Justin Trudeau’s latest SNC-Lavalin defense—claiming "collegial" chats with Jody Wilson-Raybould while ignoring her 20 documented pressures—contradicts her testimony, including a September 17th directive to "revisit" a decision she’d already made. Legal experts note his misuse of economic interests (9,000 Quebec jobs) as justification for quashing charges under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, despite the Criminal Code’s prohibition. Wilson-Raybould’s resignation and secret SNC-Lavalin-Clerk calls reveal systemic opacity, yet Trudeau’s framing and media support may shield him from consequences. The scandal risks eroding Canada’s rule of law, while progressive narratives prioritize his re-election over accountability, exposing deeper political and ethical fractures. [Automatically generated summary]
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Today, we look at Justin Trudeau's latest alibi in the SNC Lavalan Fiasco.
Without further ado, here's the free audio version of that show.
Tonight, Justin Trudeau gives yet another version of his story in the SNC Lavalan scandal.
And I think he might get away with it.
It's March 7th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
You know, the biggest news I saw today was this.
The National Energy Board, NEB, is predicting that Canadian crude oil production will decrease this year for the first time since 2009.
And they have a handy graph on the news story, which shows that after a decade of very impressive growth, Canadian oil production is falling.
How?
How can that happen?
Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world, behind only Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
And we're right next to the huge markets of the United States thirsty for oil.
And we have both Atlantic and Pacific coasts, so we could ship oil to anyone.
And we have the world's most ethical oil when measured by any standards, environmental responsibility, peace, the fair treatment of workers, human rights.
How on earth could our oil production actually be shrinking?
Well, Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley are hell.
Carbon taxes, pipeline cancellations, production caps, and the general war on industry, with more to come.
I know I've shown this clip twice already this week, but I think you need to see it a third time.
This is how insane our government is.
Project's decisions will be based on science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge.
We're also taking a bigger picture look at the potential impacts of a proposed project.
Instead of just looking at the environmental impacts, we'll look at how a project could affect our communities and health, jobs and the economy over the long term, and we'll also do a gender-based analysis.
Yeah.
Are you surprised our oil production is going down?
By contrast, the United States is now the largest oil producer in the world.
Massive growth, partly through technology.
Fracking has unlocked so much oil in places like North Dakota and the Permian basin of Texas, but also Donald Trump.
He's ended drilling bans.
He's fast-tracked pipelines.
America has a tiny fraction of the amount of oil reserves Canada has.
They don't have any oil sands.
But they're doubling, tripling our production up here.
How's that possible?
Now that's huge news.
I think we're getting clobbered.
We should be owning this moment, but we're not.
I think this is a big reason we're headed into a recession in Canada, by the way.
But instead of dealing with that or the executive order signed by Donald Trump a few weeks ago for his buy American trade barriers, our whole political class is instead obsessed by Justin Trudeau scandals.
Even the U.S. ambassador who should be fighting for Canadian exports to the United States, fighting for a Canadian exemption to the Buy American Order, he's busy holed up in Ottawa with Trudeau trying to fix this corruption scandal.
Erosion Of Trust00:07:11
I don't know why that's his job.
That's what he's doing instead of fighting for our jobs.
So yesterday, Gerald Butts came out with his side of the story.
It didn't rebut many of the points made by Jody Wilson-Raybold.
Gerald Butts himself was only at one meeting out of the 10 meetings in question.
There were 10 more phone calls too.
But Gerald Butts coming out and essentially calling Wilson Raybold a liar blunted what she had said, made it a he said, she said story.
Not really denying any facts.
I don't think he could.
But denying feelings and saying it meant different things.
Saying, no, He didn't pressure her to drop the criminal charges against SNC Lavalan.
He was just trying to persuade her.
You see, there's a big difference.
Yeah, no, there's no difference.
But here's how it works.
Until yesterday, it was just she said and she said, Jody Wilson Raybold and Jane Philpott, the impressive cabinet minister who quit with a stunning letter saying she just couldn't trust Trudeau anymore.
Yesterday, though, it became she said, she said, and he said.
And so today, Justin Trudeau himself weighed in as if he were above the fray, as if he wasn't part of the scandal himself, as if he wasn't the heart of the scandal, as if he wasn't the one who sent 10 of his staff to pressure Jody Wilson-Raybold.
He described himself as someone observing, commenting outside of it, as if he were a referee, not a fighter in a battle.
You see, he said there are two sides of the story.
There's Jody Wilson-Raybold and there's Gerald Butz.
And Justin Trudeau will now weigh in and tell you, well, you're both right.
He's made Butts the antagonist, unlike himself.
He's untainted.
It was Butz versus Raybold, and now Trudeau will come in to show you what really happened.
Let me show you some clips.
I've taken time to review the testimony, to reflect on what has happened over the past months, and on what our next steps should be.
Oh, so he's reviewed things like a judge would review a case.
So he's not a party, no, no, no.
He's not the accused.
He's not an actor in this drama.
He's outside of it.
He's a critic of it.
He's an observer.
He's neutral, like you and I are.
We're just observing things, but he's more of a father figure.
He's reflected on what other people have done.
He's done some thinking about what other people could do better.
And yeah, sure, he interfered, but in a good way.
And as you heard, I reaffirmed that the decision was up to the AG to make.
Yes, I did mention that I was a member for Papineau, and I have the great honor to represent Papineau, and I've done this for more than 10 years.
I care about the families, workers, and students in my writing.
But this comment wasn't partisan in nature.
Remember, Jody Wilson-Raybold said that he emphasized the Quebec election.
Trudeau emphasized his own personal re-election, his own personal seat in Quebec.
But no, no, no, no.
You see, that's not partisan because he said it wasn't.
Oh, and he's been reflecting on this.
He's been reviewing it.
And he's happy to conclude after some deep thoughts that he did nothing wrong.
Case closed.
It's our job.
As parliamentarians, to defend the interests of the communities we were elected to represent, to be the voice of those communities in Ottawa.
I stressed the importance of protecting Canadian jobs and reiterated that this issue was one of significant national importance.
So when Trudeau told Jodie Wilson-Rabel to think about her decision again, and when she was pressured literally 20 times, you see, he was just an ordinary MP doing what you'd want any backbench MP to do.
He wasn't interfering with a justice minister that he could fire and did indeed fire.
No, He was just a local advocate caring about jobs in the community.
I love the phrasing here, the third-person language.
He wasn't in the fray.
He's the one judging the fray.
He's not implicated.
No, no, no.
Each of these interactions was a conversation among colleagues about how to tackle a challenging issue.
Each came at a time when my staff and I believed that the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General was open to considering other aspects of the public interest.
However, I now understand that she saw it differently.
I'm presiding over quarreling colleagues.
I'm not the problem.
No, no, no.
I'm actually solving the problem here, people.
And sure, Jodie Wilson-Rabold says she doesn't trust me, but that seems to be really her as the problem, isn't it?
I mean, she got all paranoid and weird about things.
What has become clear through the various testimonies is that over the past months, there was an erosion of trust between my office and specifically my former principal secretary and the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
I was not aware of that erosion of trust as Prime Minister and Leader of the Federal Ministry.
I should have been.
And you see, when people say they don't trust him, when he's crooked, when he's corrupt, that's just a healthy discussion.
It doesn't mean anything.
It's sharing perspectives.
Many people have been sharing their advice, perspectives, and experience with me over these past weeks.
I believe that real leadership is about listening, learning, and compassion.
It's about the push and pull of robust discourse and honest debate.
It's about transparency and accountability.
So there you have it.
He's all about transparency and accountability.
I mean, sure, his MPs blocked the release of all internal communications on the subject, but other than that, right?
And all those women saying he's untrustworthy, good talk, ladies.
Good talk.
You totally respect your right to experience things differently.
That the same interactions could be experienced very differently from one person to the next.
And I am not going to speak for the woman in question.
I would never presume to speak for her.
But I know that there is an awful lot of reflection to be had as we move forward as a society on how people perceive different interactions.
Like I said, I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way, but I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently.
Oh, sorry, that clip there was his excuse for sexually assaulting Rose Knight, a young lady back in Creston, B.C. Same style, same alibi as today.
And by the way, don't think you'll be able to talk about corruption of justice because he's going to use the word justice more than you do.
I've spent my entire political career fighting for justice and for people.
Ms. Wilson's Testimony00:14:42
Social justice, protecting Canadian jobs.
Well, since I started politics, I've always worked to the best of my abilities to represent people faithfully.
The SNC Lavala file was no exception to this rule.
Now that's obviously untrue.
He hasn't lifted a finger for 200,000 unemployed oil and gas workers other than to cancel pipelines and bring in McKenna's crazy bill with gender analysis for pipelines.
He hasn't fought for jobs.
And I can't name any justice he's fought for.
He's actually fighting to exempt rich Quebec companies from justice.
But even that's not allowed.
In fact, it's illegal to consider job losses as a reason for not prosecuting a criminal company.
This is an excerpt from the criminal code.
Factors not to consider.
The national economic interest.
You see that right in the middle of that quote there?
But that's exactly the excuse he used.
And really, who's going to call him on it?
The CBC Lavalin is a company that employs 9,000 Canadians across this country.
They create many thousand spin-off jobs in peripheral industries.
They, directly or indirectly, put food on the table for countless families as one of Canada's major employers.
Yeah, he did this to stop people from starving.
He did this to put food on the table, people, because God forbid, a company with a market capitalization of more than $6 billion, that's what SNC Lavaland trades at on the stock market.
God forbid, they'd have to pay, I don't know, $50 million in fines.
It's like lunch money to them.
I mean, they paid $48 million in bribes in Libya, but don't expect them to pay $48 million in fines.
I mean, otherwise, there would be starvation in Quebec.
Trudeau's just putting people food on the table, don't you know?
Put a kook.
But hey, good talk, people.
I really enjoyed this talk about corruption.
I'll keep fighting for justice.
And he does that slow-talking thing that he does when he's treating us like schoolchildren, like we're at We Day or something.
Ultimately, I believe our government will be stronger for having wrestled with these issues.
All right, everyone, it's over.
You had the wrestling, and guess what?
Everything's fine.
No need for more inquiries, no need for a public inquiry, no need for an independent inquiry, no need for a criminal inquiry.
Trudeau has made all the inquiries, and he says, we're all stronger for this, mes ami.
Now, some reporters were a little bit skeptical, but you can see the skepticism waning.
Let me show you a few replies.
Minister Bosen Label says that she told you on September 17th that she had made her decision, and after that, you told your staff to continue to work on the file.
Why would you ask them to continue to work on it if she told you she'd already made up her mind?
Part of the terms of the DPA indicates that that decision can be taken by the Attorney General up until the very last minute of a trial.
So we considered that she was still open to hearing different arguments and different approaches on what her decision could be.
As we now learned through this testimony, that was not the case.
But like I said, there was an erosion of trust, a lack of communications to me and to my office about her state of mind on this.
And that is certainly something that I'm having to reflect on as a leader and that I'm looking forward to improving on as we go forward.
I've always tried to foster an environment in which people can come and share with me their concerns, large or small, whether they be cabinet ministers or caucus members.
But there's always room for improvement, obviously.
But that's not the law.
The law is clear.
This is actually directly from the Prime Minister's own website.
It is illegal for anyone to approach the Attorney General to pressure her.
Illegal.
She can consult with others if she chooses to.
They can't pester her, not once, let alone 20 times.
Let me quote.
This is from the Prime Minister's own website.
It is appropriate for the Attorney General to consult with cabinet colleagues before exercising his or her powers under the DPP Act, that's a Public Prosecutions Act, in respect of any criminal proceedings in order to fully assess the public policy considerations relevant to specific prosecutorial decisions.
Now, she did.
She consulted and she made her decision.
But Trudeau and his cronies wouldn't stop trying to get her to change her mind.
That's against the law.
She held the line, so they fired her.
Here was another question of the day.
Canadians are seeing two versions.
Why should they believe your version, Mr. Butz's version, as opposed to Ms. Wilson-Raybold's version?
I acknowledge that within my office and with respect to the testimony by Ms. Wilson-Raybold, there are different perspectives as Prime Minister.
I can reassure Canadians that the integrity of our institutions was never affected.
Our justice system and the independence of it was always maintained.
Situations were experienced differently, and I regret that.
I plan to ensure that we have measures in place to improve the way my office works when it comes to contact with ministers and caucus members.
But Canadians can rest assured that the rule of law remains fully intact.
Hey guys, she just experienced it differently.
You know how women can be.
Well, you can't know because Trudeau won't actually waive her cabinet privilege over anything she was told after being sacked as the Attorney General.
And they won't release any of her own emails like they selectively did for Gerald Butts.
Okay, but what about the politics?
What about the Quebec elections?
Prime Minister, you said off the top that transparency is an important part of leadership.
So in that vein, can you confirm for us what your staff said to Jodi Wilson-Raybold exactly and whether they raised the political concerns such as needing to get re-elected in their conversations with her?
Because that's an important part of the story I think Canadians would like an answer on from your office.
I'm sure there were a broad range of issues discussed in these conversations.
We heard detailed testimony on that over the past couple of days.
And certainly the Ethics Commissioner will be looking into these matters to ensure that the highest ethical standards were kept and maintained and addressed.
This is something that continues to be a process.
Oh, so no denial, no denial that he was saying you got to do this so I can win in Quebec.
But he knows he's fine because his hand-picked ethics counselor will review things, and that's all that needs to happen here, people.
I say again, it's illegal to interfere in a criminal prosecution.
It's against section 139 of the criminal code.
It's called obstruction.
Jodi Wilson-Raybold could ask for advice and input if she needed it, but then it's done.
It's not open for endless lobbying.
But we've just learned it's not done until Trudeau says it's done until he gets his way.
Listening to Mr. Butts yesterday and again this morning, the SNC La Vlant cost two ministers, Mr. Butz's position in summary.
It's a misunderstanding between your office and Ms. Wilson-Raysbolt.
That's what it boils down to.
There is a difference of perspective.
We feel that Ms. Wilson-Raybold was ready to consider other And we have learned since that she was not open to that.
She considered that each time we mentioned it, it was inappropriate for me and my team to continue talking about such an important issue.
Well, that's part of our job.
Yeah, he really thought she liked the 20 calls and meetings.
Just like he thought Rose Knight was really into his ass-grabbing back in Creston, B.C.
And after all, she never said no, or at least she didn't say it enough times.
Prime Minister, can we come back to September 17?
What exactly and precisely did you say to Jodie Wilson-Rayboard?
And what exactly did you not understand when she said back off?
I said to her that I was preoccupied by the number of jobs involved in this in Quebec and obviously across the country.
This is something that I was clear on.
And then I asked her, even though I heard that she had made a decision, she indicated to me that she had made a decision.
I asked her if she could revisit that decision, if she was open to considering to looking at it once again.
And she said that she would.
As we look back and as we hear her testimony, as I understand she went back and revisited it over the following days and reconfirmed her decision for herself and then felt that it was inappropriate when we continued to talk about it and have conversations about it over the course of the fall.
I wish she had come forward to me in the fall subsequent to that meeting to highlight that.
She did not and that, quite frankly, is something that I am reflecting on as a leader to make sure that everyone within my office and my cabinet and my caucus know that they can come forward to me with preoccupations like this.
I mean come on, who are you going to believe?
Now, in recent days, Trudeau released a trial balloon to the media.
Should he apologize?
He's thinking of apologizing.
Because, you know, that's how all the heartfelt apologies are done.
They're focus grouped and tested out first.
Maybe we run a quick poll.
And survey says, no apology needed.
I will be making an Inuit apology this afternoon.
But in regards to standing up for jobs and defending the integrity of our rule of law, I continue to say that there was no inappropriate pressure.
Not just that.
He has nothing to apologize for.
In fact, you see, he's the one who was defending the rule of law.
He actually said that.
He actually said he's the one on the side of the rule of law.
You thought it was Jody Wilson-Raybold?
Well, don't be silly.
That's just some girl from Vancouver.
We've already forgotten her name.
I say again what I said yesterday.
Unless the RCMP investigate, he's going to get away with this.
Oh, and the economy and all that?
Well, I'm sure you're just experiencing that differently than he is.
Stay with us for more.
In recent days, I have reviewed the testimony from the Justice Committee, including that given by Ms. Wilson-Raybould, Gerald Butts, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and the Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General, recalling various interactions.
Each of these interactions was a conversation among colleagues about how to tackle a challenging issue.
Each came at a time when my staff and I believed that the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General was open to considering other aspects of the public interest.
However, I now understand that she saw it differently.
Oh, he says that a lot, doesn't he?
That's actually the exact same wording he used when he was asked about the sexual assault on Rose Knight, a young reporter for the National Post in Creston, B.C. in the year 2000.
He apologized in the moment, but later last year, when asked about it, he said, well, she just experienced it differently.
Is this excuse enough to get him off?
He had a press conference this morning and answered some questions.
Has he diffused the scandal?
Is it enough for liberal partisans to cheerlead their leader again?
Is it enough to make most of the media forget about the story?
Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Anthony Fury with the Toronto Sun.
Great to see you again, Anthony.
You have a new column out.
Let me read the headline.
This is all about credibility.
And Wilson Raybold comes out on top.
Do you think Justin Trudeau's comments today tilted the scales at all, at least in the court of public opinion?
I don't at all, Ezra.
I mean, maybe slightly in the court of public opinion for people who would like to believe that he's done nothing wrong, because I imagine for people very devoted to him, this is very unfortunate for them to see.
But all he's really done is do what I think Gerald Butts also did, which was come forward and kind of muddy the waters a bit, dirty it all up.
And even though Jodi Wilson-Raybold brought a lot of documentary evidence and cited text messages and copious notes that she had taken after her meetings, Jerry Butts and Justin Trudeau really offered none of that.
And it's just sort of vague generalities, ambiguities.
But I think the oddest part of it, or perhaps the worst part of it all, is Trudeau made it seem like, okay, the prime minister is coming down and he will have the final say.
I have had the final say there.
We can all go home.
Now, hold on a second.
This maybe works as a public policy dispute if there's caucus members and cabinet ministers disagreeing and he comes in and says, no, this is final.
But Ezra, this is an issue where obstruction of justice may have occurred.
And the prime minister is just one of many equal parties in this.
It is not up to him to have the final say.
It is up to the public prosecution service, the RCMP probe, the public inquiry, if there ever is one.
Of course, he wants to block it.
So absolutely not.
I mean, the question now is next steps, for sure.
Yeah.
You know, he has this move and it's very effective.
Obstruction of Justice?00:10:00
You don't see it often.
I think he's perfected it.
Maybe he invented it.
Which is when he is in a scandal or a dispute, he comes in as if he's a pundit commenting on other things.
So I will now analyze for you what went on over there and I will be the judge of what happened.
And yeah, we could have done this better and that better, but I'm giving you the final word.
So it's like he's commenting as a third party or at arm's length when he was the center of it.
He did that here again.
These colleagues were working collegially.
We could have done this differently, but I conclude that our systems are like he kept saying, I have concluded that our institutions are strong.
Well, he's the one who was the controlling mind of the people who might have corrupted it.
It's not for him to be a pundit about him.
And my favorite part of it is when he says, I think there are lessons for all of us to take away from this.
You go, what do you mean, all of us?
Don't wrote me into this.
This has nothing to do with me.
This has to do with very few of you on this.
And I think the main person who has the lessons are you yourself, Mr. Prime Minister.
So I think observers of the supernatural call what happened an out-of-body experience.
And you're right, he does that a lot.
Although there are psychologists and experts, like Theodore Dalrymple has a book called The Knife Went In, and it refers to a person who had stabbed someone.
And when they were talking about what happened, he said, the knife went in.
It's like, well, the knife didn't go in.
You pushed the knife into the person.
But it is this sort of psychological play that people do to distance themselves from their own crimes.
Yeah, it's a great analogy.
It's exactly what's going on here.
Now, I watched yesterday when Gerald Butts gave his testimony, and I think it was sort of a fog machine, like you say, muddying the waters.
But one thing was very clear to me is how the Liberal MPs closed ranks to stop certain things from happening, to stop Butts from swearing in under oath, to stop a request to have all the text messages and SMS messages and emails on this matter being released.
Time and again, the Liberal MPs blocked the disclosure of information that wasn't selected by the PMO.
In fact, Gerald Butts quoted from tweets, sorry, not tweets, quoted from text messages to him from Jody Wilson-Raybold that were handed to his lawyers by the PMO.
So we don't know what the other side of the story was.
We've had a very one-sided disclosure of information.
To me, that says it all.
If you're stopping the release of information, it's because you're afraid of the release of information.
That seems to me the simplest explanation.
Yeah, for sure.
The swearing under the oath thing, that's a bit of a red herring because they don't usually do that.
So I don't really care about that one way or the other.
But yes, the evidence is the main issue there.
Because as some observers have pointed out, it is against the law for a former employee of the prime minister's office or any other cabinet office to have all of these documentary evidence.
When you leave, you can just take the little drinking bird on your desk that goes up and down and the picture of your kids, and that's it.
You're not allowed to take your emails and your notes and everything.
So Jerry Butts had to leave those behind.
And at one point, someone asked him, how do you even have all of this?
You shouldn't be able to cite it.
Jodi Wilson-Raybould could cite it because she's still in office and then she was released from that confidentiality, but how could Jerry Butts cite it?
And he kind of stammered and said, well, I don't know.
My legal counsel got it.
Meaning the PMO would have released it to his lawyers.
What is very interesting in all of this is when Marie Heinen wanted to ask for similar documents for the defense of Mark Norman, she was trying to subpoena Jerry Butts and others in the prime minister's office to get this very evidence, to get these sorts of items that Jerry Butts had already gotten from the PMO.
So you can really tell it's a case of picking and choosing here.
I mean, they're releasing this to some people, to Butts, and not to Mark Norman.
Yeah.
You know, we've seen in the United States Hillary Clinton using a private email to avoid the kind of archiving of documents that normally happens with the high government official.
There were also other issues, security issues.
Would she be hacked?
Could foreign governments see her homemade emails.
But I think it was mainly to hide it.
I have a concern, Anthony, that not only have we not released the official emails, but it would not surprise me at all if there were private Gmail accounts or even other communications apps that were used.
And the only reason I say that is not just out of paranoia, but something else happened yesterday.
Lisa Raitt, the conservative critic, was asking questions of the clerk of the Privy Council, who's supposed to be a very senior nonpartisan person, who admitted he took a phone call directly from the chairman of SNC Lavillan, who, by the way, is a former clerk of the Privy Council himself.
It's such a cozy world.
So SNC Lavillan made a direct phone call to the head of the Privy Council under Trudeau, who did not, and it was not recorded in the lobbyist registry.
What does this mean in plain language?
That was a secret communication that we only learned about yesterday.
I don't think we learned about that before, and it certainly wasn't in the lobbyist registry.
I think there's a lot of things being hidden, just like in the Mark Norman case you refer to.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know about the Gmails.
I mean, I think it's a valid question to ask.
We have no reason to know sort of one way or the other right now, but certainly fair to sort of go down that road of inquiry.
But I think you nailed it when you said cozy relationship.
Kevin Lynch, who is the former clerk, now the current clerk, and they're all kind of calling each other up.
I mean, that's the issue here.
And I think that's what's frustrating Canadians because the original sin in all of this is this DPA law.
And I'm kind of getting tired as of all these arguments where people say, well, what does the law say?
What does it not say?
I don't know.
I doubt the authenticity of the entire law because it was rammed in through the omnibus bill and so forth.
So we've got to ask questions about the whole affair here.
Yeah.
I want to show you a small extract from the law because the law is actually pretty black and white.
And there's a whole section of it.
We showed this yesterday.
I actually learned this from Ed Prucci, who's an excellent lawyer.
This is from the Criminal Code.
It's a section in the deferred prosecution provisions called Factors Not to Consider.
So it's pretty incredible.
And I'm just going to read this to you, Anthony.
Sorry, despite paragraph 2.1, if the organization, that would be SNC Lavland, is alleged to have committed an offense under Section 3 or 4 of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, the prosecutor must not, must not, N-O-T not, consider the national economic interest, the potential effect on relations with the state other than Canada, or the identity of the organization or individual involved.
It must not consider the national economic interest.
You cannot consider that.
That's what the law says.
I think that was the number one excuse offered up by Trudeau today and Butts yesterday is, what about the jobs?
There's no evidence that jobs would be lost if the prosecution happened.
But even if it was, the law says you can't consider it.
Yeah, and it was Elizabeth May who did the great job grilling Jerry Butts of saying, where did you even get this idea that 9,000 jobs was at risk?
Can you cite anything that you were told?
And he just kind of went, oh, I don't know.
Like someone from Bill Marneau's department kind of said it.
He couldn't answer with specificity.
I mean, I think that nails it, that this is really just about spin.
The liberals know that, you know, the rule since James Carville said it's the economy stupid is that people care about the economy.
So, okay, if we just say we were doing this to save jobs and the robustness of the economy and we were largely voted in on this idea about supporting the economy for the middle class, I think people will shrug it off based on that.
I think it's heavy on the spin factor.
Yeah.
You know, there's one more thing I want to mention about the not economic factor rule.
I was thinking, well, why would that be in there?
Well, what do you think of this, Anthony?
If there was a rule that you could say, well, you can't sue us because there would be job losses.
You can't sue us for economic reasons.
That would favor big, rich companies breaking the law and punish small, poor people from breaking the law.
It would weirdly say the richer you are, the more powerful you are, the more likely you are to get off the hook.
You see what I mean?
If you're a big Enron, if you're a big Arthur Anderson, if you're a big, rich, corrupt company, you could always say, yeah, sure, we're corrupt, but you know, you wouldn't want to stop our money making in our jobs.
So it would be perverse if you said, well, sure, they're crooked, but you know, they make so much money, we can't stop that crookedness.
I think that's why that law is there.
And yeah, that's a little comment on my part.
I've got one more question for you, Anthony, and thank you for your time today.
Well, if I can just say to what you were saying there, though, Ezra, I was recently revisiting Mitt Romney's 2008 op-ed in the New York Times where he discussed the merits of managed bankruptcy for the Detroit automakers.
And one of the original arguments about it, and he brought it again when he was running for president, was he was saying, look, what you do with bankruptcy is you get the toxic assets out of it, but nobody else gets harmed.
You get all the bad things out of the operation, and then you can restructure under the rules of bankruptcy.
And I think the merits to having that conversation here in Canada with a multitude of companies is very valid to have right now.
And that's exactly what bankruptcy is.
Protect the valuable stuff, get rid of the bad stuff, which might be the board of directors, might be the executives.
You're exactly right.
I mean, a good engineer working for SNC Lavalant and a good contract to do legit engineering, those things won't go away.
In a bankruptcy, what might go away is all the corrupt people.
That's a great point.
I got one last question for you.
And I am depressed on this matter because I believe that they are over the worst of it.
Trudeau's Narrative Battle00:06:17
By they, I mean Trudeau and Butts.
I believe that they've taken a licking.
They've lost about 10 points in the polls.
They once had a lead, now they are trail.
But I think that they've weathered the worst of it.
I think Trudeau and Butts have given enough talking points for the sympathetic media to come back to their aid.
It's still half a year out to the election campaign.
And I believe, and you tell me what you think of this, it's just a speculation.
I believe that unless the RCMP are to launch an investigation, which I think would devastate them, I think they're through.
I think they're free and clear.
I think this will be forgotten.
The media will help.
And I think Trudeau's going to win the next election if this is all there is.
What do you think?
Well, I agree and I disagree.
I think you're right that the issue is whether or not the RCMP bring in a probe and investigation and issue charges because the ethics commissioner, the justice committee, Trudeau keeps saying, have faith in them, you know, value them and so forth.
There's a reason he's saying that because he largely controls the levers.
The ethics commissioner himself has said that he basically has no teeth.
He'll just give Trudeau a $300 fine, so that's meaningless.
And the Justice Committee, the chair was handpicked by Trudeau, and the PMO, we know, has a say in the final reports.
And it's just a final report.
All it's going to say is the PMO should try better next time and separate the AG and the Justice Minister into two different roles.
Who cares?
I'm not sure.
I mean, I do think a lot of people feel like they've been taken for dupes by this guy.
Now, you and I have been saying this for several years now, but I think a lot of people are just coming around to that perspective now.
Even people who do share his sort of progressive values are feeling like the wool's been pulled over their eyes.
They're very frustrated.
And I'm not so sure that there's an eagerness to get back to all of this.
You know, it was interesting, a liberal source telling a post-media colleague of mine that he said, look, we all want to be re-elected, us liberal MPs.
That's the thing because, you know, they want to keep their jobs.
They'd rather them be in government than not.
But we want to be re-elected.
We're not saying we want to be re-elected under this guy.
So if there was like a Paul Martin machine waiting in the wings, he'd be toast.
He'd be shuffled out anytime now.
There is not.
And I think when he banished the senators from the caucus five years ago, when they pushed the old guard out, I think it was a lot about that, a lot of insecurity about not wanting any of that waiting in the rings, wings.
So if somebody wants to do some machinations in the months ahead, I think they could.
I don't know if people are going to drop this.
What I am seeing is there's going to be a coalescing narrative behind the sort of progressive and far-left people on social media saying, whatever Trudeau did, even if he did break the law, it's better than that evil Andrew Scheer coming in and taking power.
So I think they're going to rally behind that argument.
They almost know Trudeau's at risk, and they're going to shift it from, okay, but what if Trudeau does lose office?
What about all the evils that could befall that?
So I think that's where the conversation will head.
Yeah.
A lot of people have remarked that there are so few genuinely strong cabinet ministers.
I mean, so many of them are tokens or quotas, and that's not my view.
That's Trudeau.
That's how he describes them.
I mean, you're not going to have a leadership challenge from Bardis Chagger or Maryam Monsaff or Christy Duncan or Seamus O'Regan.
Those are not powerhouses chomping in the bid.
There's really no other serious force.
Mark Garneau, I don't think he has an army.
I think that that is the Trudeau party.
He banished anyone else.
It'll be very interesting.
Anthony, I look forward to reading your articles in the weeks to come.
And starting with today's, let me just remind our people, it's called, This is All About Credibility.
And Wilson Raybold comes out on top.
You can read Anthony in the Toronto Sun.
Thanks for being with us today.
Thanks, Ezra.
Have a good one.
All right, there you have it.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back to my monologue yesterday about Gerald Butt's testimony, sanctimony, and the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Deborah writes, not testifying under oath says it all.
Butts is a liar.
They let Jodi testify first, knowing full well that they would counter anything she said and then gag her by not letting her return.
Yeah, and the selective disclosure of emails is just unbelievable.
Lisa Rait, the conservative critic, picked up on that, but so what?
That's a technical detail that 99% of Canadians won't even know about.
Eliza writes, too much time on Butts and Wernick?
No, sir, I can't get enough of it.
If these guys skip through this unscathed, Canada's reputation will never be repaired.
Well, Canada's reputation will never be repaired, but I'm not even worried about reputation.
That implies I'm worried what other people think as opposed to what the actual facts are.
I am worried about the rule of law itself being destroyed.
That's what's happening in real time here.
It's amazing to me that Jody Wilson-Raybold stood against that hurricane.
That doesn't happen too many times.
And if she gets blown over, I think we're on a dissent.
Robert Wrights, worthy of note, CTV News has started using the term word salad with respect to Junior's remarks.
I believe Sheila Gunn Reed has struck again.
Yeah, word salad.
Such a funny way of saying it.
And the CBC, in the personage of Neil MacDonald, had some very funny things to say about Trudeau.
But I say again, I think he's going to blow over.
He's going to tough it out.
And six months from now, will people still be thinking about this?
I don't know.
On my interview with Pardes Salah on Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitism, Paul writes, like in the UK with the Labour Party, the Democrats have become a racist party.
Yeah, it's certainly the battle that's going on.
In Canada, I think the same battle is going on.
Justin Trudeau is now embracing the likes of Ikra Khalid, of M103, of Omar Al-Ghabra, and even Ahmed Hassan.
It's no longer the party that it used to be because Justin Trudeau can do the math.
There's 350,000 Jews in Canada, and enough of them, just out of inertia, still vote liberal.
He can bank on that, but he doesn't even have to.
There's four times as many Muslims, and they're not all citizens yet, but they will be soon enough.
He can do the math.
Folks, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night.