Thursday, 28 Nov 2024

Trudeau rebuts Wilson-Raybould’s SNC-Lavalin testimony, says there’s ‘disagreement in perspective’

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says contradictory versions of the extent to which he and his staff allegedly tried to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin affair are a matter of “disagreements in perspective.”

His remarks in his home territory of Montreal came after four hours of explosive testimony from his former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould on Wednesday night before the House of Commons justice committee. In that, she detailed extensive instances of what she described as a “consistent and sustained effort” to politically interfere in her decision not to intervene to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal trial, documented by notes, emails and text exchanges.

“There are disagreements in perspective on this but I can reassure Canadians that we were doing our jobs,” Trudeau said when asked about the testimony on Thursday morning.

He refused to offer clear answers when asked directly about several of the specific assertions made by Wilson-Raybould, including concerns she raised before the committee that Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick made “veiled threats” against her before she was demoted less than a month later.

“Myself and my team have always acted appropriately and professionally.”

Eleven people including Trudeau were part of a campaign to get Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the decision of the director of public prosecutions not to offer a newly created legal tool called a remediation agreement to the Montreal engineering firm, according to her first public remarks explaining her side of the story.

“For a period of approximately four months, between September and December of 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere … in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin,” she said.

ANALYSIS: The Trudeau brand takes a hit after Jody Wilson-Raybould testimony

Wilson-Raybould also outlined there were 10 phone calls and in-person meetings as well as emails and texts exchanged about the affair between September 2018 and January 2019, and said she told officials early on the campaign of pressure had to stop.

Despite that, they did not and instead, only escalated, she said.

Her testimony prompted Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to immediately call for Trudeau to resign, saying he had lost the “moral authority” to govern.

Trudeau rejected those calls Wednesday night and also pushed back at Wilson-Raybould’s testimony despite admitting he had not yet seen all of it.

He also said he has not decided yet whether she will be allowed to remain in the Liberal caucus or run for the party this fall.

“I have taken knowledge of her testimony,” he said. “There’s still reflections to have on next steps.”

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