So I just had a lovely Chaga tea while watching our Prime Minister try to spin through the SNC Lavalin mess.
This, the day after his bestie, Gerry Butts, did the same, and oddly enough many of their story points were the same.
The thing is at the end of the day the minutiae of this mess really won’t matter. It’s all about optics.
The very same reasons that Mr. Trudeau and Butts placed their former AG and many other ministers in their positions are in fact, the very points that are their mutual undoing.
Again, this is an opinion piece. I’m not really going to focus on facts.
Jody Wilson Raybould’s body language simply is one of, at the most generous, a very stern person. If I’d had a few beverages before writing this I might suggest a stereotype or two, but certainly not one I’d want in my cabinet.
And that’s the arrow to Mr. Trudeau’s heart. Even those that drank the most of his and his team’s koolaid can see through this grade school drama.
They can see he’s not leading this and getting ahead, but in damage control and reacting.
Badly too. He arched his eyebrow while mentioning her name. Both he and Mr. Butts were too heavy with praise and too careful to lodge any criticism.
A cabinet gig is pretty much one of the most prestigious gigs a politician can get short of being the PM. They usually are not given out by focus group. This is after all, your A team. The members of your caucus that are there for you and help get through the best of times and worst.
Prime Minister Trudeau glimmered at some truths in his answers. 9,000 jobs, especially in Quebec, do matter. Especially if you want to get re-elected.
9,000 jobs are a lot of jobs. But if you were listening out West, especially in Oil Sand country, I bet you were scratching your head wondering why so much effort wasn’t put into saving jobs out there if that’s all that really matters at the end of the day?
The importance of a company the size of SNC is huge in Canadian politics. Any company that has a national impact has one on elections too. Those employees and their friends and families vote and they are not all congested in areas that rarely vote Liberal like the oil sands workers.
If Mr. Trudeau’s supporters think the greatest way to support Canadians is by supporting Mr. Trudeau and his government then the SNC issues are critical because if convicted it would be a deal changer, especially this close to an election.
If Justin didn’t know it I have a hunch Gerry and Jody did.
The saddest part of this story is that there is no hero, or heroine. Frankly they all are dirty. They all played the game in very predictable ways. You don’t need a degree in Poly Sci to know that JWR would not want the Indigenous File and clearly it was a demotion which I’m sure would lead to a jettisoning after the election. If she really had integrity and this was the big issue for her she should have resigned at the right time instead of taking another position. If she was politically savvy surely she knew it would only be until the election when she would be dumped for not being a team player, and I have a hunch that this may have really upset her.
It’s one thing to make a decision as she did; quite another to take the stand she did, especially if the manner in which she did is anything akin to the spin from Mr. Butts and Mr. Trudeau.
Clearly she wasn’t a team player. And that’s how politics role regardless of your partisan affiliation. You just don’t see cab mins survive long by rocking the boat and defying the election game plan, and by burning SNC Jody was burning the game plan big time.
If SNC broke the law they don’t deserve a free pass, but it does make one ponder how many free passes over the years have they and other companies been given because of their “importance” to the people that they supported to get elected.
That’s the root of this issue. That’s where that cat litter box smell is coming from. And as rare as it is to get that whiff as we are now; I’m sure a lot of politicians and bureaucrats are working overtime to ride through this so business can go back to usual.
That’s simply the world we live in.
The liberals keep ranting 9000 jobs. Who says it’s 9000 and why do they want to protect a company that’s accused of bribing, which is illegal. What of the GM jobs in Ontario or the jobs out West. Guess it means nothing to the liberals. Trudeau won’t take the blame on this. Different stories and today he says it’s a misunderstanding. Erosion of trust, my ash.
Of course his Butts and the other puppets have to follow the leader. Funny what world news and other countries are saying about him and his Sunny Ways. I see overcast and cloudy period ahead for the Liberals. He sucks up to the Indegenous people today after treating one of their own like this. Yes he’s a real feminist alright but he lost 2 female key cabinet ministers in his gender equal rule.
If Judy Wilson-Raybold chooses to cross the floor to the Conservatives, would she then be free to speak?
lol, as if and as if they’d ever have put her in a cabmin role….
She has already stated she is a Liberal and will be running as so in the election.
If I were Scheer, I’d offer her a position to get her to speak and do more damage to Trudeau’s Liberals leading all the way to October’s election