Jody Wilson-Raybould’s leaked 17-minute call with Michael Wernick exposed Justin Trudeau’s direct pressure to drop SNC Lavalin charges, contradicting his claims of no interference—potentially violating Section 139.2 of Canada’s Criminal Code. Her ethical defiance and past "Team Trudeau" loyalty now clash as Liberal MPs like Wayne Easter and Rob Oliphant question her stance amid declining poll numbers favoring the Conservatives, who could win a majority immediately. Meanwhile, Trudeau’s carbon tax faces skepticism over its climate impact, with critics dismissing exaggerated warming claims (e.g., "twice global average") and mocking fringe proposals like a "pet tax," while U.S. Democrats’ divisive narratives—from Biden’s "Grabby Joe" moniker to Warren’s disputed Indigenous heritage—mirror Canada’s own political fractures, hinting at future instability. [Automatically generated summary]
Today we're going to talk a little bit about Jodi Wilson-Raybold, Jane Philpott, and the other dissident liberals.
And by the way, I think you could see more if they, I'm recording this before the Liberal Party votes on the fate of Jane Philpott Jody Wilson Raybold.
Because if they are kicked out, don't be surprised if other liberals quit with them in solidarity.
I think Selena Cesar Chavan 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.
And 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.
And you know what?
Even if they don't follow Jodi Wilson-Raybold out the door, do you think she's going to suddenly not be talkative?
Do you think she's going to be more sympathetic to them if she's fired than if she's in?
It's just a pickle.
And what a pleasure to watch this kind of mutiny on the left.
We never see it on the left.
They're so unified.
It's the right that quarrels.
So I'm having too much fun.
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
I give you some facts and figures, quotes from some letters.
And I interviewed my friend Andrew Lawton on the subject.
Hey, before I get to the good stuff, can you take a minute and help me out?
Can you go to the Rebel.media slash shows?
The Rebel.media slash shows.
And can you please become a premium subscriber?
It's $8 a month.
And that helps us cover the costs of everything here.
And it also lets you watch this show in video format.
And I don't know if you know this, but Sheila Gunread and David Menzies, they have shows also.
And you get access to all of that by being a premium subscriber.
And you help us keep the lights on.
So thank you for that.
Okay, without further ado, here's my comments on Jodi Wilson-Raybold and the Liberal Party.
Tonight, Jodi Wilson-Raybold dares Justin Trudeau to kick her out of the Liberal caucus.
Who do you think is going to blink first?
It's April 2nd, and this is the Answer Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the 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 liberals have been trying so hard to talk about other things for nearly two months now.
Anything other than the SNC Lavalan scandal?
Even their awful decision to bring in a job-killing, price-hiking, poverty-creating carbon tax.
Well, it's fizzled as a channel changer in the media.
I mean, that's like fixing a headache by hitting your thumb with a hammer to distract.
It's not a good idea.
I think the carbon tax is nuts and that most normal citizens don't believe raising a tax will change the weather.
But when even that can't change the subject in the newspapers, you know you're in a pickle.
Liberal MPs haven't been helping either.
For the first time in years, they are bickering in public.
It's pretty amazing.
Sheila Copps, the former deputy prime minister under Jean-Cretchen, has gone pretty nuts on Jody Wilson-Raybold in a series of increasingly extreme tweets.
One liberal MP, a brave man named Rob Oliphant, told reporters that he is scared of Jodi Wilson-Raybold.
He said he was scared.
I think he needs maybe a safe space or one of those emotional support pigs that all the cool heiresses in Beverly Hills have now.
Here's Wayne Easter, a liberal for life from Prince Edward Island.
He is angry and he's undisciplined.
The official message from the liberals yesterday was supposed to be about carbon taxes.
Again, I think this is a terrible political strategy, terrible economic strategy, but it was their media strategy.
Wayne Easter decided to give the media something else to talk about something more interesting instead.
But then to play these kind of games and almost entrapment to the clerk of the Privy Council, I've got no respect for Senator.
What about Ms. Philpott?
Did she know all this further information that come out?
Or was she used in the process like I feel I was used by Judy Wilson-Raybow in our caucus?
You sound pretty angry about it.
I am angry.
I am angry to think in this country, Canada, a privy councillor the top political position in the country sitting around a cabinet table will actually take and tape a conversation.
And in my listening to it, I felt she had to be reading from a script at times to try and draw out to make the clerk and the prime minister and cabinet colleagues and us that sit in caucus with her look bad.
Of course I'm angry.
Yeah, it's not going well in the media for the Liberals.
I know some pundits say that this is a hard scandal to understand, this whole SNC Lavland thing.
It's technical, legal.
Some people even say it's no big deal.
Any good prime minister, they say, would have intervened to save 9,000 jobs, even though that figure has been utterly debunked, including by the company itself.
But the polls show it is definitely taking a bite, and it's no blip either.
It's no rogue poll.
Every single pollster now shows the Liberals are trailing.
And many, in fact, show that if an election were held today, the Conservatives would form a majority.
I think some people are following the nitty-gritty details closely.
I think the political class is.
I mean, it's the first time the mainstream media has looked with any sustained interest at a Trudeau scandal.
So for the first time in Trudeau's term, there is some real reporting with some real meat in it.
So there's the substance of the scandal, and just putting it on the front page every day sustains it, gives it momentum.
And of course, in real life, it has devastated the government.
Think about it.
Not only has Jodi Wilson-Raybold resigned, but so do is Jane Philpott, widely regarded as Trudeau's most competent minister.
But of course, Gerald Butz resigned in some sort of disgrace.
They never really explained why he left.
Then there's a clerk of the Privy Council, the top bureaucrat in charge of carrying out the prime minister's will in the civil servants.
So of course it's a big issue.
I mean, you have some laughable in-the-tank partisans for Trudeau left in the press gallery, especially at the CBC state broadcaster like this gal, Rosemary Barton.
But they're so comical and it's so obviously just partisan acting.
It really reminds me of Baghdad Bob.
Remember him?
Saddam Hussein's laughable propaganda minister who was on TV saying how Iraq was about to vanquish the U.S. military when U.S. tanks were literally going street by street through Baghdad.
So it really is a scandal.
Trudeau and his staff were repeatedly pressuring prosecutors to drop criminal charges against their friends at SNC Lavland.
That's a huge moral scandal.
It goes to the foundations of our democracy and the rule of law.
It's a political scandal.
The PNMO and cabinet and civil service have all been decapitated.
Two top ministers, the prime minister's senior aide, the head of the civil service, is gone.
And for the first time, the needy are paying attention better now, six months before the next election than six months after the next election.
But that Wayne Easter clip I showed you and the Rob Oliphant quote about him being scared and Sheila Goffs going mad, I think that's got a break.
Because Jody Wilson-Raybold is quite clear.
She believes Justin Trudeau is unethical.
She said so in about five different ways.
And Jane Philpott was even clearer in her own way when she resigned.
She put out this detailed letter.
She said she just couldn't be part of a cabinet that was so unethical.
She was blunt.
And then Philpott went even further in an interview with McLean's magazine.
But why are both of Jody Wilson-Raybold and Jane Philpott running again in the next election as liberals?
How can they stay in a party led by someone they say is unethical?
This is what they said.
I mean, quitting cabinet on principle is very bold, and frankly, you just don't see a lot of that anymore.
I think that's very responsible of them, but doesn't that same responsibility apply to being in the caucus, to being a liberal MP, running with a liberal lawn sign, being loyal to the Liberal Party leader?
I don't quite get how you can square the two.
Other than what does it mean to be a liberal?
If 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.
I 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.
I think that's what it means.
I'm not sure if that's possible to do, though.
But that's what it means, I think.
I think it's possible to do if you believe that Trudeau can be ejected, can be pressured into quitting or eventually be turfed out.
In fact, that's a long-standing political tradition, isn't it?
Ask Paul Martin, who stuck around under Jean-Cretchen for a decade while scheming to get him out.
Now, just a quick update, the reason things are rather agitated right now, or one of the reasons, is that Jodi Wilson-Raybold was banned from testifying again before the House of Commons Justice Committee after the liberals on that committee voted against her testifying a second time.
So Jody Wilson-Raybold, who is a better chess player than I would have imagined she was, well, she just submitted her remarks in writing, which were released.
So it didn't quite have the pup of her personal testimony, but it didn't have to, since she filed pure dynamite, including a recording she made of a phone call she had with Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council.
It's a lengthy phone call.
Obviously, I'm not going to play all of it, but here are a few parts of it.
So he's quite determined, quite firm.
He wants to know why the DPA route, which Parliament provided for, isn't being used.
And I think he's going to find a way to get it done one way or another.
So he's in that kind of mood.
He's asking if you use all of the tools that you lawfully have at your disposal.
I am trying to protect the prime minister from political interference or perceived or otherwise.
I'm going to have to report back before he leaves.
He is in a pretty firm frame of mind about this, though, so I'm a bit worried.
That is incredible for a few reasons.
It proves that Trudeau was sending his man, Michael Wernick, to badger her.
This was months after the decision was already made to prosecute.
Trudeau was still pressuring her to change her mind.
Wernick was blunt.
Trudeau Was in a foul mood.
And Jodi Wilson-Raybold was adamant, too.
She wasn't going to change her mind.
And she actually warned Wernick that Trudeau could get into legal trouble for interfering.
And Wernick said he was going to report that back to the PM.
That's a hell of a thing.
It proves there was pressure.
If you listen to the whole thing, obviously not going to play the whole thing, it proves Wilson-Raybold repeatedly said she didn't like being pressured.
She warned against the pressure.
Now, to be sure, Jodi Wilson-Raybold's own comments were self-serving.
She knew she was recording herself.
But so what?
proves the point that Wernick surely would have denied had it not been on tape, that she repeatedly objected to the pressure and pressure was repeatedly put on her and the PM was in a mood and he was going to get this done one way or another.
In fact, Trudeau had specific, Trudeau, when this whole thing broke in the media a few weeks ago, Trudeau specifically said he lied.
He said that Jody Wilson-Raybould had never objected to any pressure.
I am both surprised and disappointed by her decision to step down.
In regards to the matter of SNC Lavalin, let me be direct.
The government of Canada did its job and to the clear public standards expected of it.
If anyone felt differently, they had an obligation to raise that with me.
No one, including Jodi, did that.
So he was lying.
In that 17-minute recording, she objects time and again to Trudeau's handpicked messenger.
That's the power of the recording.
It proved what Jodi Wilson-Raybold knew would be lied about later.
And indeed, it was lied about later, wasn't it?
Now, Jodi Wilson-Raybold said in her written submissions to the Justice Committee that recording someone like that is something she has never done before and has never done since.
And I actually believe her.
She said she recorded that one conversation because she normally listens to calls like that on the speakerphone with other staff who take notes.
So she has witnesses and notes.
But this time she was alone and wanted to record it.
But let's be honest, it shows what it shows.
The PMO was furious with her and demanding she drop the charges against the crooked company.
I think that tape proves everything.
And look at this.
Jody Wilson-Raybold sent a letter to her liberal colleagues this morning, said she loves being a liberal and loves everything about the liberals.
And she even reminds them that she has been confirmed as the local liberal candidate in her Vancouver riding.
But look at this one comment in her letter.
Let me pull this one quote out.
I am not the one who tried to interfere in sensitive proceedings.
I am not the one who made it public.
And I am not the one who publicly denied what happens.
Oh my gosh.
And don't get all dainty with me about the fact that she recorded Wernick.
Wernick is not a cabinet colleague.
Wernick was not her client.
Wernick was an errand boy sent to threaten her by Trudeau.
He was illegally interfering, by the way.
You saw how they all denied it after the fact.
The tape was necessary to prove the crime, the crime being Section 139.2 in the Criminal Code.
Jodi Wilson-Raybold was a whistleblower.
Of course she needed proof of the crime.
Jodie Wilson-Raybould's Dilemma00:15:06
Well, that is not going over well with liberals who put Trudeau first.
Here's Melanie Jolie, a much more submissive woman in cabinet who is shocked, just shocked, that a whistleblower blew the whistle.
I think that when it comes to the fact that you're tape recording, the clerk of the Privy Council without him knowing, I think this is something that is fundamentally wrong.
Yeah, if only we can stop these whistleblowers, that's the problem, the whistleblowers.
People recording the crimes, not the prime minister and his staff who were actually obstructing justice, trying to get the criminal charges against SNC Levland Rob.
No, no, no.
The problem is a woman who stood on ethical points to stop them.
Well, there were furious meetings today by Trudeau's submissive women like Jolie and submissive men like Wayne Easter and Rob Olafant.
I say submissive, but look, they're just trying to save their own jobs as politicians, and they're putting that ahead of the national interest or even their party's integrity.
They just want to win.
It's a great job to be an MP.
Jodie Wilson-Raybold, I think she actually was grossed out by the PM asking her to break the law.
Remember, they had 10 phone calls and 10 in-person meetings.
Remember this?
This is when Trudeau, the great white hope, gave Jodi Wilson-Raybold his favor and appointed her.
I think she was at one point actually a believer in Trudeau, that he believed what he meant about women and Aboriginal people.
I think she's being disillusioned hard, not just on those two matters, but on the rule of law most of all.
The rest of the Liberal caucus must be disillusioned too.
I mean, of course they are.
Every Trudeau fan is.
They see the truth of him.
Even the Trudeau lovers at McLean's magazine, they call him the imposter now.
Only the journalists that Trudeau literally pays, like Rosemary Barton and the CBC, only they still carry his water, and it's just sort of pitiful now.
So how will this all end?
Well, we'll find out pretty soon.
One thing's for sure, it's much more interesting than the latest liberal blather about global warming, don't you think?
Stay with us.
We'll talk to Andrew Lawton about this next.
Welcome back.
Well, I should tell you, as we record this in the later part of the afternoon, Jodie Wilson-Raybold apparently is going to be the subject of a previously unscheduled liberal caucus meeting.
In other words, all the MPs are getting together just before 6 o'clock tonight to determine her fate.
So as we discuss this, but before this actually goes to air, her future is very much in jeopardy.
It may be resolved tonight.
But in the meantime, as this gripping drama unfolds, I'm joined by my old friend Andrew Lawton.
He is the boss of AndrewLawton.ca and he's a fellow with the True North Initiative.
Great to see you again, Andrew.
Thanks for being here.
Happy to.
Thanks for having me back.
Well, it's just so interesting to me.
I disagree with Jodie Wilson-Raybold 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.
I think it probably comes from being a prosecutor.
I mean, she, that's a tough job being a prosecutor.
It really makes you sensitive to following the rules and right and wrong.
I think she is the most idealistic attorney general we've had in a generation.
I'm not saying I agree with her ideology, but just about her ethics, I give her a thumbs up.
I think you're very much correct there, Ezra.
Integrity and accountability, these are not supposed to be partisan values.
I mean, ideally, everyone in parliament, whether a liberal, an NDP, a bloc ébécois, or a conservative, would have a semblance of integrity.
And I think what Jodi Wilson-Raybold 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.
And 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.
Because 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.
And that really is the key question here.
I bet, I mean, look, I don't know a lot of liberals.
They don't like me that much.
But I bet that most members of the liberal caucus, most MPs, don't like what happened.
But the test here is, will they publicly say that if it embarrasses the PM?
That's what's so unusual.
I mean, and let me say, on the other side of that, Jodi Wilson-Raybold did not, quote, go public with this.
She was an internal dissident.
She held the line as best she could.
She fought from within, and then she stayed in cabinet, as she told Parliament, to keep an eye on this file.
But 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.
I'm not the one who made it public, and I'm not the one who covered it up.
So there's three parts there.
I mean, she's still really righteous about what she did, but she's reminding the liberals she hasn't been the one running to the media.
It seems like she has, because we're so gripped by it.
But it's true, Andrew.
She kept quiet about this for months and months and months and quietly bit her tongue, I think.
Yeah, and I think it's a very legitimate question as to why she didn't step down from cabinet.
And 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, which is that she felt that her remaining in that position was the safeguard of the rule of law.
And she basically felt that with how the prime minister's office was behaving, were she to step aside, then political interference would happen.
But she trusted herself to hold the line.
And I think that's very important.
Now, as for her place in caucus right now, I do think that the liberal caucus is justified in getting rid of her.
Quite frankly, she's taking a flamethrower to the Liberal Party and the Liberal establishment, even though she's in the right.
But what I do question about Jodi Wilson-Raybold, and I think this might be a little bit of a standoff between her and Justin Trudeau here, is 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.
And the reason why, as you're well aware, Ezra, and probably a lot of your viewers are, the liberal brand has been the Justin Trudeau brand.
They were very, very vocal about this in the 2015 election.
They even had on a number of their billboards and signs, Team Trudeau.
They were not distancing themselves from their leader, but embracing the leader.
So 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.
And 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, that 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.
Yeah, I've been trying to wrap my head around that too, because she said that she could no longer support him in cabinet.
Same with Jane Philpott, and that's a certain intensity of support, a certain solidarity, and a certain level of confidentiality and assistance.
But being in the caucus, just being a backbench MP, has all those same obligations and responsibilities and loyalties, just maybe a little bit less Less large.
I mean, you still have caucus confidentiality.
You still must support the PM as the PM.
So I've found it a little unusual that both Phil Pott and Wilson-Raybold have stayed in caucus.
But here's how I am guessing they justify it, Andrew, is that if you think, as you mentioned, that the Liberal Party equals Justin Trudeau and Justin Trudeau equals the Liberal Party, and Trudeau, by the way, probably thinks that.
Then, yeah, it's, if you're not part of the Trudeau party, get out.
But if you think that the Liberal Party is an enduring institution that is larger than any one person, even larger than its leader at the time, if you think even further that maybe Trudeau is going to be given the boot or will resign in a matter of months, then maybe you do stick around.
I bet when Jodi Wilson-Raybold knocks on doors in Vancouver-Granville, I bet she's given a very warm response at the door.
So she's probably thinking, why should I give up my job, my connection with my community, and my list of policies and values just because I don't like the bum who's the CEO?
It's a tough one.
It's a tough one.
I know that by the time this video goes to air tonight, Andrew, the Liberals will have finished their meeting.
So we're talking right now.
We don't know the answer.
Do you predict they're going to give her the boot?
It's tough to say.
I mean, one of the stories that will emerge if they do is whether they are running this type of operation that was what the liberals for several years accused Stephen Harper of running, which was a caucus that didn't allow for dissent, didn't allow for disagreement.
So there are political repercussions should they give her the boot, but also there are political repercussions in them having her sit around in caucus, knowing that she has a significant voice and is using that voice to expose what the highest ranks of this government are doing.
One thing I will point out, though, is that there have been a lot of, not conservative MPs, but conservative supporters and even some very key organizers that are saying the conservatives should welcome Jodi Wilson-Raybould into their own caucus and people saying that she should cross the floor.
And I think that's very problematic for a number of reasons.
The first of which, she's not a liberal, or she's not a conservative, rather.
And despite her objections to Justin Trudeau's mishandling of the SNC Lavalin file, all of the issues that she believes on economics, on social justice, on the justice system more broadly, all of these she has liberal views on.
And her disagreement with Trudeau, very critical disagreement, does not make her a conservative.
So if she is ejected from caucus, I don't think that the conservatives should be rolling out the red carpet for her.
Maybe she could find a home in the NDP.
Or the Green Party.
What do you think of that?
I saw some musing about that.
She could instantly be a big fish in a small pond, and she's sort of greenish on some issues.
Yeah, I get, but that's the key, is that she has to embody that party's values if she decides to go to another party.
And I don't like this idea of conservative partisans saying that they want to snag her just like it's Pokemon.
You've got to catch them all.
And I raised this issue when Leona Alislev crossed last September.
I said, okay, that's fine if she identifies as a conservative, but does she?
Is she actually a conservative?
So if Jodi Wilson-Raybold is ejected from the liberal caucus, it's going to be difficult for her to find a home, I think.
Yeah.
Well, you know, she could sit as an independent.
It would be very interesting if she started putting questions to the government in question period.
Independent MPs only get about one question every other week or so, so it's not a lot of talk time.
But look, people aren't going to stop suddenly caring about this issue.
In fact, if she's released from any more bonds of confidentiality and party solidarity, she still is very careful about what she can say legally.
But look, Jodi Wilson-Raybold, I don't think she's going to shut up.
And you know what?
Let me throw one more.
And again, we're speaking in this two or three hour period before the results are known on this emergency liberal meeting.
But if she's kicked out, there may be one or two other liberals who maybe weren't planning on running again, anyways, who join her.
For example, I'm no fan of that MP from the Greater Toronto area named Selena Cesar Chavan.
I've called her a race baiter.
She's black herself, but she's very extreme in her racial identity politics.
She's quarreling with Trudeau right now.
She said she's not running again.
I bet if the liberals kick out Jody Wilson-Raybold, I bet Selena Cesar Chavan joins her.
And I bet maybe two or three or four other disgruntled backbenchers who don't think they have a future anyways join her.
I think it could be a real snowball effect.
I think that's a real likelihood happening.
What do you think of that?
Well, 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.
She resigned from cabinet because she didn't feel it was appropriate or ethical to criticize the government as a cabinet minister.
Again, integrity in that decision.
But if the government takes a heavy hand to Jodie Wilson-Raybould, it's safe to say Jane Philbot, who's already demonstrated she'll make a sacrifice to support her friend, will follow suit in some way on her own.
And then you start to see a more significant fracturing taking place.
So the liberals can't just look at Jodie Wilson-Raybould as a standalone.
They have to look three, four, five moves ahead in the game here.
Yeah.
Andrew, I have to tell you that, I mean, I've been out of partisan politics for more than a decade now.
But in my youth, my misspent youth, I was involved in the Reform Party that became known as the Canadian Alliance and that later merged up with the Conservatives.
And one of the things that I know is always on the mind of conservatives, especially as the party tried to reunify, you know, unite the right.
The liberals were so good at having a public face of unity.
If they had quarrels, they kept it inside.
And it was conservatives, the Tory disease, the conservative disease, was bickering in public.
And that certainly hurt the Reform Party for a while too.
It is so unusual to me to see liberal MPs kvetching and complaining and squabbling and quarreling in public.
And I think that's part of the reason the liberals are falling in the polls.
It's not just the scandal.
I think voters say if you can't even govern your own party, you surely can't govern the country.
I think the very divisiveness here is also a reason that the liberals are sinking.
Liberals' Unity Crisis00:05:12
What do you think of that?
I think that's hugely important.
And 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 and they thought he was the guy.
And there was an immense amount of caucus unity and party unity behind Justin Trudeau.
And 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.
And conservatives, again, conservatism is an ideology built on individualism.
And liberalism and progressivism is built on groupthink and collectivism.
So 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.
But we're starting to see that people are only willing to take that so far.
Well, listen, I appreciate you joining us, and this story is certainly not going away.
I 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.
And here's the difference.
Here, 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.
Whereas Mike Duffy, he allegedly submitted some improper expenses that Harper's chief of staff said, I'll just pay it myself.
It's no big deal.
So the scandal was a conservative actually paying money back to the taxpayer when maybe he ought not to have done so.
The RCMP laid charges.
There was a huge, lengthy trial, and Duffy was acquitted on all counts.
But it turned into basically an 18-month saga that I think really helped sink Harper.
Let me ask you the essential question.
Do you think the RCMP will lay charges under Section 139 or other section of the criminal code, obstruction of justice, interference with the prosecution?
I'm not qualified to answer that question, but what I will say is that we need to look at the information that's plain as day in front of us, and that is that there was pressure put, at the very least, the evidence itself shows us from Michael Warnick.
And I think that it's important to look at the possibilities and eventualities, but we have enough here and now that Canadians in a more political sense can draw their own conclusion.
I'll leave the others to people that are better qualified to weigh in on that.
Fair enough.
Well, Andrew, it's great to see you.
And you certainly are qualified to give us your political point of view.
You're one of the savviest pundits around.
And you're one of the pundits on our side of the aisle who has interviewed both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau.
So you know both sides of the story.
Great to see you again, my friend.
Thank you, sir.
All right, there you have it.
Andrew Lawton, the big boss, the head cheese of AndrewLawton.ca, and he's also a fellow with the True North.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Trudeau's carbon tax.
Sheldon writes, isn'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.
Yes, I saw that story in the CBC, and there's a bunch of Trudeau journalists, Justin Journos, who are repeating similar lines.
It's just all of a sudden all these global warming stories just bloomed as if from nowhere.
Now we know from the Jody Wilson-Raybold lab scam matter that, of course, the liberals put a lot of value in placing op-eds where they want them.
I think I'll do maybe my monologue tomorrow on how badly behaved the CBC has been.
But yes, I noticed that, Sheldon.
Herold writes, Ezra raises some good points.
What about pets?
They exhale CO2, so they're presumably killing the planet if you believe this CO2 is pollution spin.
Where is the liberal pet tax to change people's behavior and stop owning pets?
Well, Harold, it's much more than just pets.
Of course, livestock, which I wouldn't really categorize as pets.
I mean, any mammal at all.
Cows, certainly, they don't just exhale CO2.
They fart and they belch.
It's actually with cows, it's the burping more than the farting.
I'm an expert in burping and farting, as you can tell just by looking at me.
But yeah, cows burp a lot because they're chewing up the stuff and whatever.
So that's methane, which is a far more potent global warming gas than CO2.
It's the methane.
And that's the thing.
It's so ridiculous to say these naturally occurring gases are what's causing the globe to warm as it's been warming since we're emerging from the ice age 10,000 years ago.
And it's just a laugh to think that paying a tax will stop it from warming.
It's just a laugh.
Elizabeth Warren Nomination Speculation00:02:54
On my interview with Joel Pollack, Paul writes, Grabby Joe and Crazy Sanders are the frontrunners.
This shows the complete lack of leadership in the Democrat Party.
Other than those two, they have that fake native and that fake Latino.
Ah, you're talking about Elizabeth Warren, who claims to be Indian even though she's only one 1024th Aboriginal.
And Beto O'Rourke, who, of course, is an Irishman who just goes with a Spanish nickname.
We'll see.
I mean, it's so early to say, and fundraising is one measure.
But remember, let me cast your mind back three years.
Jeb Bush had raised so much money.
I'm going from memory.
I'm going to say he raised $100 million.
Maybe it wasn't quite that much.
And he got so few votes.
No one cared.
All the party insiders liked him.
He had all the dough.
He had all the, he had the famous last name, et cetera.
No one liked him.
They went for Trump, who had more flavor.
What's going to happen in the dams?
I truly don't know.
I find it fascinating.
And I can have a detachment to it because obviously I'm not a Democrat, so I can enjoy it more as a spectator than the Republicans for whom I would be rooting.
I don't know who's going to win.
I have a tough time seeing them nominating Bernie or Joe Biden because they seem old.
I got nothing against old people.
It's just generally you nominate someone a little younger.
Trump is in his early 70s, but he feels so young and vigorous.
Guy never takes a day off.
I mean, sure, he goes golfing a bit, but it's not like Trudeau taking 60 personal days a year and maybe only working four hours a day.
I don't know.
It'll be interesting to see.
Or do they go for some rebel, some radical activist?
I mean, Alexandre Ocasio-Cortez is not going to run for president this cycle.
I bet she will, the one after.
But someone like her seems to get all the Twitter energy, but that's different than having an organization on the ground.
Let me just sum up by saying it's going to be a very interesting presidential nomination.
I look forward to it very much, and I bet Donald Trump will too.
I think he's just going to have so much fun on Twitter, don't you think?
He's going to come up with so many nicknames, Creepy Uncle Joe Biden.
I don't really know if he's got a nickname for Beto O'Rourke yet, but he calls Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas.
There's so much fun we're going to have, and we'll do our best to give you commentary along the way.
Well, folks, that's our show for today.
I remind you that I'm taping this about an hour and a half or so, maybe just a little bit earlier than that, before we go to air.
So we still don't know the results.
A couple hours before we go to air.
We don't know the results of the liberal caucus meeting on Jody Wilson-Rainbow or Jane Philpotts.
So my conversation with Andrew Lawton was done before we had the results.
So forgive me if we missed the news that broke tonight.