People's Party Rally: Victoria, British Columbia, June 19, 2021

 Attended a People’s Party rally here in Victoria, British Columbia. The People’s Party is the creation of Maxime Bernier, a charismatic Québec politician and former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The party’s focus has been against mass immigration (currently equal to more than 1% of population per year to a country with a far below replacement fertility rate, thus amounting to population replacement).

The warm-up speakers focused on national pride, “freedom,” evil globalists, and Canada's needlessly repressive response to Covid.

The crowd of several hundred looked like a Trump crowd and was loudly responsive to the theme of the speakers.

Will this movement ultimately amount to anything? 

Not in sleepy government-town, big-university-town Victoria. But in Calgary, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Toronto, maybe.

Still, we're probably a way away from seeing Justin, I-love-China’s-Communist-dictatorship, Trudeau impeached. 

However, when the impact of Canada's 2020-2021 Federal Government Deficit of $468 billion, or $50,000 per family of four, begins to impact tax rates and food prices, the picture could change quickly.

Related: 

Dr. Mike Yeadon: Perspectives on the Pandemic

Canadian Election — The Party Leaders: Four Progs and a Rational Conservative (aka Raaacist). Part 2. Conservative party Leader, Andrew Scheer

To some it may seem surprising to rank the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada among the progs, but the reality is that Conservatives are generally more broadminded and open to new ideas than liberals, who, obsessed by their own virtue, are much inclined to authoritarianism and the resort to hate speech — as in branding opponents RAAAAACISTs, Nazis and white supremacists.

Indeed, until 2003, Canada's Conservatives called themselves the Progressive Conservative Party, and going back to the day of John A. MacDonald, the man who created Canada, conservatives at one point called themselves Liberal Conservatives. In that era, it was John A.'s Conservative government that granted the vote to first nations people over the objection of Liberals, who once in power, revoked the legislation.  Indeed it was only due to the strength of Liberal opposition that MacDonald abandoned a plan to grant women the vote. 

So yes, a Scheer-led Conservative Party would almost certainly be more liberal than the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau, a staunch admirer of Alt-Left, i.e., Communist, dictatorship from that of Fidel Castro's Cuba, to Mao's bloody revolutionary government of China.

But Liberals and Conservatives are barely ideological in their commitments at all. Rather, both are parties of main chancers seeking to "seize the centre ground," to quote that champion of opportunists, Britain's Tony Blair, the destroyer of Iraq. 

So in what way is Scheer, the only possible alternative, preferable to Trudeau as Prime Minister? 

Four reasons immediately come to mind:

First, though no orator, Scheer can, unlike Trudeau, make a speech without repeatedly gasping for breath while his brain catches up with his mouth.

Second, Scheer displays no paraphiliac inclination to dressing up in ways embarrassing to Canadians and irritating to the people so emulated. 

Third, although a carbon tax appears the best solution to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and the serious harm that that may cause, Scheer is right to oppose this costly measure as a national policy. 

The chief consequence of the Liberal Government's Carbon tax policy will be to put Canadian industry at a disadvantage versus industry of countries without a carbon tax, in particular, the industry of our greatest trading partner by far, the US. Canada should push for a global carbon tax regime that punishes non-compliant countries with countervailing tariffs, not hobble our energy and energy-intensive industries with a unilaterally imposed carbon tax. 

Fourth, Scheer's plan to promote Canadian R and D leading to technology that reduces carbon emissions, is very interesting. It may be possible, for example, to develop economically viable means of converting tar-sands bitumen, in situ, to hydrogen gas, while leaving the carbon in the ground. Hydrogen could then be used for carbon-free thermal power generation. Moreover, hydrogen, with three times the energy density of kerosene, has in liquified form, interesting potential as an aviation fuel that could massively increase aircraft payloads. 

And one could go on. But as we wrote before, Trudeau's leadership was a desperate gamble after the liberals had experienced three leadership duds in a row. He was promoted to the leadership solely on the basis of his name and good looks. Now we know where a name and good looks wedded to flakey, authoritarian bullshit takes one, and it's time now for change and Scheer's is the face of change.

How Canada's Prime-Politically-Correct PM Is Being Consumed by His Own Identity Politics Revolution

Related:
Zero Hedge: The Death of Liberalism
Vox Popoli: Knocking down Little House

If Justin Were a Conservative

Source

PIERS MORGAN: Blackface Trudeau should apply the same high horse standards to himself that he applies to everyone else – and demand his own racist head on a plate

So, let me get this absolutely straight…

Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada and arguably the most woke, virtue-signalling and PC-crazed leader in the history of Mankind – or ‘Peoplekind’ as he insisted we rename it last year - turns out to have a rather cracked halo?

Wow. I’m so shocked…not.

I’ve not met a high-horse rider yet who doesn’t eventually tumble off into a pit of shameless hypocrisy.

But I’ve got to hand it to Trudeau, when he fell, he really FELL.

For a guy so keen to paint himself as the male Mother Teresa, the revelation that he has literally painted himself to appropriate non-white skin color is a bombshell from which I doubt he will ever recover.

Read more

The Suicide of the Europeans

Paul Joseph Watson reports:

During a speech at Budapest’s 3rd Demographic Summit, Orbán warned that the biggest problem Europe faced was demographic suicide: Why is this the case? It’s most certainly not because of some sickness of Christian civilization – after all, the number of Christians are rising all around the world. This is a sickness of Europe in general. The Prime Minister said that the solution was not to import vast numbers of migrants, asserting: We must never accept population exchange.  According to Orbán, the remedy should be to ensure that families were financially rewarded for having children, not punished: We win only if we can build a system where those who bear children live significantly better than if they hadn’t started a family. Orbán emphasized that the west was doomed if the current model of atomization and demographic decline isn’t halted. Without families and children, the national community will disappear, and if a nation disappears, something irreplaceable will disappear from the world. As we previously highlighted, as part an effort to boost the country’s population without having to rely on mass migration, Hungary will hand out €30,600 to married couples who have three or more children. A married couple receives the €30,600 as a loan from the government upon getting married. The loan then has to be repaid until the couple has three children. At this point, the debt is completely forgiven. Source

None of this applies to Canada or Canadians, of course, where our glorious leader, Justin Trudeau, has already declared Canada to be a "post-national" state with "no core identity" and no "mainstream". 

So yes, here in Canada, we citizens? nationals? ah yes, residents, are simply replaceable units of economic production with no fundamental right to our own posterity but liable to replacement by an endless stream of people from elsewhere. 

Likewise, all the Euro nations, other than Hungary, apparently. 

Indeed, here in Canada folks are so enamored of their lack of "core identity" that advocacy of a population policy recognizing the eternal right of existence to the Indian nations, the Innuit, the Québécois, and the largely European English Canada, all subsumed within the greater Canadian nation, means certain death to the aspiring political leader.

When it comes to survival, however, white bears, certainly matter more to Canadians than white people: No way should we endanger their posterity.


Related: 
CanSpeccy: Justin Trudeau: The Worst Canadian Prime Minister Since Pierrre Elliot Trudeau?

Racist Hungarians Think Their Country Is For Hungarians

Zero Hedge, reports:

Faced with a declining birth rate and an unwilling to fill population shortfalls with immigrants like some of its European neighbors, Hungary has rolled out a seven-point "Family Protection Action Plan" which showers boatloads of cash, loan assistance and tax breaks to couples who agree to crank out lots of Hungarian children. Read more

But there's no risk any such ideas catching on here in Canada.

So long as the liberal duo of Trudeau and Scheer are firmly in control, anyone mentioning that reproductively challenged* Canadians are replacing themselves with people from elsewhere will be relentlessly castigated as a racist, fascist, Nazi, anti-Semite to be despised by all and sundry as a no-good hateful person.

No, Canadians are firm in their commitment to the idea that men and women are essentially indistinguishable and that a woman's purpose in life is to do a man's job and show that she can do it better than a man, which it must be admitted is often not difficult, and if any man thinks having babies and raising children is important they can damn well impregnate themselves and raise babies without female intervention.

———
* In 1984, Canada's fertility rate fell below the replacement rate of 2.12 children per woman for the first time ever, thanks to the Trudeau Government's non-enforcement of anti-abortion laws, its legislation of no-fault divorce and the liberal climate of the times.

Since 1984 Canada's fertility rate has continued to decline, and is now 25% below the replacement rate. Canada's population continues to grow through immigration, which Trudeau the younger intends to accelerate to a yearly rate of almost one percent of the existing population. Canada, is thus, like all Western nations, with the exception of Hungary, in the process of replacing its population with people from elsewhere: mainly people of an alien race, religion and culture. Combined with a commitment to multiculturalism, this is a policy of European racial and cultural self-genocide.

Speaking for Dumbocracy

The Insolence and Imbecility of Power

Is Justin Trudeau Even Sane

As we pointed out several years ago, Justin Trudeau is the worst Canadian Prime Minister since his father Pierre Elliot Trudeau inflated the Federal Government deficit to 8% of GDP, while undermining the fertility of the nation with "no-fault" divorce and tacit approval of abortion in defiance of the law, as a result of which actions:

the Canadian dollar fell sharply, bottoming eventually at 63.11 cents US;

there was a general recognition among Canadian women that economic security is to be found not in the hard task of raising children, but in the pursuit of higher education and a career;

and, for the first time ever, the national fertility rate dipped below the replacement rate, and has continued falling ever since.

During the interim, between the Trudeau's there were four essentially abortive premierships, two Conservative (Joe Clarke and Kim Campbell) and two Liberal (John Turner and Paul Martin) and three significant governments, those of Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Steven Harper.

Brian Mulroney, let the Trudeau deficit ride, leaving it to the subsequent Liberal administration of Jean Chrétien to clean up, while signing the Free Trade Agreement with Canada's largest (by far) trading partner, the US, and later the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which included Mexico, and introducing the GST, a consumption tax with a rebate to low income earners.

Jean Chrétien brought the Federal budget deficit under control, while allowing the Canadian dollar to slump against the greenback, making Canadian manufacturing more competitive than it would otherwise have been in the face of low-wage competition from Mexico. Nevertheless, following the NAFTA agreement Canada lost out to Mexico as the largest supplier of autoparts to the United States.

Stephen  Harper's administration promoted oil sands development, thereby greatly boosting the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan and strengthening the Canadian dollar, which returned to parity with the US dollar by the time Harper left office. The downside to increased oil exports and a strong dollar was a decline in Canada's international competitiveness in manufacturing, with the result that Ontario, formerly a manufacturing power house, is now a have-not province and the recipient of "equalization payments".

But if not all has gone well under administrations since that of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, at no time have things gone as disastrously and unnecessarily badly as under Trudeau the Second. For example, in handling relations with the United States — Canada's most important trade partner by far, with China — the world's largest economy and Canada's third largest trade partner, and India — the World's most populous nation, Justin Trudeau has managed to give offence to all.

With respect to the US, Canada has, throughout the 2016 US Presidential election campaign and ever since, used the state-controlled Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to run a  daily smear and jeer campaign directed at president Donald Trump. The result? Tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and a contemptuous American disregard for Canadian interests in the negotiation of a still unsigned (with Canada) Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement.

With respect to China, Justin Trudeau, in search of a trade agreement, went to Beijing to demand, as a condition, that China introduce workplace gender-equity laws. The result, naturally, was zero Chinese interest in a trade deal with Canada, a country with whom China has a massive trade surplus. Not unconnected with the imbecility of Trudeau's effort to interfere in China's domestic arrangements, China has banned the import of Canadian Canola seed and oil, heretofore Canada's second largest agricultural export.

With respect to India, Trudeau made his absurd and notorious fancy dress tour, adding injury to insult not only by taking with him his own Indian chef, but a Sikh nationalist convicted of attempting to murder an Indian cabinet minister. Surely not unconnected, India has since banned the import of Canadian pulse crops.

Domestically, Trudeau's chief accomplishments have been to put a stranglehold on oil exports through failure to permit construction of new pipelines. As a result, Canada, the World's fourth largest oil exporter, is reduced to the necessity of transporting oil to tidewater by rail, which is expensive, dangerous, and environmentally harmful.

And by far the greatest cause for concern, Trudeau has repeatedly demonstrated a contempt for the rule of law.

He did so when:

breaching the Federal Conflict of Interest Law by accepting the gift of a free family vacation from a registered government lobbyist, and sticking the Canadian taxpayer for several hundred thousand dollars in travel costs.

Pressuring the Attorney General to grant a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based corporation convicted of bribery and corruption on a massive scale both at home abroad.

Booting his fired Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould and former Treasury Board Minister, Dr. Jame Philpott from the Liberal Party caucus without, as required by law (albeit unenforceable), a caucus vote.

Which last point raises an interesting question. Why, exactly, did Dr. Jane Philpott, generally regarded as one of the most competent ministers in Trudeau's government, resign. At the time of her resignation, Dr. Philpott said that there was much that remained to come out concerning Trudeau's firing of the Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould.

But was that all there was to Dr. Philpott's decision? Perhaps not. Jane Philpott is a medical doctor with wide experience of public health issues, which raises this question: does she interpret Justin Trudeau's lawless behavior differently from other political spectators? In particular, does she interpret Trudeau's conduct as evidence of mental illness?

In short, does Jane Philpott see in the behavior of Justin Trudeau evidence of paranoid megalomania, an understandable risk in the son of Margaret Trudeau, a victim of bipolar schizophrenia, and the son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, whose political heroes were among the world's most tyrannical dictators, Hitler (during his youth and before the collapse of the Nazi empire), Mao Tse Tung, responsible for the greatest state-organized slaughter of civilians during the Twentieth Century, and the comparatively small-time but ruthless killer and Commie, Fidel Castro.

Yes, in Justin Trudeau, Dr. Jame Philpott may well have diagnosed a madman capable of limitless harm to the Canadian nation, the non-existence of which he has already asserted.

Related:
Toronto Sun: Trudeau plays politics with terrorism

Why Jodie Wilson-Raybould Resigned As Canada's Minister of Veterans Affairs

Jodie Wilson-Raybould (JWR) was fired as Canada's Justice Minister and Attorney General after refusing to abort the prosecution of Québec-based engineering multi-national, SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption abroad.

She was subjected to political pressure to provide SNC with relief from Prosecution by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, both in person and by letter, by members of the Prime Minister's staff, by Finance Ministry staff, and by David Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's most senior civil servant.

Specifically, it was expected that she would override the judgement of the independent Director of Public Prosecutions, by ordering that SNC-Lavalin be granted a so-called remediation agreement, under the terms of which penalties would be negotiated without criminal liability.

By way of pressure, JWR was given to understand that cabinet post was in jeopardy unless she submitted to the Prime Minister's wishes in the matter of the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.

JWR rejected these demands on the grounds that they amounted to interference in Canada's constitutionally protected traditions of prosecutorial independence and rule of law. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Trudeau fired JWR as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

Following her dismissal, JWR was offered the cabinet post of Minister of Veterans Affairs, which she accepted. However, following meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 14th of this year, JWR resigned her new cabinet appointment. The trigger for this decision was a statement by the Prime Minister that with reference to the propriety of the Government's action in relation to SNC-Lavelin, JWR's ongoing presence in Cabinet spoke for itself. With reference to her resignation from Cabinet the following day JWR said: "I trust that my resignation also speaks for itself."

The recording of the telephone conversation between JWR and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, is here.

JWR's 21-page written submission of supplementary information for the Parliamentary Justice Committee relating to political pressure under which she was placed during her tenure as Canada's Attorney General is here.

Related:
Toronto Sun: Lilley — Trudeau's lies
CBC: Wilson-Raybould: 'no regrets'
CBC:Feast hosted for Jody Wilson-Raybould on Vancouver Island
Global News: Phone call leaves Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin narrative — and excuses — in complete tatters
Global News:Michael Wernick never briefed Trudeau on Wilson-Raybould phone call — says PMO
NaPo: Christie Blatchford: The Jody Wilson-Raybould solution
NaPo: Andrew Coyne: Wilson-Raybould recording brings SNC-Lavalin affair crashing back to reality
The Tyee: Jody Wilson-Raybould: Cassandra of the Trudeau Government

Justin Trudeau Out? Thereason May On the Skids?

In the matter of current events, what seems self evident to a person of modest wit and experience seems to be a matter of extraordinary surprise to the mainstream media. The ongoing disintegration of the premiership of Justin Trudeau is a case in point. Of young Justin, we wrote more than a year ago:

If he lacked ideas or brains he seemed to be taking advice, and there were still some wise heads in the Liberal Party, including that of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, willing to provide the advice. Meantime the Tories were tired, out of ideas, facing mounting economic problems, and tarnished by the Senate expenses scandal. The result was highly predictable. Trudeau led the Liberals to a splendid victory.

But, as we also wrote,

since, then, the trend has not been young Justin's friend. A limited intellect, a lack of significant real-world experience, and a surfeit of praise will tend to propel any youthful hero on a course for disaster. Justin Trudeau's case has proved to be no exception.

Yet the media never seemed to notice the impending fiasco, until now, when, according to the latest opinion survey, the poor slob Justin has a lower public approval rating than Donald Trump.

Personally mired in LavScam, ridiculed for a combination of inappropriate conduct abroad, absurd political correctness (we say peoplekind, not mankind) crude insensitivity (thank you for your donation, in response to a question about mercury poisoning of the first nations people of Grassy Narrows, Ontario), it appears suddenly to the media that Justin's hold on power may not to be prolonged.

And as our Justin seems headed for the discard pile of dud Canadian Liberal Party leaders, Theresa May, who we long ago dubbed Thereason May, seems headed for the exit from the parliamentary whorehouse too, her betrayal of the people to whom she gave the assurance: "Brexit means Brexit," being  suddenly evident to all, as declared in a column in the Daily Mail:

Too little, too late. If Theresa May had possessed a shred of decency, she should have resigned long ago. Her authority was shot to pieces after her disastrous, self-inflicted general election humiliation, which cost the Tories their majority and ensured that the enemies of Brexit would prevail. She had a second chance to do the decent thing last July when it became apparent that her dismal, defeatist Chequers withdrawal agreement was a shoddy betrayal of her oft-parroted mantra: ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ Instead of respecting the views of those who spoke for the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU, she even threatened to confiscate the ministerial cars of Cabinet dissenters and make them walk home. This wasn’t the action of a strong, confident Prime Minister. It was a petty, vindictive attempt at intimidation... If Theresa didn’t get her way, she was going to scream and scream and scream until she was sick. This was the real Mrs May: aloof, stubborn, convinced of her own self-righteousness, and contemptuous of others who begged to differ.

Thus, is it once again confirmed, you can fool most of the for long enough to do a lot of damage.

Real Women Trash Fake Feminist Trudeau

Trudeau About to Call Election?

Québec Newspaper: Trudeau likely to call May election:

The Suburban: Is Justin Trudeau really relaxing in Florida this week to recharge his batteries and forget about the SNC Lavalin scandal? Or is he getting ready to hit the road for a re-election campaign? Several good sources tell me that Trudeau will soon pull the trigger on an early May election. It makes a lot of sense. He cannot have this story* follow him for the next six months. So after his party tables a good news budget, he will tell Canadians that he did the right thing by asking Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General at the time, to intervene in an ongoing criminal prosecution case against SNC Lavalin. ——— * The story, that is, of his determination to overrule the independence of the Attorney General in order to give Québec-based engineering giant, SNC-Lavalin, a pass on prosecution for systematic resort to swindling and bribery.

David Lametti, Justin Trudeau's accommodating replacement for attorney general Jodie Wilson-Raybould, can hardly order the Director of Public Prosecutions to grant SNC-Lavalin a remediation agreement during the run up to an election. The Liberals would be unable to outrun the stink. But waiting until October, the heretofore expected election month, may be unacceptable to SNC, who seem to be impatient for action now. Thus, for Trudeau, who for whatever reason, seems irrevocably committed to SNC's interest, the only option may be to call the election now, and do the deed for SNC immediately afterwards, that's assuming he wins another four-year mandate, God help us. 

Canada's Pretty-Face Leader to Face the Chop?

Loyalty is a basic ingredient of party politics, and the long domination of Canadian politics by the Liberals Party of Canada reflects the party's tradition of strict party discipline.

Thus, as former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said when his leadership was questioned by the Liberal rank and file, "I am the Leader. What can they do?" To which question the answer is nothing — so long as the Liberals lead in the polls.

But when the polls turn, or an election is lost, Liberals make short shrift of the leader. Thus of Liberal leaders past, the last three, Martin, Dion, and Ignatieff, all were gone within months of an election loss.

Now, seven months before an election, the polls have turned against Trudeau. What to do? Boot the pretty boy for someone able to think their way out of a paper bag.

The technical grounds for a prime ministerial defenestration are today once again concisely set forth by Andrew Coyne. The truly sordid, indeed grossly evil, character of those whose actions have brought Justin Trudeau to a deserved final public appearance on the scaffold are set forth in this National Observer article, accessible today without a subscription by way of Bourque.org.

And

A further aggravating circumstance is that this was not a classic case of pure bribery. SNC knowingly enabled and overlooked monstrous tyranny and abuse. The company cannot pretend it was unaware of Gaddafi's vicious cruelty while expensing his son Saadi Gaddafi's prostitutes, lavish lifestyle, and showering him with millions of dollars a year. The company financed his soccer aspirations and sponsored his team despite widespread reports that, just a few years earlier, his bodyguards had opened fire on soccer fans for booing a referee favouring him. Between 20 and 50 were killed in the ensuing chaos.Then there was Bashir al-Rayani, a professional soccer coach who challenged Saadi Gaddafi in 2005, only to disappear shortly before his bludgeoned body was dumped near his home. According to witnesses, al-Rayani was last seen alive at Gaddafi's seaside villa. And still, the reported gusher of cash to Saadi from SNC-Lavalin never stopped. After the revolution, Saadi Gaddafi was charged with this murder, but acquitted at trial in 2018. From the Lockerbie bombing of the 80’s, to the prison massacres, the disappearances, the tortures and football killings, the systemic rape of young girls in the 2000’s, the blood trickled down through the decades, even through its brief years of Western “rehabilitation” after 9/11.

And why has Trudeau risked everything for SNC? 

According to bourque: 

SNC-LAVALIN IS LOOKING TO LAND A BIG DEAL

A deal that would be impossible for a company either convicted or on trial for bribery and corruption. And what's in it for Trudeau. LOL. Corruption is as Canadian as maple syrup, and the Trudeau Foundation is always open for donations.

Related:
Financial Post: Only a criminal trial will reveal whether SNC-Lavalin’s corruption infected the government, too

OECD: OECD will follow Canadian proceedings addressing allegations of political interference in foreign bribery prosecution
CBC: OECD 'concerned' by allegations Trudeau interfered in SNC-Lavalin case
Georgia Strait: Let's not kid ourselves—Justin Trudeau has been the MP for SNC-Lavalin for a very long time

Gerald Butts Offers Serpentine Explanation for Quitting as Trudeau's Brain

Asked by Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, during Wedenesday's Parliamentary Justice Committee hearing why he quit his job as the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, Gerald Butts offered this gem of snake-like obfuscation:

I think I was put in a position where I had to ask my colleagues to fight another colleague over accusations a colleague was making, and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship.

Which interpreted, means:

I was put in a position = 

Justin wanted this.

I had to* ask my colleagues to fight another colleague =

I persuaded various cabinet minsters to make snide comments about then Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, with the intention of making the obdurate bitch resign from cabinet, thereby making way for some malleable tool who would follow directions and tell the Director of Public Prosecutions to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavelin on charges of bribery and corruption, as conviction would have detrimental consequences for the Prime Minister.

over accusations a colleague was making =

The accusation being the fully justified objections that Jodie Wilson-Raybould had addressed to the Prime Minister and others, concerning efforts by Butts, the Head of the Civil Service, the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister's legal advisers, and the Prime Minister himself to interfere in the independent action of the Attorney General and the Federal Prosecution Service concerning the ongoing prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption. 

and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship =

It would have been totally out of character for me to have instigated the campaign of vilification against Jodie Wilson-Raybould without the Prime Minister's knowledge and approval, therefore, as a longtime close friend of the Prime Minister I am resigning to create the impression that the whole dirty scheme was entirely my own idea and carried out contrary to the commitment of the Prime Minister (if any) to the rule of law, even when the application of the law causes him a massive pain in the arse.

———

* Note the reference to compulsion: "I had to." In other words, what Butts did appears to have been something contrary to his own judgement of what was right, and must, therefore, have been ordered by the Prime Minister.

Related:

CBC: SNC-Lavalin loses bid for judicial review of prosecution decision

The Truth That Justin Trudeau's "Brain," Did Not Mean to Tell

Gerald Butts, former Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau, testifying before the Parliamentary Justice Committee to address charges that the Prime Minister's Office had improperly interfered in the work of the former Attorney General, opened with the words:

I can assure all members of this committee that I will tell the truth.

Oh good oh, now we can be confident of learning the unvarnished truth.

Butts then continued:

I would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands of the Algonquin people.

Wow! From a Prime Minister with a former Principal Secretary so sensitive to First Nations sensibilities, how could it be true, as alleged by the father of former Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, the first First Nations person to serve in the Federal Government, that Justin Trudeau had kicked said Attorney General in the teeth?

In fact, from such a source, it seems hardly worthwhile to consider the specifics of his testimony. The guy is all spin and groveling flattery. But one thing he makes absolutely clear is that, in his view, government is not about facts and logic, but about ends. To the desired and predetermined ends, all facts and logic must be made to conform. And if that effort to create the Prime Minister's own reality does not at first succeed, then there must be meetings, and more meetings, and consultations, text messages, pressure even, and perhaps some interference in the course of justice, until the bullshit ultimately baffles brains. No wonder then that the Prime Minister's brains seem to be made of mush.

Clearly many liberals want out of this mess, and in particular, want new leadership. In 2015, after failed attempts by Martin, Dion, and Ignatieff, Trudeau, the man with the looks, the name, and the trendy SJW agenda, swept the liberals to power. But the promise far exceeded the performance, and in the wake of LavScam, the Libs face the possibility of a near wipe-out in the forthcoming fall election, their standing in the polls falling by the day. The sooner Trudeau steps aside to make way for a steady hand and level head at the helm, the better.

For the Conservatives, exactly the opposite consideration holds. The multi-balls-up Trudeau is their best hope of power under the leadership of the very pleasant and ineffectual-seeming Andrew Scheer. In the coming weeks, we may expect, therefore, to see the Tories offering little more than half-hearted criticism of Trudeau. Indeed, they must surely be hoping to see Gerald Butts, the PM's erstwhile brain, back at the PMO filling the PM's ear with soothing flattery and dreams of endless power.

Related:

Macleans: Paul Wells

... Taken together, Butts’s testimony adds up to a portrait of a governing inner circle that would not ever take a “no” from a director of public prosecutions as final. They would not ever take Jody Wilson-Raybould’s refusal to correct the prosecutor as final. They could not believe an important decision could be made in a week and a half. They could not, themselves, manage a cabinet shuffle in a much longer span of time, except by making a mockery of its central strategic imperative. And they can provide no evidence for the jobs claim that, to this day, Gerald Butts still uses to browbeat anyone who would disagree with the government’s behaviour throughout this saga. This was Team Trudeau’s best day since the saga began, because at least it featured somebody close to the Prime Minister speaking in complete sentences in a setting outside a campaign rally or a space-exploration news conference. I still found very little of it encouraging. ...

And this:

Trudeau's offer of Indigenous Services to Wilson-Raybould like 'asking Nelson Mandela to administer apartheid'

And this:

NaPo: Andrew Coyne

More than once in the course of his testimony to the Commons justice committee Gerald Butts said that he was not there to call anyone names or to cast aspersions on the character of Jody Wilson-Raybould. Which is why the prime minister’s former principal secretary confined himself to depicting her as sloppy, closed-minded and unco-operative, while heavily implying the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada was a serial fabulist who said nothing to anyone about attempts to interfere with her authority over criminal prosecutions until after she was shuffled out of her “dream job” in January. Otherwise he might have gotten really nasty. ...

And this:

NaPo: Colby Cosh

...The government has tried to explain its belabouring of Wilson-Raybould as being perfectly appropriate. She was supposed to verrrry carefully consider the fate of 9,000 SNC-Lavalin jobs and a head office in Quebec, and then consider it again, and then consider it again. Butts tells us that they weren’t looking for a particular politically convenient answer, mind you.  They just stayed after her to keep reconsidering the answer she kept giving, explicitly or implicitly. They reassured her at every turn that the decision was hers. And then they got rid of her and made it someone else’s. ...

T


How much more punishment will the Liberals absorb before ditching Trudeau?

Trudeauphobia

IPSOS Poll:
Most Canadians Want Trudeau Out
And 85% want a police investigation.

As Justin Trudeau informs the world that he is "still reflecting" on whether  Jody Wilson-Raybould  (the just resigned Justice Minister) can remain in the Liberal caucus, another senior female minister, Treasury Board President Jane Philpott, resigns from the cabinet of Mr. Feminist, as the Prime Minister was contemptuously labelled by a female MP, last week.

Thus the Prime Minister's support at the highest level of the Liberal Party seems to be seriously eroding. Will others go? Unless Trudeau goes first, others surely will. The reason? Short-term pain for long-term gain. Since Trudeau's corruptionist balls-up over SNC-Lavalin, the Liberal Party of Canada has gone from a slim lead in the polls as the October general election looms closer, to a seven percentage point deficit. Better, then, so some must surely be calculating, to quit the cabinet now in the hope of being reinstated under a new leader with a chance of recouping lost ground, than sticking with a sinking ship.

So who's next. Or will the Liberals weakly  follow the lead of Mr. Feminist, the Imposter and Phony-in-Chief as he has been rudely named, on a near certain journey down the tubes.

Maclean's: Paul Wells — Justin Trudeau, Imposter The story a few Liberals were telling privately, in the early hours after Jody Wilson-Raybould delivered her extraordinary testimony to the Commons justice committee about the endless procession of men who tried to make her cancel a criminal trial for SNC-Lavalin, was that she just didn’t get it. The former attorney general is a nice enough sort, the story went, but she doesn’t really understand the way the world works. The whole point of amending the Criminal Code to provide for deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) was to make that option—a sort of negotiated fine in lieu of a trial for fraud and bribery—available to SNC-Lavalin. And if the option was available, why not use it? Jobs were at stake. Elections were at stake. Elections, plural, for Pete’s sake. First an election in Quebec last autumn, then a federal election this autumn. So you could drag SNC through the mud of a court trial, long after the individual executives who actually did any frauding and bribing had fled the company, for what? To visit punishments upon everyone else in the company? To maybe scare it out of Montreal for good? To endanger the jobs of thousands of fine upstanding Quebecers and other Canadians? On the eve of elections? Plural? All of this was just so obvious to everyone who leaned on Wilson-Raybould, it was said privately. What the heck was she missing? Why didn’t she get it? If it’s any comfort to the former attorney general, at least she can rest assured that she’s not the only person who didn’t get that blindingly obvious fix-the-Criminal-Code-to-suit-SNC-Lavalin-and-save-jobs-and-Liberal-hides connection. Because also out of the loop were the people of Canada. And if we were out of the loop, it’s because Justin Trudeau and his apparently inexhaustible supply of yes-men worked hard to keep us uninformed. Long story short, the government of Canada was telling one story to itself and another to Canadians. To themselves, they said they were protecting jobs. To the rest of us, they said they were getting tough. A government that indulges in that much sustained double-talk clearly thinks it has something to hide. It’s being disingenuous. It’s being phony. And since the lot of them never stop calling themselves #TeamTrudeau on Twitter, I guess we can, without fear of contradiction, say the Prime Minister of Canada has been the phony-in-chief. Read more

Related: 
NaPo: Trudeau gets a lesson in politics and principles
Canspeccy: Justin Trudeau, the Worst Canadian Prime Minister Since Pierre Elliot Trudeau

Quote of the Day:
Andrew Coyne: Monday morning the Prime Minister was musing aloud whether Jody Wilson-Raybould, having resigned from cabinet and laid bare the sordid inner dealings that make up the SNC-Lavalin affair, should be allowed to remain in caucus. By Monday afternoon, with the resignation of Jane Philpott, the question was whether he would still be allowed remain as prime minister. Read more

LavScam and the Trudeau Doctrine

Better dirty hands than empty bellies

"Better dirty hands than empty bellies" is the Trudeau doctrine as enunciated, not by Justin Trudeau, but by Pierre Elliot Trudeau, speaking about the delivery of lethal military equipment to the US during the Vietnam war.

It now appears that, during the fall, Justin Trudeau acted in accordance with the Trudeau doctrine by bringing pressure to bear on his now ex Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, urging her to scotch the prosecution of Quebec-based global engineering firm SNC Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption. In so doing, he presumably resorted to the argument he has made repeatedly in public that prosecution of SNC Lavelin would put many Canadian jobs at risk.

The trouble for Trudeau with this line of action and logic is two-fold.

First, under the law, a company guilty of corruption cannot be granted a "remediation agreement" instead of prosecution on the grounds of "national economic interest," , as Trudeau may have urged.

Second, when Trudeau discussed the prosecution of SNC Lavalin with the Attorney General on September 17, a prosecution had already been launched, which gives the Prime Minister's intervention the appearance of an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

To an adherent of the Trudeau doctrine, obstruction of justice for the sake national economic interest might well be considered a reasonable trade-off. But if so, it proved to be a mistake to demote the  Attorney General to the lowly cabinet portfolio of Veterans Affairs so soon after she apparently refused to join the Prime Minister in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the Lavalin case.

As a consequence of her demotion, Ms. Wilson-Raybould seems not to have been chastened, but rather embittered, giving rise to vilification by some cabinet colleagues and senior officials who reported her behavior in Cabinet to be self-centered and confrontational.

In response, it seems, to that further humiliation, the former Attorney General resigned her new cabinet post, while giving no reason since, so she claimed, as the former Attorney General, what she had to say was subject to solicitor-client privilege that only the Prime Minister can waive.

It is now reported that Ms. Wilson-Raybould will appear next week to testify before a Parliamentary committee. Whether she will speak freely remains to be seen. In the meantime, young Justin may be wishing he'd kept his hands clean.

Justin Trudeau's Final Blunder?

Among journalists, Andrew Coyne is a very much smarter than most, and in the matter of SNC-Lavelin and the resignation of Trudeau's Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, he appears to have left the rest of the commentariat in the dust.

In a weekend article in the National Post, he makes five points that seem to leave little more to be said, other than Justin Trudeau's resignation speech. 

First:

The director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, it has been widely reported, decided not to offer SNC-Lavalin the remediation agreement it had so feverishly, and successfully, lobbied for. But in fact she may have had no choice. The relevant provision (sect. 715.3) of the Criminal Code sets out a long list of “conditions” that must be present and “factors” prosecutors must consider before they can even enter negotiations on such an agreement; another list sets out the “mandatory contents” of the agreement itself. First, prosecutors “must” consider “the circumstances in which the act or omission that forms the basis of the offence was brought to the attention of investigative authorities,” in the service of one of the legislation’s key objectives, “to encourage voluntary disclosure of the wrongdoing.” But SNC-Lavalin didn’t voluntarily disclose that it allegedly paid bribes of $48 million to Libyan government officials and defrauded various organizations in the country of $130 million. The matter only came to light after a lengthy police investigation.

Second:

... the agreement must include “the organization’s admission of responsibility” for the alleged offence. Has SNC-Lavalin explicitly admitted corporate responsibility in the Libyan affair? A lawyer friend who has closely followed the case can find no example of it, in any public statement. It has dismissed the charges against it as “without merit,” insisting any alleged crimes were the work of a few rogue executives “who left the company long ago.” Perhaps that weighed heavily in the director’s deliberations.

Third:

Finally, there is sect. 715.32 (3) of the Code, under the heading “Factors not to consider.” For offences under section 3 or 4 of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, it reads — SNC-Lavalin was charged with one count of corruption under sect. 3(1)(b) of the act, along with one count of fraud — “the prosecutor must not consider,” inter alia, “the national economic interest.” (This is not only a matter of domestic law. It is a virtual word-for-word transposition of our obligations under the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials.) So its defenders’ stated rationale for sparing SNC-Lavalin from prosecution — the dire consequences for jobs and the economy should the company be convicted, and presumably collapse — is not only economically suspect (SNC-Lavalin is not the only employer in the construction industry, nor would the work for which it has contracted disappear just because the company did) and morally dubious. It’s expressly precluded in law.

Fourth:

The DPP was not only within her rights, then, to refuse to negotiate a remediation agreement, she would arguably be breaking the law if she did. Suppose that were not true. Could the attorney general order her to? That, too, is far from clear. Under the law the attorney general is required to sign off on a prosecutor’s decision to negotiate a remediation agreement. But the prosecutor needs no such consent to decline to negotiate; neither is there anything in the law that says the attorney general can order her to.

Fifth:

This is not contradicted, as another lawyer friend points out, by that much-quoted provision in the Director of Public Prosecutions Act — the one obliging the attorney general to make public any order “with respect to the initiation or conduct” of “any specific prosecution.” Whatever limits that places on the AG’s ability to influence the “conduct” of a prosecution, it would seem to grant no power to stop one after it has started, still less to order a remediation agreement be pursued in its place.

Understandably, therefore,Trudeau keeps Wilson-Raybould firmly gagged by the solicitor-client privilege that only he can waive. After all, who better than the former Justice Minister to draw the attention to the circumstances that make Trudeau's action in firing Wilson-Raybould indefensible.

Source 

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CanSpeccy: Justin Trudeau: The Worst Canadian Prime Minister Since Pierrre Elliot Trudeau?