Wilson-Raybould, Philpott to announce their political plans Monday
2291 Comments Before I refreshed the page now its 2259
Ben Smith Content disabled So disgusting how Trudeau and his minions treated these 2 strong women.
Dawn MacNeill
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Reply to @Ben Smith: Are you and that Castiglione twin brothers?
Jason Tremblay (JasonDiggy)
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Reply to @Ben Smith:
CONs never think women being strong is a good thing unless they can score political points.
Dale Prokop
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Reply to @Jason Tremblay (JasonDiggy): ummmm....the only woman ever to be PM in Canada? She was a conservative....
Jody Melsom
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Reply to @Dale Prokop: She was a fall guy for Mulroney that new he was going to lose the election, appointed, not elected.
Bill Dixon
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Reply to @Dale Prokop: Well... a *progressive" conservative. In today's conservative parlance, being a "progressive" is pretty much the mark of the devil to a "real" conservative.
The spectrum of beliefs of today's Conservatives would be unrecognizable to the Old PC Party.
David Amos
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Reply to @Jody Melsom: YUP
David Amos
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Reply to @Ben Smith: Methinks only Trudeau and these two ladies know the whole story but everybody loves the circus the three drama queens have created N'esy Pas?
David Sampson Please go away, you are getting truly tiresome. You both once had something to say and we all wanted to hear it but please, enough, we are tired of your continuing publicity stint.
Jack Slate
Man the liberal bots are out in full force today trying to smear these two women who have done nothing wrong. Yet, where is the investigation into Trudeau and the liberal like we saw for trump? In the US they hired a top special prosecutor and 12 other experienced prosecutors. Here in Canada its been crickets so far.
Robert Lewis
Reply to @Jack Slate: No one is smearing anyone, the only person who may have broken the law (secretly tapping a private conversation) was JRW.....
Jack Slate
Reply to @Robert Lewis:
That was not illegal. Trudeau's advisors saying that 'legalities dont matter''its just a harper law so its not important' in addition to 'trudeau made up his mind on this' and even said that " we MUST come to a solution'.
Any lawyer looking at this knows that this is very questionable behaviour and certainly warrants an investigation wrt obstruction just like we saw in the states. It would seriously harm the credibility of the justice system if nothing was done.
Lloyd Jones
Reply to @David Sampson: I think two principled, accomplished women who acted out of principle (one to preserve non-partisan nature of the justice system) rather than just shutting up and doing what they're told by the PMO likely have a great deal of sympathy across Canada.
If they have the support within their ridings, I would hope they run as independents, if nothing else but to show it is possible for MPs to represent their ridings in Ottawa, not The Party in their ridings. I would be happy to see them take seats from either the Liberals or the Conservatives. Wilson-Raybould would not only represent her riding, but Indigenous Canadians, who could be confident she would speak up for them and not be gagged by Head Office.
Dawn MacNeill
Reply to @Jack Slate: Maybe not illegal but really underhanded, sneaky, sly, you name it. Wouldn't want a friend or co-worker that would do that, would you?
Jenna Collins
Reply to @David Sampson: Wow!!!!!! The only people that want this to go away are the Liberals and their supporters. The rest of us don't like it when our government attempts to interfere in the justice system.
Bill Dixon
Reply to @Dawn MacNeill: "really underhanded, sneaky, sly, you name it"
Okay, so what do you call Trudeau and his minions trying to interfere in the independence of the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin?
Richard Sharp
Reply to @Bill Dixon:
ZERO interference. Never even communicated with Prosecution Services. JWR was the one who WITHHELD a memo to the privy council clerk (Wernick), an act of malice.
David Amos
Reply to @Richard Sharp: Cry me a river
Mo Bennett
Reply to @David Sampson: actually, we need all politicians to go away, not just these 2 !!
David Amos
Reply to @mo bennett: YO MO Methinks we can always rely on your wisdom first thing in the morning N'esy Pas?
Al Jamison
Their 15 minutes being over......they think they're still in the limelight.....as off of the wall as last year's calendar.
Robert Samson
Reply to @Al Jamison: Says the Liberal boiler room all voting in unison. LOL Is that you Ralph?
Ryan Tulson
Reply to @Al Jamison: disguting
David Amos
Reply to @Al Jamison: Welcome to the Circus that will go on and on until at least October
Bob Gillies
I really don't care which party they choose to run for as long as they run. Abandoning politics would be letting Trudeau off the hook and he doesn't deserve to be let off.
Bill Dixon
Reply to @Bob Gillies: Leaving politics would also simply reinforce the sort of corruption that the SNC-Lavalin affair underlines, and that going against the party line is professional suicide, even that party line involves sacrificing the independence of criminal prosecutions for the short-term benefit of the party.
All the Liberal hacks here refuse to admit that this was a serious assault on our democracy and constitution.
David Amos
Reply to @Bob Gillies: 'I really don't care which party they choose to run for as long as they run.'
Me Too
Nancy Van Der Meulen Those two shot just quietly recede into whatever place they came from. They achieved their purpose which was to destroy the Liberal Party. Nobody respects backstabbers with their sense of entitlement.
Dawn MacNeill
Reply to @Nancy van der Meulen: Well said!
Ethan Lamb
Reply to @Dawn MacNeill: I don’t agree, grammar seems lacking.
Lloyd Jones
Reply to @Nancy van der Meulen: Classic partisan reaction. The PM and at his direction the PMO and PCO and various MPs were caught trying to influence the Attorney General in favor of a large company who had previously made significant illegal contributions to the Liberal party (refunded when caught, of course) and based in a province where they desperately needed to pick up seats. This is not much different to Harper's PMO with Nigel Wright quietly contributing $90k to get Senator Mike Duffy off the hook when he was caught playing fast and loose with Senate residence allowances.
This kind of stuff has happened since Moses was a boy because it goes on behind closed doors and Members do what they're told and keep their mouths shut. Wilson Raybould put Canada before the Liberal Party - which is the ultimate crime in party politics - disloyalty. So here you are calling her a "backstabber". I hope Philpott and Wilson-Raybould both stand as independents and take the seats they previously won for the Liberal Party.
IMHO both are accomplished, independent minded people who stand a better chance of doing the right thing for Canada and their constituents than your typical party franchisee.
Jenna Collins
Reply to @Nancy van der Meulen: Wrong! Whistleblowers deserve our respect.
Reply to @Jenna Collins: The point missed in this fiasco is that JWB did not follow the law by refusing to get an opinion on the legality of offering SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement. Her legal career is 2 years as a junior prosecutor in BC and for the rest of her life was an aboriginal activist. We don't even know if she ever argued a case in front of a judge. With her credentials, she should have never been Attorney General or Minister of Justice.
David E Linkletter
Reply to @Jenna Collins: When whistle blowrs act in the public interest, yes. JWR is only working in her interest.
Brett Blaikie
Reply to @Rick Poulter: and whose fault is that? the legal "opinion" in question in fact came from the Director of Public Prosecution. JWR merely backed her up. Against a powerful and corrupt lot of puppet-masters we all know exists but seldom get a chance to see (and they still haven't faced any consequences for bribing government officials in Canada)
Wilson-Raybould, Philpott to announce their political plans Monday
Still no news on whether Philpott and Wilson-Raybould will run for Greens in next election
Former cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott were expelled from the Liberal caucus in April. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Former Liberal cabinet members Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott say they will make announcements Monday about their political futures.
The two MPs, who now sit as independents in the House of Commons, were expelled from the Liberal caucus in April by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said that trust with the two former cabinet ministers had been irreparably "broken."
"It's become clear that Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Dr. Philpott can no longer remain part of our Liberal team," he said.
Philpott will make the announcement at the Reesor's Farm Market in her Ontario riding of Markham-Stouffville, while Wilson-Raybould will address the media in her British Columbia riding of Vancouver Granville.
The political drama between the two former Liberals and the party began unfolding Feb. 7, when the Globe and Mail reported that Wilson-Raybould, as justice minister, had faced inappropriate political pressure to grant Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin a remediation agreement that would see it avoid criminal prosecution on fraud and bribery charges providing the company fulfilled a number of conditions.
Trudeau denied applying inappropriate pressure on Wilson-Raybould — arguing that he let her make the final decision, which was to allow the prosecution to go forward — but he conceded that he tried to convince her to consider the implications of a conviction.
Should a court convict SNC-Lavalin, the company would be banned for 10 years from bidding on government contracts. Trudeau and others in his government argued that could put some of its 9,000 jobs at risk.
Shuffled out
Wilson-Raybould told a Commons committee in February that she was shuffled out of her cabinet post when she refused to do Trudeau's bidding.
When Gerry Butts, Trudeau's former principal secretary, appeared before the same committee, he dismissed that allegation, insisting that "the January cabinet shuffle had nothing whatsoever to do with SNC Lavalin."
He said that when Scott Brison, the former president of the Treasury Board and MP for Kings Hants, approached him on Dec. 12, 2018 to say he was going to leave politics, he tried to dissuade Brison because it would require a cabinet shuffle "and the prime minister was happy with the team he had."
"If Minister Brison had not resigned, Minister Wilson-Raybould would still be minister of justice today," Butts said. "That is a fact, and facts are very stubborn things. Cabinet selections are among the most difficult tasks for any first minister."
Wilson-Raybould ultimately resigned from cabinet and was later followed by Philpott, who said she had lost confidence in the Trudeau cabinet and could no longer sit at the table.
That recording, and Philpott's statements about her loss of confidence in the government, were cited by Trudeau as reasons for dropping them from the Liberal caucus in April.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May told CBC Radio's The House earlier this month that she had spoken to both MPs and was waiting to see if either would run for the Greens in the next federal election.
That was not illegal. Trudeau's advisors saying that 'legalities dont matter''its just a harper law so its not important' in addition to 'trudeau made up his mind on this' and even said that " we MUST come to a solution'.
Any lawyer looking at this knows that this is very questionable behaviour and certainly warrants an investigation wrt obstruction just like we saw in the states. It would seriously harm the credibility of the justice system if nothing was done.
I think two principled, accomplished women who acted out of principle (one to preserve non-partisan nature of the justice system) rather than just shutting up and doing what they're told by the PMO likely have a great deal of sympathy across Canada.