With the resignation of Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, this Liberal government balances on a knife’s edge. In the coming weeks, the Prime Minister and his advisers must regain control of the political agenda. Otherwise, they face defeat.
In the space of less than two weeks, the government has gone from more or less where it wanted to be in an election year to deep crisis. And that crisis will get worse.
One way or another, Jody Wilson-Raybould will explain why she resigned from the Liberal cabinet. Whether she says her piece is no longer in question – only when and how. After she does, Mr. Butts will doubtless offer his version of the events.
The Globe and Mail has reported the former attorney-general was removed from her portfolio after she resisted pressure by advisers in the Prime Minister’s Office to keep the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin from being prosecuted for corruption. But in his statement on Monday, Mr. Butts strongly denied any wrongdoing.
Although the Liberal MPs who dominate the House justice committee appear to have a limited appetite for a full airing of views – we will know more about what kind of spines they have after the committee’s in-camera meeting on Tuesday – Conservative Senator Claude Carignan said in interview on Monday that the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee may take up the issue.
“The Senate is more appropriate, because it is more non-partisan,” he said, and that is true. Most of the senators on that committee have no party affiliation, although the independents appointed by Mr. Trudeau are generally progressive in outlook.
But there is also merit to calls by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May for a full, independent inquiry. If such an inquiry could act swiftly, issuing its report by the summer, that would be the best way to go.
In the meantime, this government has to get its agenda back on track, despite this out-of-control political brush fire. The highest priority is to secure the ratification of the renegotiated North American free-trade agreement, while also persuading the Trump administration to remove punitive tariffs on aluminum and steel.
Success will allow the Liberals to say that on the most important challenge facing the Canadian economy – rising American protectionism – the government got the job done. Failure will undermine that claim.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau will present one last budget in the coming weeks, which should serve as a template for the Liberal election manifesto. Will it be strong enough to get people talking about something other than Ms. Wilson-Raybould and SNC-Lavalin? We’ll see.
First Nations communities are furious at this government’s treatment of Canada’s first Indigenous attorney-general. Passing much-promised Indigenous rights and/or child-welfare legislation might dispel at least some of that anger.
And a convoy of trucks is expected to arrive in Ottawa on Tuesday to remind the government of its lack of progress in getting an oil pipeline built. Progress on the Trans Mountain line this year would rebut that criticism.
The Liberals have a lot to take pride in: a raft of new trade agreements, progressive tax changes and child supports, major investments in infrastructure, a strong economy with low inflation and low unemployment.
The smoke from the Wilson-Raybould fire obscures this record. Worse, the controversy threatens both the Liberals’ left and right flanks at the same time. Progressives who abandoned the NDP for the Liberals in 2015 must be horrified at the way this government has mistreated an Indigenous woman who once held great power in cabinet.
Combined with misfires in combatting climate change – they bought a pipeline! – and democratic reform – they kept first-past-the-post! – people on the left may be wondering how they can possibly support Mr. Trudeau again.
And Liberal-Conservative switch voters who are embarrassed by the costume parade in India, vexed at deteriorating relations with China and alarmed by the still-present threat of tariffs at the U.S. border must wonder what the Wilson-Raybould affair says about the Trudeau government’s competence.
There is still plenty of time for the Liberals to rescue their agenda and their fortunes. Mr. Butts’s departure creates the possibility of new blood and thinking inside the Trudeau PMO. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Mr. Singh have yet to offer a convincing explanation of why soft Liberal voters on the right and the left should switch to them.
But this is bad. And there’s more to come. All this, in less than two weeks.
John Ibbitson