Is This The Real Reason JWR and Philpott Are Attacking Trudeau?

I  suppose that it was this photo of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott holding court at the Chateau Laurier, that finally tipped off the media.

Made some of them realize that the two women were carefully orchestrating events to keep the fake scandal in the news.

And that, as Susan Delacourt says, it's a well organized campaign.

Toronto Star Susan Delacourt reveals Jody Wilson-Raybould & Jane Philpott have a well organized campaign to push their own narrative and keep #snclavelin in the media - as Philpott was sending out "feelers" to reporters for her story #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/PFgGe1oxQE

— G.T. Lem ☘️ (@gtlem) March 23, 2019

A campaign that as Chantale Hébert writes, seems to be aimed at doing as much damage as possible to their own government.

With Philpott's interview in Maclean's clearly designed to blunt the impact of the Liberal budget.

The main predictable consequence of the interview was to shore up the opposition parties’ contention that the Liberals are engaged in a coverup. Its timing was guaranteed to turn heads away from what was otherwise a relatively well-received pre-election budget.

And the main objective of this campaign clearly aimed at taking down Justin Trudeau.



With every passing episode in this saga, it is becoming more obvious that the Liberal party Philpott and Wilson-Raybould insist they want to continue to serve is one that is not led by Trudeau.

While Heather Mallick wonders why Philpott keeps knifing her fellow Liberals when the results could be so catastrophic.

Perhaps Wilson-Raybould and Philpott were tutored. Either way, I cannot fathom their motive for doing everything in their power to elect a Conservative government headed by the embarrassment that is Andrew Scheer.

And is not impressed by the arrogant way Philpott puts down her colleagues.



It bothers me that Philpott was unkind enough to say of them, “there are people who are afraid that they’re not going to get elected because of what I did.” She doesn’t mention the possibility that they fear the return of the Conservatives with their sexism, Yellow Vest pals, racism against Indigenous people and at the border, apathy about climate change, and laxity about gun control including assault weapons.

Which makes Philpott sound like a Mother Superior rather than a politician. And her claim that Wilson-Raybould lost her job as Justice Minister solely because of her opposition to granting SNC-Lavalin a DPA, doesn't make sense.

Not when it has been revealed that JWR didn't create a fuss over that until she was shifted out of the justice department. And not when others have suggested that there is another so far hidden motive. 

And that is Wilson-Raybould's burning desire to radically change the existing agreements governing the relationship between Canada and its indigenous people.

And her bitter disappointment with the Trudeau cabinet's decision to back down from a plan to expand the reach of Section 35 of the Constitution.

Which as the retired judge Brian Giesbrecht writes, led to a situation where rather than Trudeau pressuring Wilson-Raybould, she might have been the one pressuring the Prime Minister. 



At his first Justice Committee appearance, (Michael) Wernick testified that a meeting between Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould only one day before the University of Saskatchewan speech, which she had claimed was focused on SNC-Lavalin, was, in fact, called mainly to discuss her “very serious policy differences” with Bennett and other ministers over the Section 35 plan. At this meeting, Trudeau announced the bill would have to wait until after the next election. Instead, the federal government would proceed with Indigenous languages legislation.

The stage was set for a showdown between Wilson-Raybould and a prime minister who perhaps realized – belatedly – that his prized minister’s demands would exact far too high a price on the country. Her insistence on a “nation-to-nation” deal with Ottawa, including imposing obligations to fund 600-plus Indigenous nations in perpetuity and give them de facto command of the country’s economy, became too much even for him.

But Wilson-Raybould didn’t take no for an answer. Her last act as Justice Minister after she was informed of her demotion, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen on March 5, was to affirm her Practise Directives advising all Crown lawyers to cease adversarial arguments in all litigation involving Indigenous claims.

Viewed in this light, the extraordinary events of the last few weeks appear to have as much or more to do with Wilson-Raybould pressuring Trudeau’s office as with his office pressuring her. Far from being the heroic defender of the rule of law in the SNC-Lavalin prosecution, she took steps to weaken the Crown’s ability to defend Canada’s interests in Indigenous rights cases and fought for implementation of the AFN’s “nation-to-nation” plan. 

Her evident determination to put the AFN’s agenda ahead of the government’s would certainly explain why Trudeau, senior bureaucrats and a good part of the Cabinet were so upset with her.

It's an intriguing story, and to me it explains why Wilson-Raybould and Philpott are so determined to get rid of Trudeau, and are using the SNC-Lavalin affair as an excuse.

When the real reason they hate him so much is for backing down on his plan to expand the reach of Section 35.  

And of course for removing both of them from ministries where they could influence that debate.

The caveat is that Brian Giesbrecht is a right winger who has been accused of being opposed to the expansion of native rights, so we need other sources to back up that account.

But whatever the motive, nothing can justify JWR and Philpott's campaign to sabotage their own party and its leader.



Not with an election only seven months away, and so much at stake, from women's rights to the future of our medicare system, and the end of the war on climate change.

So unless the two women can promise to end their campaign, they should be asked to resign or booted out of the party.

As I've said before, I think their political inexperience is largely to blame. But this is not a game.

And enough is enough...