LILLEY: Trump must be jealous of Teflon Trudeau
Brian Lilley
Published:
October 31, 2019
Updated:
October 31, 2019 8:39 PM EDT
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold a bilateral meeting during the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, August 25, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
As the House of Representatives in Washington voted 232 to 196 to move forward on the impeachment process, I can only imagine that Donald Trump was thinking of his friend to the north, “Justin from Canada.”
Trump must wish that he had the power to shut down investigations, to fire those that stood in his way with impunity and even to block the police from doing a proper investigation. For all those Canadians looking smugly at what is happening south of the border, it’s worth remembering that our own leader has his own problems.
In fact, if Trudeau were dealing with an American style system, he’d probably be on his way out the door. Now that he has moved from a majority government to a minority, Trudeau may still face some problems but not to the extent that Trump is even though objectively, Trudeau is guilty of far worse than Trump.
After the 2016 Presidential election there were claims of Russian interference and collusion between Russian agents and the Trump campaign. Despite spending nearly two years and tens of millions of dollars, and having the full resources of the Justice Department behind him, Special Counsel Robert Mueller couldn’t prove Trump guilty of anything.
He didn’t even recommend any action and Democrats didn’t move to impeach.
In fact, Democrats only moved to impeach when Trump allegedly used a phone call with the leader of Ukraine to go after Joe Biden. Essentially to the Democrats, Trump could do what he wanted as long as he didn’t attack one of their own.
Now they are going to try to remove him from office over a phone call where they say he tried to get benefit for his own personal re-election from a foreign leader.
Let’s compare that to our own newly re-elected PM.
Trudeau, and those in his office, repeatedly interfered in a criminal prosecution of a Canadian company on bribery and corruption charges and part of the reason was his own re-election.
‘I am an MP in Quebec — the member for Papineau,’” Trudeau said to then attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould. Trudeau was asking that Wilson-Raybould to step in and stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin because Trudeau was worried about the loss of jobs in his riding.
He worried that if SNC started shedding jobs in Montreal that it would hurt his own re-election chances. That is what the Americans might call a quid-pro-quo.
He wanted SNC protected so that they would keep jobs in Montreal and he could stay the PM and an MP.
“We can have the best policy in the world, but we need to be re-elected,” Trudeau advisor Mathieu Bouchard said at the time hinting that if SNC didn’t get the deal they wanted the Liberals would have trouble at the ballot box.
Of course when Wilson-Raybould wouldn’t do what Trudeau and his advisors wanted she was fired from the position of attorney general.
If only Trump could fire his attorney general without any issue the way Trudeau could.
When the Justice Committee of the House of Commons tried to look into SNC-Lavalin, Trudeau shut it down. When the Ethics Committee tried to do the same, Trudeau’s Liberal MPs voted to stop it.
Even when the RCMP and the Ethics Commissioner tried to investigate and gain access to key witnesses and documents, Trudeau blocked them by refusing to waive privilege and allow access.
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These are the powers that Trump could only dream of having.
Objectively when it comes to SNC-Lavalin, Justin Trudeau has committed far more grievous sins than Trump has because we have actual proof.
Yet Trudeau remains in power with the support of 33% of the population and levers of power that any American president can only dream of.
http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-trump-must-be-jealous-of-teflon-trudeau