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Cabinet Members Openly Debate Jody Wilson-Raybould's Future In Liberal Caucus

The Canadian Press, 02 Apr, 2019 08:36 PM

OTTAWA — Jane Philpott left a meeting of her fellow Ontario Liberal MPs after just a few minutes Tuesday afternoon, leaving them to debate her future in the party caucus without her.

The largest provincial group of Liberals gathered in Ottawa a day before a national meeting, in which Liberal legislators could vote to expel the former health minister and ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould.

The two quit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet over his handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair, in which Wilson-Raybould says she was relentlessly pressured by Trudeau and others to avert a criminal prosecution of the Montreal engineering firm.

Wilson-Raybould has sent her caucusmates a two-page letter making her case for staying a Liberal MP, several of the Ontario Liberals said on their way in.

Earlier Tuesday, members of the Trudeau cabinet focused on what was behind Wilson-Raybould's decision to surreptitiously record a phone conversation with the country's top public servant.

Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne criticized Wilson-Raybould's ethics, saying he had never recorded any conversations he had while working as a lawyer.

Tourism Minister Melanie Joly said what Wilson-Raybould did in secretly recording her Dec. 19 phone conversation with Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick was "fundamentally wrong."

Her comments followed the sentiments of some of her caucus colleagues, who on Monday openly declared it was time to remove Wilson-Raybould from caucus.

Wilson-Raybould provided a 17-minute audio recording to the House of Commons justice committee last week to bolster her contention that she was improperly pressured last fall to intervene to stop the criminal prosecution of Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, who had earlier testified in response to Wilson-Raybould's allegations, has submitted additional documentation to the committee related to the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Those documents could be released publicly by the committee later today.

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