National Post

Feb 15 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Consider solicitor-client privilege officially waived. The prime minister has spent the last several days disclosing, line by tendentious line, the contents of his discussions with the former attorney general in September of last year. First we were informed that he “never directed” Jody Wilson-Raybould to put a stop to the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Next, […]

Feb 15 2019 — National Post — It looked, and sounded, exactly what you’d expect of a truck convoy. Dozens of engines belching exhaust, amplified by the frigid prairie air and blowing through the parking lot at Gort’s Truck Wash in north Red Deer. The low rumble as they pulled out onto Alberta’s Highway 2, heading south. Then, an hour and a […]

Feb 14 2019 — National Post — The opposition parties went into Wednesday’s meeting of the Commons justice committee seeking an in-depth investigation of the events leading to former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould’s resignation from cabinet. Instead they got a Liberal motion that appears to set up a more academic study of the legal issues at play — and fails to invite […]

Feb 13 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Former prime minister Jean Chrétien is said to have told his cabinet the story of a farmer covered in cow dung. The farmer knew that if he tried to wipe the manure away when it was still fresh, he would spread it around and make it worse. Instead, he waited until it dried and then […]

Feb 13 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — There was never any doubt the Liberal majority on the Commons justice committee would block an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair. The only question was how. The frightened rabbits on the government side were not about to investigate their masters in the Prime Minister’s Office, let alone on such an explosive question as whether they […]

Feb 13 2019 — Marni Soupcoff — National Post — As Mark Twain once said: “A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.” Jody Wilson-Raybould’s consulting former Supreme Court Justice Thomas Albert Cromwell — for “advice on the topics (she) is legally permitted to discuss in (the SNC-Lavalin) matter” — is not as pause-worthy as the lawyer who wines […]

Feb 12 2019 — Maura Forrest — National Post — Trudeau said if anyone in the cabinet thought anything improper had happened, they had a duty to raise it with him at the time, and Wilson-Raybould never did. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went on the offensive Tuesday evening after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould’s sudden resignation from cabinet. In his strongest statement to date, Trudeau […]

Feb 11 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — It has been four days now since it was reported that officials in the Prime Minister’s Office had pressured the former attorney-general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to have fraud and corruption charges dropped against SNC-Lavalin, the Quebec engineering and construction giant, and we have yet to hear a direct, on-the-record denial of the allegations by either side. […]

Feb 11 2019 — Andrew Scheer — National Post — “One of the most important things about my approach in politics has been creating a level of accountability, of transparency, of openness, of honesty that means admitting when mistakes were made, taking responsibility for them, and fixing them in an open matter.” Justin Trudeau spoke those words five years ago — setting the tone for […]

Feb 9 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Can it be? Can a large, politically sensitive corporation with a history of buying influence avoid prosecution in this country by the mere expedient of a phone call to the prime minister’s office? Can the prime minister’s staff have charges against the corporation dropped by a quick call to the minister of justice? Is that […]

Feb 8 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — “It’s worse than Adscam” — the sponsorship scandal that ultimately brought down a previous Liberal government — according to one overcaffeinated tweet. We can probably all agree that if Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured as justice minister to intervene in the corruption prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, and was then demoted for refusing to do so, we have […]

Feb 7 2019 — Chris Selley — National Post — In a Thursday press conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denied that he or anyone from his office directed Justice Minister (as she then was) Jody Wilson-Raybould to abandon the prosecution of SNC Lavalin over some funny business in Libya, and instead pursue a friendlier so-called “remediation agreement.” Interestingly, no one had alleged what he denied. […]

Feb 7 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — “There was a time,” Catherine Tait was saying, “when cultural imperialism was absolutely accepted.” The CBC president was musing, at an industry conference in Ottawa last week, about the heyday of the British and French Empires, when if “you were the viceroy of India you would feel that you were doing only good for the […]

Feb 6 2019 — Marie-Danielle Smith — National Post — Maxime Bernier, leader of the nascent People’s Party of Canada, is defending his right-hand man Martin Masse amid accusations the top party official fomented “antisemitism, misogyny, and racism” in his past writings. Jewish-Canadian group B’nai Brith Canada released findings from their “independent investigation” of Masse on Wednesday, based on a review of his work for […]

Feb 6 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — A Liberal source says they will describe Scheer as “The $6 Million Man,” a political lifer who has earned $2,956,000 in salary since first being elected in 2004, and a further $3 million in estimated pension benefits in that time. They contend that does not include the years he spent living rent-free at official residences, […]