320One Liberal MP, a brave man named Rob Oliphant, told reporters that he is scared of Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:03:41.000The official message from the Liberals yesterday was supposed to be about carbon taxes.
00:03:45.000Again, I think it's a terrible political strategy, terrible economic strategy.
00:03:48.580But it was their media strategy when he's here to decide to give the media something else to talk about something more interesting instead.
00:03:56.000But then to play these kind of games and almost entrapment to the clerk of the Privy Council?
00:04:02.980I've got no respect for someone like that.
00:08:06.440I mean quitting cabinet on principle is very bold.
00:08:08.540And frankly you just don't see a lot of that anymore.
00:08:11.400I think that's very responsible to them.
00:08:13.040But doesn't that same responsibility apply to being in the caucus, to being a liberal MP, running with a liberal long sign, being loyal to the liberal party leader?
00:08:21.300I don't quite get how you can square the two.
00:08:23.840Other than what does it mean to be a liberal?
00:08:26.880If it means believing in a certain set of ideas and a certain team, then it means you can be a liberal without having to bend the knee to a particular leader.
00:08:35.520I think, I suppose it's a sign of respect frankly to everyone else in the party, to the party's beliefs, whatever they are at this moment, and the party's history, that you can say you're a great liberal and you're part of the party and you're part of a community and you stand for ideas even if you think a crook is running the show.
00:09:16.980The reason things are rather agitated right now, or one of the reasons, is that Jody Wilson-Raybould was banned from testifying again before the House of Commons Justice Committee
00:09:26.400after the Liberals on that committee voted against her testifying a second time.
00:09:31.220So Jody Wilson-Raybould, who is a better chess player than I would have imagined she was,
00:09:35.660well, she just submitted her remarks in writing, which were released.
00:09:40.260So it didn't quite have the pop of her personal testimony, but it didn't have to since she filed pure dynamite,
00:09:47.280including a recording she made of a phone call she had with Michael Wernig, the clerk of the Privy Council.
00:09:53.360So it's a lengthy phone call. Obviously, I'm not going to play all of it, but here are a few parts of it.
00:09:58.100So he's quite determined, quite firm, but he wants to know why the DPA route, which Parliament provided for, isn't being used.
00:10:13.300And I think he's going to find a way to get it done one way or another.
00:17:41.280I disagree with Jody Wilson-Raybould on ideological matters, but I am impressed with her deep commitment to the rule of law and her duties as an officer of the court.
00:17:53.080I think it probably comes from being a prosecutor.
00:17:56.080I mean, she, that's a tough job being a prosecutor.
00:17:58.660It really makes you sensitive to following the rules and right and wrong.
00:18:02.520I think she is the most idealistic attorney general we've had in a generation.
00:18:09.080I'm not saying I agree with her ideology, but just about her ethics.
00:18:14.880I think you're very much correct there, Ezra.
00:18:17.780Integrity and accountability, these are not supposed to be partisan values.
00:18:23.100I mean, ideally, everyone in Parliament, whether a liberal, an NDP, a Bloc Québécois, or a conservative, would have a semblance of integrity.
00:18:31.320And I think what Jody Wilson-Raybould has proven here is that that integrity that she carries and wields so easily is not a common commodity in the prime minister's office and in the upper ranks of the liberal party and the liberal government.
00:18:45.680And ultimately, I think this meeting that you referenced a few moments ago is going to be the big determining factor in whether that integrity is shared by the majority or the minority of her colleagues in caucus.
00:18:57.920Because if liberals are putting to her as the former attorney general, which is supposed to be a somewhat independent role, that she should have put party above country, well, that's a widespread lack of integrity right there.
00:19:10.740And that really is the key question here.
00:19:48.680And then she stayed in cabinet, as she told Parliament, to keep an eye on this file.
00:19:52.960But she, and this morning, she tweeted out a statement that she had sent to her colleagues saying, I'm not the one who interfered with the prosecution.
00:20:09.540I mean, she's still really righteous about what she did.
00:20:12.620But she's reminding the liberals she hasn't been the one running to the media.
00:20:17.360It seems like she has because we're so gripped by it.
00:20:20.160But it's true, Andrew, she kept quiet about this for months and months and months and quietly bit her tongue, I think.
00:20:30.000Yeah, and I think it's a very legitimate question as to why she didn't step down from cabinet.
00:20:35.960And her answer that she gave, I think it was before that parliamentary committee, that justice committee a couple of weeks ago, was a very good one,
00:20:42.520which is that she felt that her remaining in that position was the safeguard of the rule of law.
00:20:48.240And she basically felt that with how the prime minister's office was behaving, were she to step aside, then political interference would happen.
00:20:56.180But she trusted herself to hold the line.
00:21:00.400Now, as for her place in caucus right now, I do think that the liberal caucus is justified in getting rid of her.
00:21:07.240Quite frankly, she's taking a flamethrower to the liberal party and the liberal establishment, even though she's in the right.
00:21:13.420But what I do question about Jody Wilson-Raybould, and I think this might be a little bit of a standoff between her and Justin Trudeau here,
00:21:23.180is how she can, in good conscience, not just remain in the liberal caucus, but pledge to run as a liberal candidate in Vancouver-Granville in the election later this year.
00:21:32.620And the reason why, as you're well aware, and probably a lot of your viewers are, the liberal brand has been the Justin Trudeau brand.
00:21:41.120They were very, very vocal about this in the 2015 election.
00:21:44.680They even had on a number of their billboards and signs Team Trudeau.
00:21:48.760They were not distancing themselves from their leader, but embracing the leader.
00:21:52.140So I do question how she is going to, with everything she has revealed of the last several months, go door-to-door in Vancouver and say, vote for Team Trudeau.
00:22:01.840And obviously she won't be using that form of language, but in the Canadian political system, that's ultimately the pitch she's making to Canadians,
00:22:10.080that they should send Justin Trudeau back, despite all of these ethical breaches that she's, and I'm very grateful for this, brought everyone's attention to.
00:22:18.420Yeah, I've been trying to wrap my head around that too, because she said that she could no longer support him in cabinet.
00:22:25.620Same with Jane Philpott, but, and that's a certain intensity of support, a certain solidarity, and a certain level of confidentiality and assistance.
00:22:34.960But being in the caucus, just being a backbench MP, has all those same obligations and responsibilities and loyalties,
00:22:41.320just maybe a little bit less, less large.
00:22:45.940I mean, you still have caucus confidentiality, you still must support the PM as the PM.
00:22:52.460So I found it a little unusual that both Philpott and Wilson Ray both have stayed in caucus,
00:22:59.360but here's how I am guessing they justify it, Andrew, is that if you think, as you mentioned,
00:23:06.580that the Liberal Party equals Justin Trudeau and Justin Trudeau equals the Liberal Party,
00:23:10.600and Trudeau, by the way, probably thinks that, then yeah, it's, if you're not part of the Trudeau Party, get out.
00:23:17.240But if you think that the Liberal Party is an enduring institution that is larger than any one person,
00:23:22.300even larger than its leader at the time, if you think even further that maybe Trudeau's going to be given the boot,
00:23:28.120or will resign in a matter of months, then maybe you do stick around.
00:23:32.100I bet when Jody Wilson-Raybould knocks on doors in Vancouver Granville, I bet she's given a very warm response at the door.
00:23:40.140So she's probably thinking, why should I give up my job, my connection with my community,
00:23:44.980and my list of policies and values, just because I don't like the bum who's the CEO?
00:26:09.060Well, you know, she could sit as an independent.
00:26:13.520It would be very interesting if she started putting questions to the government in question period.
00:26:19.420Independent MPs only get about one question every other week or so, so it's not a lot of talk time.
00:26:25.480But look, people aren't going to stop suddenly caring about this issue.
00:26:28.680In fact, if she's released from any more bonds of confidentiality and party solidarity, you know, she still is very careful about what she can say legally.
00:26:38.680But look, Jody Wilson-Raybould, I don't think she's going to shut up.
00:27:36.060Well, Jane Philpott's going to be the critical one because right now, Jane Philpott's criticism of the government has been significant, but not significant enough to warrant her ejection from caucus under any normal circumstances.
00:27:49.420She resigned from cabinet because she didn't feel it was appropriate or ethical to criticize the government as a cabinet minister.
00:27:57.700But if the government takes a heavy hand to Jody Wilson-Raybould, safe to say Jane Philpott, who's already demonstrated she'll make a sacrifice to support her friend, will follow suit in some way on her own.
00:28:11.840And then you start to see a more significant fracturing taking place.
00:28:15.320So the Liberals can't just look at Jody Wilson-Raybould as a standalone.
00:28:20.160They have to look three, four, five moves ahead in the game here.
00:28:23.840Andrew, I have to tell you that, I mean, I've been out of partisan politics for more than a decade now.
00:28:30.920But in my youth, my misspent youth, I was involved in the Reform Party that became known, the Canadian Alliance, and that later merged up with Conservatives.
00:28:40.040And one of the things that I know was always on the mind of Conservatives, especially as the party tried to reunify, you know, unite the right.
00:28:49.760The Liberals were so good at having a public face of unity.
00:28:54.540If they had quarrels, they kept it inside.
00:28:57.720And it was Conservatives, the Tory disease, the conservative disease was bickering in public.
00:29:03.220And that certainly hurt the Reform Party for a while, too.
00:29:06.720It is so unusual to me to see Liberal MPs kvetching and complaining and squabbling and quarreling in public.
00:29:16.600And I think that's part of the reason the Liberals are falling in the polls.
00:29:36.740And remember, they had, regardless of what you and me and a lot of people watching thought about Justin Trudeau, a lot of the Liberals had consumed the Kool-Aid on him.
00:29:47.680And there was an immense amount of caucus unity and party unity behind Justin Trudeau.
00:29:52.260And I think that we're starting to see openly for the first time that that coalescing, if you will, was not as ironclad as it once looked.
00:30:02.040And conservatives, again, conservatism is an ideology built on individualism.
00:30:06.580And liberalism and progressivism is built on groupthink and collectivism.
00:30:10.900So it stands to reason that their group has basically the same number of voices as one individual conservative, because that's the way they structure their entire worldview.
00:30:22.760But we're starting to see that people are only willing to take that so far.
00:30:26.740Well, listen, I appreciate you joining us.
00:30:29.360And this story is certainly not going away.
00:30:32.240I wonder, let me ask you one last question, because I compare the scandal here to what I think was a fake news scandal of Mike Duffy's expenses in the last year or two of Stephen Harper's administration.
00:30:48.880Here you've already lost two top cabinet members, the prime minister's personal secretary and longtime friend, the head of the Privy Council, and we're not even done yet.
00:31:00.300Whereas Mike Duffy, he allegedly submitted some improper expenses that Harper's chief of staff said, I'll just pay myself.
00:31:24.060And Duffy was acquitted on all counts.
00:31:26.020But it turned into a basically an 18-month saga that I think really helped sink Harper.
00:31:32.760Let me ask you the essential question.
00:31:36.000Do you think the RCMP will lay charges under Section 139 or other sections of the criminal code, obstruction of justice, interference with the prosecution?
00:31:46.360I'm not qualified to answer that question.
00:31:48.660But what I will say is that we need to look at the information that's plain as day in front of us.
00:31:54.100And that is that there was pressure put.
00:31:56.340At the very least, the evidence itself shows us from Michael Wernick.
00:32:00.120And I think that it's important to look at the possibilities and eventualities.
00:32:04.440But we have enough here and now that Canadians, in a more political sense, can draw their own conclusion.
00:32:09.880I'll leave the others to people that are better qualified to weigh in on that.
00:32:56.840Isn't it funny that on the same day Trudeau implements his carbon tax, the CBC is spewing its propaganda that Canada is actually warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
00:33:10.680And there's a bunch of Trudeau journalists, Justin Journos, who are repeating similar lines.
00:33:15.760It's just all of a sudden all these global warming stories just bloomed as if from nowhere.
00:33:20.400Now, we know from the Jody Wilson-Raybould lab scam matter that, of course, the liberals put a lot of value in placing op-eds where they want them.
00:33:28.540I think I'll do maybe my monologue tomorrow on how badly behaved the CBC has been.