‘In that moment, I knew he wanted me to lie.’ Jody Wilson-Raybould recalls a tension-filled meeting with Justin Trudeau
View attachment 9976
In this exclusive excerpt from her memoir ‘Indian’ in the Cabinet, the former minister of justice recounts what happened in the days after the SNC-Lavalin scandal became front-page news
apple.news
Jody Wilson-Raybould most recently served as the independent Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville. The following is excerpted from her latest book, ‘Indian’ in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power, which will be published Tuesday.
As I sat there in that room – a big room, all by myself – waiting for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to arrive, I asked myself why I felt that I had to try to help him out of this mess, to protect him. Especially when his government had been digging a deeper and deeper hole by the hour by not coming clean on how I was pushed to take over the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin to enable them to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA. Especially when his office had been telling their MPs to repeat lines they knew were not accurate.
I was anxious as I sat there. I could feel my lingering hope that I would be proven wrong and that everything was not as terrible as it seemed. I wished that the government would just admit their wrongdoing and deal with it openly and transparently. I knew the only way to deal with it was to tell the truth. Full transparency. It was as clear to me as sunlight. The Prime Minister had to simply acknowledge that the attempts to apply pressure were not proper and take concrete steps to address the wrong actions. Deep down I think I knew better than to expect him to own up. However, at that moment, I still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
http://apple.news/AUiGUCfMcREuNbr8LpfZGvQ
There is no question in my mind that the Prime Minister knew there were attempts to pressure me to avoid a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, and while those attempts failed, thankfully, they were wrong and he knew it. Instead of simply addressing the issue publicly and accurately, the government was sending out talking heads – the new attorney-general, David Lametti; Marco Mendicino; Arif Virani – to make comments that evidence has now shown were not accurate or right. I told him that he should be telling Canadians the truth.
The Prime Minister seemed to be listening intently. “I never directed,” he said, referring to interfering in my role as the attorney-general in relation to the SNC-Lavalin prosecution. His public lines started coming, which were designed to deny responsibility and culpability. There are differences between pressure and direction, he emphasized. We talked about our soon to be infamous meeting with the clerk of the Privy Council on September 17, 2018, where I had asked him directly, when SNC-Lavalin was raised, “Are you politically interfering with my role, my decision as the attorney-general? I would strongly advise against it.” He repeated in that airport room that I was not shuffled from being minister of justice and attorney-general because of SNC-Lavalin. To which I thought to myself, Oh yes, I remember Scott Brison resigned from Treasury, so, of course, you then had to move the attorney-general and two other ministers and elevate two MPs to fill one spot. Good grief.
http://apple.news/AUiGUCfMcREuNbr8LpfZGvQ
As he went on, I suddenly blurted out, “I don’t want you to say anything further about what happened after September 17.” To this day, I am still surprised I said that. I know why I did it and why I wanted him to stop talking – I was trying to leave space open for a constructive solution to the mess the PM and his office had created and that, in my overly optimistic opinion, could still be found. Either the Prime Minister knew everything that had happened and did not care and was clearly lying to me and the country, or he did not know what had been happening during the months after September 17 to try to exert pressure on me and was not in control of his office. He was either complicit or incompetent.