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Second Member Quits Justin Trudeau's Cabinet Over Allegations Against Canadian PM

  • by Jerome Frank
  • in World News
  • — Mar 5, 2019
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Treasury Board president Jane Philpott has resigned from the federal cabinet, saying she's "lost confidence" in the way the Trudeau government has dealt with the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Ms Wilson-Raybould resigned from Cabinet last month after being demoted to veteran affairs minister the month before.

Philpott, 58, was widely regarded as one of the best of Trudeau's Cabinet ministers. The prime minister's former close confidante and political advisor, Gerry Butts, is scheduled to testify about his role in the Lavalin matter before a parliament committee on Wednesday.

The resignation came five days after Wilson-Raybould told the Justice Committee of House of Commons that she faced "consistent and sustained" political pressure from Trudeau and senior officials, including veiled threats on the need to shelve the criminal prosecution of the Montreal construction and engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

Wilson-Raybould remains a Liberal MP and said over the weekend she plans to run again as a Liberal in the fall election.

She is the second cabinet member to quit over the scandal.

Mrs Philpott said: "Sadly, I have lost confidence in how the government has dealt with this matter and in how it has responded to the issues raised".

The former Treasury Board president was among Trudeau's most trusted cabinet ministers.

In her statement, Philpott said efforts to "pressure the former Attorney General to intervene" in the case raised "serious concerns" for her. "There can be a cost to acting on one's principles, but there is a bigger cost to abandoning them", she wrote.

The loss of two female cabinet members means that Trudeau's famously gender-equal cabinet is at risk of losing its 50-50 male-female split.

Trudeau and his aides thus allegedly pressured then-Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to drop the criminal investigation into the company.

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Mr Trudeau promoted himself as a feminist when he became Prime Minister in 2015.

Whoever would have thought that Liberals led by Justin Trudeau would say such things?

December - According to the Prime Minister's Office, Wilson-Raybould raises the remediation case with Gerald Butts, the prime minister's principal secretary, and he tells her to talk to Wernick, the Privy Council clerk.

"When you add women, please do not expect the status quo", Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes tweeted Monday after Ms. Philpott's resignation.

She also recalled an instance in which Trudeau expressed his concern to her about the potential for job layoffs if the company is found guilty of wrongdoing and asked if she could "help out".

They and their colleagues were going to work together to make government more open and inclusive. But Wilson-Raybould said the pressure was not illegal and said she was not instructed to interfere.

She cited the constitutional convention of cabinet solidarity, saying ministers are expected to defend all decisions made around the table.

"His failure to give a vigorous but reasoned response at the beginning of this pseudo-scandal allowed it to grow into Godzilla", Bothwell said.

February 20 - Trudeau says that while an airing of the facts is needed, he is confident the examinations underway by the ethics commissioner and the justice committee will provide it.

November 5 and 19 - SNC-Lavalin meets with Mathieu Bouchard, another senior adviser in the Prime Minister's Office, to discuss "justice and law enforcement".

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