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David Raymond Amos @DavidRayAmos
Replying to @DavidRayAmos@Kathryn98967631 and 47 others
Methinks its my turn to relax and sit back on April Fools Day to watch the Circuses on both sides of the 49th in order to laugh at the clowns who laughed at me for far too many years N'esy Pas?
https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2019/04/wilson-rayboulds-intentions-might-not.html
#nbpoli#cdnpoli
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/wilson-raybould-snc-1.5078948
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3220 Comments
Drew Shand
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride" 1697
David R. Amos
Reply to @Drew Shand: Methinks the Drama teacher should have remembered that one N'esy Pas?
Mitch Uhl
Ms Wilson Raybould, did not release the recording as many are wailing about, she supplied it to the justice committee, they made it public
David R. Amos
Reply to @Mitch Uhl: Trust that the RCMP and the FBI are well aware that I do not record my conversations without the other person''s knowledge and assent. Not only do I consider bad manners to do otherwise its because that is the way it must be done in the USA which is where I plan to litigate again ASAP.
However my phone records call easily prove that I talked to legions of people over the years and to Jody Wilson-Raybould's constituency office, the Justice Dept, the RCMP, the PCO and the PMO VERY recently. Furthermore I have argued a great deal of evidence to support what I say is true and there is tremendous amount of documentation on file in the dockets of Federal Courts and other courts of Canada and the USA.
Methinks now that I am getting old as Spring has sprung once again its my turn to relax and sit back on April Fools Day and watch the Circuses on both sides of the 49th in order to laugh at the clowns who laughed at me for far too many years N'esy Pas?
Mark Sobkow
At this point, I don't think there is any "question" whether the Liberals meddled in the justice system. They did, and they're not ashamed about it, and even justify it as "ordinary" government business.
What are we going to do about it?
Well, I for one am NOT voting Liberal again in October! :o
David R. Amos
Reply to @Mark Sobkow: "What are we going to do about it?"
Methinks we should rename April Fools day after Right Honourable Mr Prime Minister Trudeau the Younger and make it a national holiday in honour of his many notable predecessors such as Humpty Dumpty N'esy Pas?
Ron Brady
I believe that Minister JWR recorded the conversation for 2 primary reasons:
1. To document the degree of pressure being applied by the PMO et al
2. Self-defense
The release of the recording put to rest any and all sparring over what was actually said in the conversation with Mr. Wernick.
Lorne Mccuaig
Its a bit obvious to me that when someone phones you and records you as JWR did with Wernick, the conversation will have premeditated motives and canned, scripted speech. Such was the case with JWR's 17 minute recording. I had to hear it twice to get the full depth of just how premeditated it all truly was. The first time didn't do it enough justice, I needed to hear it again and in that context, yes... it really does make a difference when someone phones you to record your conversation with canned, scripted speech planned well ahead to get dirt on you to later bury you with it. It taints the entire conversation. How can it not?
David R. Amos
Reply to @Lorne Mccuaig: "Its a bit obvious to me that when someone phones you and records you as JWR did with Wernick, the conversation will have premeditated motives and canned, scripted speech."
Methinks a lot of folks agree with you N'esy Pas?
Kevin Delaney
Yes it is the Am of 01 April 2019. Yes Federal Liberals are still trying to spin the innocence of JT and the evil of JWR. No it is not a joke, they actually are still holding to that line & what is worse they believe the Canadian voting public will come around to their way of thinking.
David R. Amos
Frank Goodwood
JWR's motives are irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not there was an effort to interfere with our judicial system. It appears that there was and JT and team are trying desperately to bury it.
David R. Amos
James Millican
We likely would never have heard it had Trudeau simply owned up to his own sleazy dealings. Instead evade, deny, smear. Justin has only himself to blame.
David R. Amos
Paul Aumuller
JT needs Canadians to remind him through a forced resignation that Canada will not be ruled by a Dictator.
David R. Amos
Jordan Newman
The government is the equivalent of a Judo grand master. The approach is the same, using their opponent's balance/force against themselves. Not able to approach it's own shortcomings, the government will always use, if necessary, a kind of scapegoat to unjustly, justify its own position.
With the JWR and JT rift, all that goes out the window.
Liberals will not accept responsibility of the failure JWR has raised.
The best the Libs got is to remove her from the party. Longer they wait, the more collateral damage. Other option is by 1000 cuts... Which, in the end, clearly shows where the Liberals stand when it comes to Judicial freedom and the rule of law.
By the rules of this game, JWR is the winner. Shows how precarious of a position this government is willing to stumble along too. How careless the handling of other important files (Meng, Normand, ...) could had been. How the Liberal/parliament can be thrown out of order with the current government. All because of a lack of acknowledgement that procedures matter, or a willingness to apologize to prevent it from happening again.
Throwing mud at JWR is like marginalizing the importance of the justice system. More that happens, the worse the Liberals look.
David R. Amos
Ross Spanner
The larger question is whether such "pressure" was illegal. Mulroney did the same to his then A-G, Kim Campbell, to win the freedom of David Milgard. His reasoning was right, humane and legal. This government is doing the same to protect 9000 jobs and the SNC perpetrators are long gone. Slap them with a heavy fine and move on. I doubt the Tories would do no different.
David R. Amos
Dave MacDonald
Who cares why she blew the whistle . The important thing is she did it .
David R. Amos
Morley Right
Write all the opinion pieces you wish, publish PMO inspired op-eds, attack JWR - It's all for not. Canadians now see the level of liberal interference in our judicial system, soley for their own personal gain. JT has been exposed as a weak, disreputable person who is so arrogant as to believe he is above the law.
The RCMP needs to investigate as this political inteference in our judicial system breaks Canadian law. It's that simple.Morley Right
David R. Amos
Dave MacDonald
Shocking that a man with almost no work experience can't govern the entire country .
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Perhaps Jody Wilson-Raybould had the worst of intentions — take down the leadership, destroy the party, ennoble her reputation, profit somehow. If true, that's an interesting peripheral element. But it's a distraction from the main issue. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Let's assume for a moment, since many have already, that Jody Wilson-Raybould's actions as they relate to the SNC-Lavalin saga have indeed been driven by a toxic combination of malevolence and self-importance.
Take the position that she — either spurned by the Prime Minister's Office or motivated by her own pursuit of power and notoriety — doesn't actually care about the independence of Canada's judiciary or the integrity of our public prosecutions. Rather, she wants to take down the prime minister, along with those around him, so that she may pave the way for new leadership, or else perhaps just sit back and watch the fire burn.
And on top of it all, according to this theory, Wilson-Raybould has been willing to push ethical boundaries in pernicious pursuit of her goals, including sowing disaccord within the Liberal caucus she refuses to leave, and surreptitiously recording a December phone call between herself as Canada's then-attorney general and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick — the audio of which was released to the Justice committee and made public last week.
Yes, perhaps Wilson-Raybould had the worst of intentions — take down the leadership, destroy the party, ennoble her reputation, profit somehow. Great. If true, that's an interesting peripheral element.
But Wilson-Raybould's character has no bearing on whether the Prime Minister's Office tried to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which is the principal question of this entire affair.
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Justin Trudeau's response to allegations that his office improperly pressured the attorney general has changed several times since the story broke. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)Her personal motivations have nothing to do with the lengths to which the Liberals have gone to shut down additional inquiries into what happened, nor does it explain why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so struggled to keep his story straight from the time of his first ill-fated blanket denial.
What's more, Wilson-Raybould, whatever her intentions, couldn't have somehow compelled Wernick to warn her about Trudeau's mood in the recorded phone call, or tricked him into conveying partisan interests on behalf of the prime minister. ("You're not just the attorney general, you're the minister of justice in the cabinet," he reminded her at one point in the conversation.)
The fact that Wilson-Raybould recorded that call seems to be further evidence to some that the former attorney general is enacting some sort of coup. Maybe she is. But the theory that this is all part of an elaborate scheme assumes that she taped the conversation because she could somehow foresee a cabinet shuffle, and foresee that she would be moved out of the justice file, and also could anticipate an opportunity to share the file publicly, thus providing herself with material to exact her revenge.
Or perhaps she recorded the conversation because she knew she would be asked to do something improper based on previous conversations with numerous people on the SNC-Lavalin file. I'll let astute readers decide.
Listen to the call:
Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould recorded a conversation with Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick as she faced pressure over SNC-Lavalin file. 17:25The ethics of the attorney general recording a conversation with the country's top civil servant without his knowledge or consent makes for a worthy legal and moral discussion. But this is not before a court of law, and we need not disqualify the information provided from that phone call because the way it was collected seems unsavoury.
The recording confirmed that Wilson-Raybould was accurate in her testimony before the Justice committee last month when she described the December conversation she had with Wernick. She told the committee she was unequivocal in her refusal to intervene on the SNC-Lavalin case, and that she warned Wernick several times that the conversation was inappropriate, yet he pressed on.
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Wernick's lawyer said the clerk never briefed the prime minister on the December phone call he had with Wilson-Raybould. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)Over the weekend, Wernick's lawyer released a statement saying that the clerk never briefed the prime minister on that conversation — a claim that is either true and Wernick was sleeping on the job (when the attorney general uses the words "political interference" and invokes the Saturday Night Massacre, you tell the prime minister), or it is not true and Trudeau had yet more information (on top of the previous examples) confirming that Wilson-Raybould was not going to yield to PMO pressure.
That would explain why Wilson-Raybould was shuffled out of the Justice ministry the following month, a time about which she cannot speak because the prime minister has not extended the waiver of solicitor-client and cabinet confidentiality.
As others have noted, Wilson-Raybould could likely use parliamentary privilege to bypass this constraint and tell the rest of her story. Perhaps she doesn't want to break the oath she made when she took office. Maybe she just likes to see the blood drain slowly. If it's the latter, which jibes with the theory that Wilson-Raybould has indeed pursued this whole thing because she wants to take down the prime minister — well then, gee, I guess that makes her a politician. Who's going to tell her she didn't make sainthood?
Wilson-Raybould could very well be the most conniving player in the game, but that would still have no bearing on whether the prime minister and his office tried to interfere in the justice system for partisan, political interests. That's what matters most here.
There's more to this story that we still don't know, but Trudeau's reluctance to extend the waiver of confidentiality to allow Wilson-Raybould to speak about her time after she left the justice ministry leaves us to infer. It also plays straight into Wilson-Raybould's hand by making it look like the prime minister has something deeply problematic to hide. But perhaps from the PMO's perspective, that impression is less damaging than whatever she has to say.
This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read our FAQ.
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David Raymond Amos @DavidRayAmos
Replying to @DavidRayAmos@Kathryn98967631 and 47 others
Methinks its my turn to relax and sit back on April Fools Day to watch the Circuses on both sides of the 49th in order to laugh at the clowns who laughed at me for far too many years N'esy Pas?
https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2019/04/wilson-rayboulds-intentions-might-not.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/wilson-raybould-snc-1.5078948
Wilson-Raybould's intentions might not be completely righteous
3220 Comments
Drew Shand
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride" 1697
David R. Amos
Reply to @Drew Shand: Methinks the Drama teacher should have remembered that one N'esy Pas?
Mitch Uhl
Ms Wilson Raybould, did not release the recording as many are wailing about, she supplied it to the justice committee, they made it public
David R. Amos
Reply to @Mitch Uhl: Trust that the RCMP and the FBI are well aware that I do not record my conversations without the other person''s knowledge and assent. Not only do I consider bad manners to do otherwise its because that is the way it must be done in the USA which is where I plan to litigate again ASAP.
However my phone records call easily prove that I talked to legions of people over the years and to Jody Wilson-Raybould's constituency office, the Justice Dept, the RCMP, the PCO and the PMO VERY recently. Furthermore I have argued a great deal of evidence to support what I say is true and there is tremendous amount of documentation on file in the dockets of Federal Courts and other courts of Canada and the USA.
Methinks now that I am getting old as Spring has sprung once again its my turn to relax and sit back on April Fools Day and watch the Circuses on both sides of the 49th in order to laugh at the clowns who laughed at me for far too many years N'esy Pas?
Mark Sobkow
At this point, I don't think there is any "question" whether the Liberals meddled in the justice system. They did, and they're not ashamed about it, and even justify it as "ordinary" government business.
What are we going to do about it?
Well, I for one am NOT voting Liberal again in October! :o
David R. Amos
Reply to @Mark Sobkow: "What are we going to do about it?"
Methinks we should rename April Fools day after Right Honourable Mr Prime Minister Trudeau the Younger and make it a national holiday in honour of his many notable predecessors such as Humpty Dumpty N'esy Pas?
Ron Brady
I believe that Minister JWR recorded the conversation for 2 primary reasons:
1. To document the degree of pressure being applied by the PMO et al
2. Self-defense
The release of the recording put to rest any and all sparring over what was actually said in the conversation with Mr. Wernick.
Lorne Mccuaig
Its a bit obvious to me that when someone phones you and records you as JWR did with Wernick, the conversation will have premeditated motives and canned, scripted speech. Such was the case with JWR's 17 minute recording. I had to hear it twice to get the full depth of just how premeditated it all truly was. The first time didn't do it enough justice, I needed to hear it again and in that context, yes... it really does make a difference when someone phones you to record your conversation with canned, scripted speech planned well ahead to get dirt on you to later bury you with it. It taints the entire conversation. How can it not?
David R. Amos
Reply to @Lorne Mccuaig: "Its a bit obvious to me that when someone phones you and records you as JWR did with Wernick, the conversation will have premeditated motives and canned, scripted speech."
Methinks a lot of folks agree with you N'esy Pas?
Kevin Delaney
Yes it is the Am of 01 April 2019. Yes Federal Liberals are still trying to spin the innocence of JT and the evil of JWR. No it is not a joke, they actually are still holding to that line & what is worse they believe the Canadian voting public will come around to their way of thinking.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Kevin Delaney: "Yes it is the Am of 01 April 2019."
Methinks i could not pick a better day for the Circus to put on its best act with all the ringleaders playing their parts in the centre ring N'esy Pas?
Methinks i could not pick a better day for the Circus to put on its best act with all the ringleaders playing their parts in the centre ring N'esy Pas?
Frank Goodwood
JWR's motives are irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not there was an effort to interfere with our judicial system. It appears that there was and JT and team are trying desperately to bury it.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Frank Goodwood: "JWR's motives are irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not there was an effort to interfere with our judicial system."
Oh So True
Oh So True
James Millican
We likely would never have heard it had Trudeau simply owned up to his own sleazy dealings. Instead evade, deny, smear. Justin has only himself to blame.
David R. Amos
Reply to @James Millican: "Justin has only himself to blame"
Methinks old Harry explained long ago the buck stops with him N'esy Pas?
Methinks old Harry explained long ago the buck stops with him N'esy Pas?
Paul Aumuller
JT needs Canadians to remind him through a forced resignation that Canada will not be ruled by a Dictator.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Paul Aumuller: "JT needs Canadians to remind him through a forced resignation that Canada will not be ruled by a Dictator. "
Dream On Methinks its rather obvious that Mr Prime Minister Trudeau The Younger plans to hang on until after the next election then resign if need be N'esy Pas?
Dream On Methinks its rather obvious that Mr Prime Minister Trudeau The Younger plans to hang on until after the next election then resign if need be N'esy Pas?
Jordan Newman
The government is the equivalent of a Judo grand master. The approach is the same, using their opponent's balance/force against themselves. Not able to approach it's own shortcomings, the government will always use, if necessary, a kind of scapegoat to unjustly, justify its own position.
With the JWR and JT rift, all that goes out the window.
Liberals will not accept responsibility of the failure JWR has raised.
The best the Libs got is to remove her from the party. Longer they wait, the more collateral damage. Other option is by 1000 cuts... Which, in the end, clearly shows where the Liberals stand when it comes to Judicial freedom and the rule of law.
By the rules of this game, JWR is the winner. Shows how precarious of a position this government is willing to stumble along too. How careless the handling of other important files (Meng, Normand, ...) could had been. How the Liberal/parliament can be thrown out of order with the current government. All because of a lack of acknowledgement that procedures matter, or a willingness to apologize to prevent it from happening again.
Throwing mud at JWR is like marginalizing the importance of the justice system. More that happens, the worse the Liberals look.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Jordan Newman: "The government is the equivalent of a Judo grand master."
Methinks many ethical grand-masters should feel rather insulted about now N'esy Pas?
Methinks many ethical grand-masters should feel rather insulted about now N'esy Pas?
Ross Spanner
The larger question is whether such "pressure" was illegal. Mulroney did the same to his then A-G, Kim Campbell, to win the freedom of David Milgard. His reasoning was right, humane and legal. This government is doing the same to protect 9000 jobs and the SNC perpetrators are long gone. Slap them with a heavy fine and move on. I doubt the Tories would do no different.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Ross Spanner: "Mulroney did the same to his then A-G, Kim Campbell, to win the freedom of David Milgard"
Methinks Kim Campbell denied that happened N'esy Pas?
Methinks Kim Campbell denied that happened N'esy Pas?
Dave MacDonald
Who cares why she blew the whistle . The important thing is she did it .
David R. Amos
Reply to @Dave MacDonald: YUP
Morley Right
Write all the opinion pieces you wish, publish PMO inspired op-eds, attack JWR - It's all for not. Canadians now see the level of liberal interference in our judicial system, soley for their own personal gain. JT has been exposed as a weak, disreputable person who is so arrogant as to believe he is above the law.
The RCMP needs to investigate as this political inteference in our judicial system breaks Canadian law. It's that simple.Morley Right
David R. Amos
Reply to @Morley Right: "The RCMP needs to investigate as this political inteference in our judicial system breaks Canadian law. It's that simple."
Pete MacKay pretends to truly believe like you (I do too) that he legally, ethically and MORALLY RIGHT to ask that the RCMP do their job. However everybody knows that Jody and Justin should not have covered up his illegal actions on behalf of Harper, the RCMP, the DND, Andy Scheer and legions of others within my lawsuit in Federal Court (File T-1557-15)
Methinks Its a heck of a Catch 22 for politicians, lawyers, cops and judges to ponder N'esy Pas?
Pete MacKay pretends to truly believe like you (I do too) that he legally, ethically and MORALLY RIGHT to ask that the RCMP do their job. However everybody knows that Jody and Justin should not have covered up his illegal actions on behalf of Harper, the RCMP, the DND, Andy Scheer and legions of others within my lawsuit in Federal Court (File T-1557-15)
Methinks Its a heck of a Catch 22 for politicians, lawyers, cops and judges to ponder N'esy Pas?
Dave MacDonald
Shocking that a man with almost no work experience can't govern the entire country .
Onager Smith
Reply to @Dave MacDonald:
Yes, if there was the slightest bit of real life work experience required, we wouldn't have had to endure the Harper regime. Which means Trudeau also wouldn't have happened as a reaction to Harper. Maybe somebody would have actually done something about those damn omnibus bills, and there would have no opportunity for somebody to even bury the DPA deception in a ridiculously large and rushed budget bill.
Yes, if there was the slightest bit of real life work experience required, we wouldn't have had to endure the Harper regime. Which means Trudeau also wouldn't have happened as a reaction to Harper. Maybe somebody would have actually done something about those damn omnibus bills, and there would have no opportunity for somebody to even bury the DPA deception in a ridiculously large and rushed budget bill.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Onager Smith: Oh So True
Wilson-Raybould's intentions might not be completely righteous. And?: Robyn Urback
The principal question here is whether the PMO tried to meddle in the justice system, not whether JWR is pure
Let's assume for a moment, since many have already, that Jody Wilson-Raybould's actions as they relate to the SNC-Lavalin saga have indeed been driven by a toxic combination of malevolence and self-importance.
Take the position that she — either spurned by the Prime Minister's Office or motivated by her own pursuit of power and notoriety — doesn't actually care about the independence of Canada's judiciary or the integrity of our public prosecutions. Rather, she wants to take down the prime minister, along with those around him, so that she may pave the way for new leadership, or else perhaps just sit back and watch the fire burn.
And on top of it all, according to this theory, Wilson-Raybould has been willing to push ethical boundaries in pernicious pursuit of her goals, including sowing disaccord within the Liberal caucus she refuses to leave, and surreptitiously recording a December phone call between herself as Canada's then-attorney general and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick — the audio of which was released to the Justice committee and made public last week.
Yes, perhaps Wilson-Raybould had the worst of intentions — take down the leadership, destroy the party, ennoble her reputation, profit somehow. Great. If true, that's an interesting peripheral element.
But Wilson-Raybould's character has no bearing on whether the Prime Minister's Office tried to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which is the principal question of this entire affair.
What's more, Wilson-Raybould, whatever her intentions, couldn't have somehow compelled Wernick to warn her about Trudeau's mood in the recorded phone call, or tricked him into conveying partisan interests on behalf of the prime minister. ("You're not just the attorney general, you're the minister of justice in the cabinet," he reminded her at one point in the conversation.)
The fact that Wilson-Raybould recorded that call seems to be further evidence to some that the former attorney general is enacting some sort of coup. Maybe she is. But the theory that this is all part of an elaborate scheme assumes that she taped the conversation because she could somehow foresee a cabinet shuffle, and foresee that she would be moved out of the justice file, and also could anticipate an opportunity to share the file publicly, thus providing herself with material to exact her revenge.
Or perhaps she recorded the conversation because she knew she would be asked to do something improper based on previous conversations with numerous people on the SNC-Lavalin file. I'll let astute readers decide.
Listen to the call:
The House
Listen to the Jody Wilson-Raybould's conversation with Wernick
00:0017:25
The recording confirmed that Wilson-Raybould was accurate in her testimony before the Justice committee last month when she described the December conversation she had with Wernick. She told the committee she was unequivocal in her refusal to intervene on the SNC-Lavalin case, and that she warned Wernick several times that the conversation was inappropriate, yet he pressed on.
That would explain why Wilson-Raybould was shuffled out of the Justice ministry the following month, a time about which she cannot speak because the prime minister has not extended the waiver of solicitor-client and cabinet confidentiality.
As others have noted, Wilson-Raybould could likely use parliamentary privilege to bypass this constraint and tell the rest of her story. Perhaps she doesn't want to break the oath she made when she took office. Maybe she just likes to see the blood drain slowly. If it's the latter, which jibes with the theory that Wilson-Raybould has indeed pursued this whole thing because she wants to take down the prime minister — well then, gee, I guess that makes her a politician. Who's going to tell her she didn't make sainthood?
Wilson-Raybould could very well be the most conniving player in the game, but that would still have no bearing on whether the prime minister and his office tried to interfere in the justice system for partisan, political interests. That's what matters most here.
There's more to this story that we still don't know, but Trudeau's reluctance to extend the waiver of confidentiality to allow Wilson-Raybould to speak about her time after she left the justice ministry leaves us to infer. It also plays straight into Wilson-Raybould's hand by making it look like the prime minister has something deeply problematic to hide. But perhaps from the PMO's perspective, that impression is less damaging than whatever she has to say.
This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read our FAQ.
About the Author
Methinks she did it in order to assist in "Palace Coup" of sorts The caucus meeting will tell the tale as to whether the Tag Team of Jane and jody can pull it off N'esy Pas?