Philpott resignation a blow to Trudeau

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/03/2019 (2023 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So much has happened in the SNC-Lavalin saga in the last week that Monday — the day Jane Philpott resigned as Treasury Board president, and from cabinet, in protest — seems like an eternity ago.

For example, on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, testified before the parliamentary justice committee. Butts performed well and provided new insights, but his testimony, rather than smoothing things over for the prime minister, has flared the scandal in new ways.

Butts, for example, claimed that Wilson-Raybould’s demotion from the justice portfolio to the position of minister of Veterans Affairs was not in retaliation for Wilson-Raybould refusing to play ball on SNC-Lavalin. To the contrary, Wilson-Raybould was moved to Veterans Affairs because she refused to take the prime minister’s offer to move to the Indigenous Services portfolio.

This revelation provoked outrage from Indigenous leaders who thought it was insulting that Trudeau would ask an Indigenous minister to oversee the administration of the Indian Act. In a head-turning comment, academic Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond claimed that the offer was “akin to asking Nelson Mandela to administer apartheid.”

Trudeau himself played off Butts’ testimony the next day, blaming the ministerial resignations on a breakdown in trust between Butts and his ministers. But this was thin gruel for viewers who tuned in hoping to see genuine contrition on Trudeau’s part.

Butts’ appearance was followed up by further testimony from Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council.

Wernick grabbed headlines during his first visit to the committee by raising the possibility that the increasingly toxic climate of Canadian politics might eventually lead to political assassinations. He kicked off his more recent testimony by melodramatically complaining about harsh comments made about him on social media, and providing copies of those comments to the committee, claiming that they constituted intimidation of a witness.

Wernick is supposed to be a non-partisan public servant. But unlike the smooth-talking Butts, Wernick was combative and scrapped with committee members, protesting at one point that he couldn’t remember a specific conversation because he wasn’t wearing a wire. He certainly did not help Trudeau.

But this testimony — as interesting and entertaining as it was — was really a distraction from Philpott’s Monday resignation from cabinet. In stepping aside, Philpott wrote explicitly she was leaving because she had “lost confidence in how the government has dealt with this (SNC-Lavalin) matter and in how it has responded to the issues raised,” and as a result, remaining in the cabinet was “untenable.” This resignation was the most damaging turn of events for Trudeau since Wilson-Raybould herself resigned, and could have long-standing consequences for him and his party.

Philpott was almost certainly Trudeau’s strongest minister. She performed well in the various portfolios the prime minister gave her, and gained a reputation as a competent problem-solver capable of taking on complex, challenging tasks. Further, Philpott’s disarming personal style has meant she is popular in the cabinet and the Liberal caucus.

Philpott had nothing to gain and everything to lose by resigning, but resigned anyway. It’s hard to think of any motive for doing so other than those she provided herself: as a principled decision to leave cabinet because she did not approve of how Trudeau was handling the SNC-Lavalin issue, particularly Wilson-Raybould’s resignation.

In response to Philpott’s resignation, some Liberal MPs — notably Finance Minister Bill Morneau — noted that Philpott was a close personal friend of Wilson-Raybould’s.

The implication was that Philpott had resigned not out of principle, but instead because she was obligated to do so as a result of her friendship. This particular trial balloon went up like the Hindenberg.

The silver lining in all this for Trudeau is that Philpott’s resignation does not appear to have led to any sort of rebellion in the Liberal caucus. Only one Liberal MP, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, has announced she would not seek re-election and linked this to the government’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin file.

With his remaining cabinet ministers seemingly committed to him, Trudeau is not facing any imminent threats to his leadership and can hope that the matter will blow over before the election arrives this fall.

So where does this leave the federal government? Team Trudeau has taken a hit in the polls, and the next campaign will be more competitive as a result. The prime minister has lost two strong ministers, and the relationship between his government and Indigenous leaders is at a low ebb.

Worse, the sordid aspects of the scandal have sullied the prime minister’s image. It will be hard for Trudeau to run on another “sunny ways” platform in the next election. And there is still the chance that his government will, despite everything, provide a remediation agreement to SNC-Lavalin, which will lead to outrage everywhere in the country except Quebec.

The federal election is seven months away.

Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the political studies department at the University of Manitoba.