Jody Wilson-Raybould is been turfed from the Liberal caucus.
Jody Wilson-Raybould says she's been told by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that she is no longer a member of the Liberal caucus and will not be permitted to run under the party's banner in the fall election.
"I have just been informed by the prime minister of Canada that I am removed from the Liberal caucus and as the confirmed Vancouver Granville candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election," Wilson-Raybould tweeted.
Trudeau is expected tonight to address the Liberal national caucus, which is holding a special meeting.
Today, Wilson-Raybould wrote a two-page letter to the national caucus, acknowledging many of them are "angry, hurt and frustrated."
"And frankly so am I, and I can only speak for myself," Wilson-Raybould writes. "I am angry, hurt and frustrated because I feel and believe I was upholding the values that we all committed to. In giving the advice I did, and taking the steps I did, I was trying to help protect the prime minister and the government from a horrible mess."
She also defended her actions on the SNC-Lavalin file.
12 comments:
Yeah, Trudeau prefers breaking the law on attempting to illegally influence the AG, than to acknowledge that someone on his team might actually have ethics he could use.
Sure, we can all say JWR was a crap Minister of Justice because she was. And we can all have a hearty chortle at the ineptness of the Public Prosecution Service on the Duffy file. But, from the reading I've done, there is supposed to not be any political attempts to change an AG's mind. Listening to the tape JWR provided, it wasn't clear to me that the inept high-end gopher Wernick even knew about the Act. All he was worried about was getting Trudeau's way, because "he's firm on this". So he tried four times to get JWR to change her mind on that occasion alone. No pressure? Then, exactly what is the definition of "pressure".
Then we get the Liberal crowd of criminal aiders and abettors screaming bloody blue murder about JWR's recording of Wernick. illegal! Squawk! No doubt she had every reason to believe she'd be subjected to overt political interference on her AG role - yet again. And she was correct. One has only to read the transcript to see it.
Yet to Liberals of a certain persuasion, she's a traitor. Forget the big picture and the PM trying to illegally put in the big DPA fix for SNC-L, they say. JWR broke the law recording the phone call. She must be punished. A sense of proportion seems to be absent.
Such are the ethics of Liberals at large - they have none. Criminal activity by the PM and his lackeys shall be condoned. Decent-paying pensions are at stake, after all for "honourable" Whipped Liberal MPs who might get tossed out at election time. The whistleblower, for once acting responsibly in her alternate non-political role, must be dunned outright and the criminals allowed to escape scot-free. That sums it up for me. Complete cognitive dissonance.
The only problem is that JT and his merry band of neoliberals have now shown the First Nations they are completely untrustworthy once again (after the fake second report on Justin's pipeline). This is not a Snowden or Manning with no friends they have publicly pissed on. This was the top First Nation person in Canada they dumped. For doing nothing more than trying to save would-be criminals from themselves.
There will be ramifications for our two-faced er, um, ah PM. He won't like them. Count on it.
BM
Her letter said nothing but the emails and texts to Butts revealed someone with a huge sense of entitlement and little self awareness. Her secret tapes, like Nixon's revealed someone with a shallow character. I am however, sad to see Philpot go.
Bennett's comment about equality was interesting. She thinks equality means women have to take responsibility for their actions.
Baloney, BM.
Your assertions that the PM broke the law do not make it so. Even JWR stated nothing illegal happened. Perhaps you could share your insight which the Attorney General and her staff lacked.
I agree with her about not doing things "in the shadows", but maintaining confidentiality in discussion is not "in the shadows". Confidentially allows for all manner of pressuring and arm twisting. Under effective leadership it also results in better decisions because even bad ideas get heard without repercussion outside. But in any system of government, the buck stops somewhere. In our system it is with Parliament. However, in our party system, with a majority of seats it is effectively with the leader. We provide ways to slow things down, such as requiring bills to pass the Senate, or delegating responsibility to the AG who the PM must first replace if their decisions are not the desired ones. But to claim the unelected DPP is completely independent and not subject to direction by the elected government is ridiculous. What next, the star chamber? Again, slowing things down means the requirement to notify the public when giving direction to the unelected DPP. Then voters can judge if the intervention (what the trolls call interference) is reasonable.
I think it is great that we are seeing the actual sausage making process that makes government work. It is messy, and a great leader will let everyone have their say, but ultimately it is the leader's call. JWR's "stop questioning my decisions" would be fine if she was the leader, but she was not. Even the Big House has what we call Chiefs, and decisions, while reached by consensus, are still worn by the leaders.
I'm with BM on this one.
Parliament and the judiciary are separate independent branches of our government and need to be so for obvious reasons. The issue here is that under our current system the Justice minister and the AG are the same person and that really muddies the line.
When JWR was wearing the AG hat she was the boss and was expected to act independent of political interests. As justice minister she was a member of the caucus and expected to follow the party line and interests. (Another issue is that caucus members are expected to always follow the party line, no matter their conscience or constituency interests--but don't get me going) JWR was in a conflicted position that I do not envy, but she did what she thought was right and proper--and I happen to agree with.
Punishing and ultimately expelling the justice minister and member of caucus for a decision the AG made is political interference in the judiciary and really bad optics. This will haunt JT and the liberal party. JT really messed this one up.
Watching liberal loyalists spin this as JWR wanting to take down JT or wanting the leadership or whichever other motive they pin on her to demonize her, makes me just shake my head and gives me yet more reason to move away from the liberal party. The only goal for all this cacophony from the liberals seems to be distraction and be-fuddle-duddle-ment.
jump
.. conundrums are less complicated than they seem.. but nevertheless remain conundrums.. until broken down into bite size solutions.
Enter stage Left, Justin & Gerald Butts.. much like Harper & Ray Novak - seizing the momen.. no, nay.. seizing the conundrum of Lavalin as booty.. a prize of the electoral wars on hearts, minds, donor dollars & votes. Lavalin as a captured big business flagship. Hell.. Canadians can revel that we now command the worm eaten, top heavy monstrosity and all its concerned crew, hearing about all that buried treasure.
The dirt on the good ship Lavalin goes back back to the way before.. before the daze of the evil one eyed Khadr of Afghanistan when Harper Novak and sack of hammers Peter MacKay plunged 'into the valley of death' (Afghanistan) and emerged with a whipping boy and a nasty little evasive prorogue.. Hey ho! We may be drifting into a similar detour for democracy.. we gots our whipping girls.. red handed with secret squirrel 'tape' machines up their skirts or in their purse.. (secret 'tape' recorders are always on sale in camera stores, celphone boutiques & electronics stores. Its a section they used to call 'dictaphones' - now its called cel phones, ipads, cameras, digital audio recorders/players. They're common on sale POP (point of purchase) next to the gossip & giant tit or messy divorce news rags.. with removeable data card for shopping list, lr who's 'fishing off the dock' at work, breathless phone calls .. 19.99
When it came time to curb the reins of Lavalin.. Trudeau flopped Butts flopped.. Privy boyz Club & PMO club all flopped.. ring around the posy.. all flop down. Some Lavalin legal beagle guy named Iacobucci has a padded, reserved seat in the VIP lobby waiting area right in front of Trudeau the sunny daze one's office desk. The Buck Goes Here.. is inscribed on one desk drawer by Mulroney et al. (Mulroney FYI used dirtbag dollars donated that he positively dreged for, to open the St Francis Xavier - Brian Mulroney Memorial Decency in Political brown bag Donations chair in Democracy.. no they (the sainted FX) have not returned the tainted donations for Brian to return.. some day, later eh!)
The posturing is informative. The tainted political parties & their whipped MP caucuses, aides, henchmen n women, all the pollsters, the pundits.. and all the posters to Twitter or Blogs or Facebook or The Globe or Sun rags.. and the rest of the MainMedia holy moley upper class are casting the stones & clucking contentedly or chewing their cuds on tv panels. Its become laughable !
The astonishing self polarization of the Liberal stronghold is refining & defining all before it. With a buffoon President making a complete jackassery faite a complet to the south, The smartest guys in the room in Canada flop for an obvious conundrum - SNC-Lavalin in bed with Canadian governments and political parties. Talk about 'sleeping around' .. Canada's so called 'political leaders' are limp dick tainted wieners for the year round Corporate Lavalin BBQ.. & valued customers at the cat house..
If Canadians 'want in' to the BBQ and song n dance.. it will be at 'the kiddies table' - 'better seen and not heard' & sent home to bed early in the short bus.. back of that bus. That's the way Trudeau, Scheer, Singh etc talk at us.. Like dim & dull children who must be allowed to vote for the candidates Parties choose, not us. We're now seen & sneered at as one small step above First Nations.. so we're ready for the taking to.. we need 'schooling' .. we need 'grooming'. We need to get all cozy with jeezuz. Its all Nation Building (Site C & water diversion to US, Tar Sands pollution, Muskrat Falls investigation), Energy Security For Canadians (exporting dilbit) Jobs Jobs Jobs (at what cost - Lavalin)
Jody reminds me of a two-year-old playing peek-a-boo with adults.
I'm waiting to see how the Vancouver Granville Liberal riding association deals with Justin's ruling. I'm a former constituent of that riding and stay in touch with a number who still are. The sense I get is that they'll take this in stride but remain deeply disaffected with Pipeline Pete. Trudeau claims Jody broke trust with her caucus. There are people in Jody's riding who are more concerned with Justin breaking the trust of those who voted him in last time.
Either way, he's certainly torn it with the First Nations. He seems to have gone from being a disappointment to becoming despised. Watch to see how that plays out when he gets the diggers going on the Justin Trudeau Memorial Pipeline.
The best thing Justin and his 39% majority have going for them now is 'Odious Andrew' Scheer. The polls are all over the board but the poll that matters is six months away.
Unless Notley hangs on in Alberta, it seems Kenny is ready to lunge at Trudeau's throat at the first opportunity. He's also gunning to come after BC. That chubby little viper wants a scrap and he'll want it before the federal elections.
@ Jump - I wonder if PM Trudeau will now take advantage of this fiasco to separate the justice and the AG portfolios. I've not heard him suggest anything to that effect.
@ BM, I agree with your take on this. Trudeau's fanboys, they'll never get past their affection for this guy.
@ Anon 9:33. You grossly misapprehend the roll of an independent judiciary in a viable democracy. There are plenty of examples from other countries of what follows when people begin thinking as you do. Your last name wouldn't be Orban, would it?
NPoV, just curious. Why do you equate Jody to a 2-year-old playing with adults?
A quick search of this blog will reveal I've never been fond of Jody, anything but.
Here, however, we're dealing with political interference with judicial independence. There's nothing childish about that.
All Conservatives in power at this point, are looking forward to Jason Kenney's win. They at last will have a mentor to look up-to. Ha! And, with Harper in the back ground or better still, the Minister of Finance, what a wonderful Canada it will be. We can look forward to all linking arms with the south. Anyong
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