Feb 18 2019 — Stephen Maher — Maclean's — The second act of l’affaire SNC-Lavalin could be devastating for Trudeau, and it’s not clear he’ll be better off without his trusted advisor. Last week, I wrote here that Justin Trudeau needed a fall guy to take the blame in l’affaire SNC-Lavalin. Today, we learned who that fall guy is: principal secretary Gerald Butts, a […]

Feb 19 2019 — CTV Power Play — Strategists share their take on Gerald Butts’ resignation and what to make of it.

Feb 19 2019 — Linda Trimble — Policy Options — The saga unfolding around former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould has been characterized as many things – evidence of the old guard that still pulls the levers in Ottawa, of the over-centralization of power in the PMO, and of hypocrisy in the Liberal government’s promises of reconciliation and feminist government. But it is also fundamentally […]

Feb 19 2019 — Neil Macdonald — CBC — A good headline, like Varsol, cuts through the grease and varnish applied to any story by political or corporate message-crafters. So, my suggestion for the big political headline of the day: “Nothing Happened, So I’m Quitting” — Gerald Butts Now, Gerry Butts — until Monday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary — is a smart […]

Feb 18 2019 — Lori Turnbull — Globe and Mail — In the latest development in the story involving the Prime Minister’s Office, Jody Wilson-Raybould and SNC-Lavalin, Gerald Butts has resigned. This is big news but not totally unexpected, given the magnitude of the political crisis. Someone had to go. In his departing statement via Twitter, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister denied that he […]

Feb 18 2019 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — At any other time it’d be interesting to entertain a few notions of comparative PMO staffing. Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper shook up their senior staff regularly: Mulroney’s principal secretaries included Peter White, Tom Trbovich, Michel Roy and Hugh Segal; Harper made more frequent changes to his chiefs of staff but when Ray Novak moved […]

Feb 18 2019 — Globe and Mail — Globe and Mail — On Monday afternoon, another senior figure abruptly exited the Trudeau government. But, as with the departure last week of former justice minister and attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould, principal secretary Gerald Butts’s resignation is a move that is generating far more heat than light.

Feb 18 2019 — John Ivison — Postmedia — A day or so after my arrival at Queen’s Park to cover the Ontario legislature for the National Post, a bearded, rangy, 30-something beanpole of a man unfolded himself on the ratty old office couch. That was my introduction to Gerald Butts. It was 2003, he was the principal secretary to the leader of the […]

Feb 18 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — In a past political life, working for a long-ago premier of Ontario, Gerald Butts helped usher in a new provincial holiday called Family Day. Little did Butts know that he’d be marking Family Day in 2019 stepping down from a job at the very top of a government led by his old university friend, Justin […]

Feb 18 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, has resigned. But, he says, it’s not because he’s done anything wrong in the SNC-Lavalin/Jody Wilson-Raybould affair. Uh, huh. Powerful people with nothing to hide resign all the time. In his resignation letter, posted online on Sunday, Butts insisted allegations he improperly pressured former Attorney General Jody […]

Feb 18 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — By resigning his position as principal secretary to Justin Trudeau as he faces allegations of political interference in the judicial file of the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin, his long time friend and alter ego Gerald Butts may hope to deflect the potentially lethal friendly fire that is headed straight for the prime minister. He was the […]

Feb 18 2019 — Andrew MacDougall — Maclean's — When ace reporter Bob Fife rings you at 9:30 in the morning to get a comment for an exclusive in the next day’s paper it’s time to cancel your plans. Believe me, I know from experience. It means something big— something painful—is in the offing. And while I’m not privy to the PMO discussion following […]

Feb 18 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — As federal scandals go, the rampaging furor over who said what to influence a decision by former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould feels familiar. The facts are only vaguely understood, subject to partisan and geographical interpretation and the whole thing is drenched in hypocrisy. It seems likely that some sort of pressure was indeed applied to […]

Feb 17 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Politicians of all stripes love whistleblowers — until they are in power. Then the offending civil servant, public employee, or angry citizen becomes a “disloyal, illegal leaker!” Of all the many hypocritical hobby horses in political life there are few that can match this dichotomy. The Ford government was badly bruised this month when their […]

Feb 17 2019 — Jaime Watt — Toronto Star — This week has shown the Canadian public is resolved in its belief that politicians and public servants must, at first instance, be up to no good. Take the so-called scandal around the SNC-Lavalin matter, and the emerging consensus that the government has misbehaved from the get-go.