Front Burner - 'Nothing happened here beyond the normal operations of government.'

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

In his much anticipated testimony Gerald Butts, the Prime Minister's former principal secretary, laid out a counter-narrative to the allegations of political interference in the SNC-Lavalin case.

Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood, or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Leah Simone Bowen.

And I'm Phelan Johnson. And we're the hosts of The Secret Life of Canada, a history podcast about the country you know and the stories you don't. That's right. Season one, we discovered some really eye-opening things like Banff was built by POWs. And that pizza pops are Canadian. And that Canada had 200 years of slavery. Join us for season two on CBC Podcasts as we dive even further into the undertold and untold history of Canada. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So last week we heard Jody Wilson-Raybould lay out all the ways in which she said she was inappropriately pressured by government officials to find a solution to the SNC-Lavalin corruption case.

There were express statements regarding the necessity of interference, the potential of consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA was not made available to SNC. Yesterday, we heard from the other side. Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council, was back. The deputy justice minister was up there too. The minister experienced lawful advocacy to consider doing something lawful in the public interest. I made no threats. She also expressed to me that she was not comfortable with the content of this conversation. But the headliner, the big player of the day everyone was waiting to hear from,

was Jerry Butts, the prime minister's former right-hand man and close friend. And he offered a very different take on what happened. I am not here to quarrel with the former attorney general. What I am here to do is to give evidence that what happened last fall is in fact very different from the version of events you heard last week. Vashi Capellos, host of Power in Politics and pod favorite, is back. This is FrontBurner. Hi, Vashi. Hi, Jamie. Here we are.

Here we are again. Yes, we are. So this testimony today was like six hours long when you put them all together. So I want to hit the most important parts with you first. But first, the standard recap here. So last week, we all watched Jody Wilson-Raybould testify. These events involved 11 people, excluding myself and my political staff. And she said that Jerry Butts, the prime minister, the finance minister, the clerk of the Privy

Council, or their offices all pressured her to find a solution to the SNC-Lavalin case. And she said that there was this consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government. To seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. I just want to home in on this one quote that it was. In an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin. Because I think that's going to become significant as we move forward. And of course, a deferred prosecution agreement is sort of like a plea deal. It would mean that SNC-Lavalin, currently facing corruption charges, would admit wrongdoing, but would not

have a criminal conviction conviction which would bar them from federal contracts for up to 10 years and they would have to admit wrongdoing and pay a fine. So today, Jerry Butts puts forward this very different narrative about what happens and let's go through it. I want to start with the allegation that Jody Wilson-Raybould made directly about Butts, which is in a meeting in December of last year, he told her chief of staff, Jessica Prince. Jess, there is no solution here that does not involve some interference, end quote. And how does he defend himself today? Well, he says that he didn't say that, basically. That is not what I said. I do remember that part of the conversation.

I don't think I would have used the word solution because it's not one I would use in this context. The way that she characterized it was that it was told to her over and over again, including through Jerry Butts, that there needed to be a solution and that maybe even a solution couldn't be found without interference.

And that word solution meant, like, the government had made up its mind, right? This is what they wanted her to do. That was her insinuation. His was very different. He was saying, no, we're just raising this idea. Like we have to take it into account. We're talking about 9,000 jobs.

It was our obligation to exhaustively consider options the law allows and to be forthright with people in explaining the Attorney General's decision in order to be able to demonstrate that the decision was taken with great care and careful consideration of their livelihoods. And so he says he didn't use that word solution. He wouldn't have thought that he would use it. So that is definitely a difference between the two versions. And for me watching this, like a very big theme that developed in the counter narrative that he put forward today was that they weren't asking her to find a solution in that they weren't asking her to order the negotiation of a deferred prosecution agreement. According to Jerry Butts, what they were asking her to do was to get outside legal counsel. At no time did the prime minister or anyone in the government direct or ask the attorney general to negotiate a remediation agreement. It's not necessarily contradictory to what she said. So she said that

she was never ordered or directed. And that's why she doesn't think that this meets the bar of illegal actions. But she does say that what they did constituted pressure. Asking for that legal opinion or bringing up the idea of it, that is a form of pressure from her perspective. So it's not necessarily contradictory, but definitely a difference in the way in which that was interpreted. The difference being, you know, was she pressured to actually get the DPA or was she being pressured to get outside legal advice to get a little bit more information? So I want to pick up on something else that Jody Wilson-Raybould said last week. She testified that she told Jerry Butts when they met that people needed to stop talking to me about SNC-Lavalin. As I had made up my mind and the engagements were inappropriate. And I want to split this into two parts. The first is this notion that she told Butts that she had made up her mind. How does Butts counter that today? He basically says that that never happened. In fact, I learned for the first time while watching the former attorney general's testimony

that she had made a final decision on the 16th of September. My understanding is that nobody in the PMO or PCO knew that at that time either. So she says that she made up her mind on September 16th, right? And that's what she testified to last week before the Justice Committee. He says that that's when he learned of it. That's when he found out. Obviously, she has definitely countered that. I mean, her testimony last week said that she even explicitly told the prime minister in a meeting on September 17th. I told him that I had done my due diligence and had made up my mind on SNC and that I was not going to interfere with the decision of the director. He was asked about the meeting with the prime minister and sort of what happened there. And he said that he wasn't

present. So it is interesting that he would not have known that she had made a final decision. He really made a point of saying she never communicated that in writing and sort of tried to poke holes in her version of events by saying that, like, why didn't you just put this in writing if in fact you had made a final decision? Minister Wilson-Raybould's preferred method of communicating complex or and or important matters is in writing, which I very much appreciate. Yet in all our texts and emails which begin the summer of 2013, there is not a single mention of this file or anyone's conduct on this file until during the cabinet shuffle. Her testimony obviously says, I told staff later on in November, I told the prime minister directly in September. It appears she feels like she did communicate that. I want to go to the second part of what Rabel said in her testimony last week.

The first is that she had told people she had made up her mind and there seems to be some discrepancy there. But the second part is that she's telling people that they need to stop talking to her about SNC, that they essentially need to stop like hounding her about SNC. I wanted to speak about a number of things, including up bringing up SNC

and the barrage of people hounding me and my staff. And how does Butts counter that? Well, again, he sort of invokes this argument that this is not out of the ordinary. I think he talked about it not being abnormal. It's a normal course of business for government on an issue to meet. And he specifically referenced like the number of meetings and calls. I think there were 20 in total that took place between her and officials in the prime minister's office or the clerk or him or her staff. Four of these people never met with the attorney general in person. In my case, the attorney general solicited the meeting.

That's two meetings and two phone calls per month for the minister and her office on an issue that could cost a minimum of 9,000 jobs. And he said, like, that's not abnormal at all on an issue. And he, I think he was asked by some of the liberal members on the committee. How many meetings, ballpark, would the PMO have had with the finance minister's office over the purchase of the TMX pipeline? On the TMX acquisition, I would say, I wouldn't want to venture a guess, but it probably 100. I don't know if he was being a little bit kind of joking, but basically the point he was trying to make was like, this was not hounding. This was normal government business. These are issues that we should have been raising. We were obligated to raise. And he's trying to, I think,

insinuate that she should have known maybe that that's not abnormal, that that's not hounding, that as a minister, that's what's expected of you. I imagine that she would obviously, based on her testimony, have a different interpretation of that. to sort of make clear that at no time had Jody Wilson-Raybould raised any concerns to either him or to the prime minister about any inappropriate overtures. Although, according to her testimony last week, it does sound like she would probably rebut that. I think it's safe to say that she would. I think she said a bunch of times she laid out instances where she said, stop communicating with me on this. I spoke to Minister Morneau on this matter. He again stressed the need to save jobs.

And I told him that engagements from his office to mine on SNC had to stop. That type of thing. And we also heard, which was interesting today, from the deputy minister of the Justice Department. Her name's Natalie Duran. She's kind of like the top public servant for the Justice Department. And she said that Jody Wilson-Raybould had a conversation with the prime minister on September 17th. And we know from Jody Wilson-Raybould's testimony that she thought the prime minister bringing up the Quebec election and stuff like that was inappropriate. I am an MP in Quebec, the member for Papineau, end quote. I was quite taken aback. And Nathalie Duran said when she talked to Jody Wilson-Raybould about that meeting.

She also expressed to me that she was not comfortable with the content of this conversation. In that case, there's a bit of cooperation of what Jody Wilson-Raybould said. But again, you've got two different ways of looking at it if you look at the face of kind of each of their testimonies. I want to loop back to what we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, this idea that Jerry Butz was asking for outside legal counsel. That's what they wanted Jody Wilson-Raybould to pursue. He seemed to suggest today, and I know he took sort of painstaking measures to not lob any insults her way. I am not here to quarrel with the former attorney general

or to say a single negative word about her personally. But he seemed to suggest today that he didn't think that she took this seriously enough, that she only took 12 days to make the decision to not intervene in the public prosecution's decision. In that version of events, the attorney general made the final decision after weighing all of the public interest matters and a new law involved in just 12 days. Did you get that sense as well? Yeah, definitely. And I mean, it was like you say, he went to painstaking measures to not try to say you lied or you didn't do enough. He didn't say anything like that because I think he knew the optics of that wouldn't work. But yes, he's trying to say you only, the decision came from the director of public prosecution in

early September, and she says she made up her mind by mid-September. So we're talking less than two weeks. You know, he basically was saying that's not enough time to fully consider everything that should be considered, the prospect of these jobs, et cetera, et cetera. Imagine for a moment that on September the 16th, the day the former attorney general told this committee the decision was made, firmly and finally, that she made a public announcement to inform Canadians of that decision. What would be the rationale? Yeah, almost saying that she made up her mind too quickly.

And then you could tell also from the line of questioning later, they were asking the deputy minister, like, did you consult with her? Why didn't she get an outside opinion? I think the picture they're trying to paint is that she was dug in. She had made up her mind. She wasn't going to look for more advice, you know, even consult her own department. She wasn't going to think about these jobs. Instead, she had just decided what she decided, and their contention is that's wrong. How did Jerry Butz counter Wilson-Raybould's statements last week that the Quebec election was repeatedly brought up? There's an election coming in Quebec with regards to the SNC-Lavalin case. As we know, SNC-Lavalin has a huge presence in Quebec. Headquarters is in Montreal,

although these 9,000 jobs are all over the country. Yeah, they're all over the country. So it was interesting because it was him who was tasked with rebutting it and then also Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council, because the first time that we hear about that is through Jody Wilson's testimony when she says that the prime minister raised it. The prime minister said there's an election in Quebec. Once she had told him she's made her decision, there's an election in Quebec and I'm an MP, the member for Papineau. So she's insinuating that he's saying like, hey, there's some votes in Quebec to be lost over this. We need to consider that. And she thought that was inappropriate.

So on that conversation, Jerry Butt said, like, I wasn't in the room. And I think he had some follow-up questions like, wasn't that communicated to you since you're so close to the prime minister? And he kind of avoided specifically addressing it. Michael Wernick, on the other hand, justified bringing up the Quebec election. And he said, yeah, it was coming up. We didn't want this issue, which is so purely federal, to influence a provincial election. In mid-September, based on the company's public disclosure obligations, I was concerned that a purely federal issue could surface in the last two weeks of that rather heated campaign. And it is my job to remind elected officials about those conventions.

So that's the way that he justified that concept coming up. Right. Essentially that they weren't using it for political or partisan purposes to influence the election in Quebec. They just didn't want this federal issue to be dropped into a provincial election and influence it in any way. Yeah. And that's his claim. And that's a very different one from what Jody... I mean, Jody Wilson-Raybould is essentially saying that she was asked to consider that this could negatively impact the federal liberals in Quebec. Right. And that she thought was too partisan. Okay, so now I want to get to like, what is arguably the worst part of these allegations, which is that she was shuffled out of her job, because she wouldn't find a solution to SNC.

But I will say that I stated I believe the reason was because of the SNC matter. So Jerry Butts, for most of his testimony today, he sort of robust those claims. He says, you know, as we've gone over, we just wanted her to get outside legal advice. This is such a serious issue. There are 9,000 jobs on the line. It deserves more consideration. We never directed her to do anything. And then he goes to the cabinet shuffle. He also lays out all the reasons why he says she wasn't shuffled because of SNC. And can we go through those? Yeah. So this is actually what I find probably the most fascinating part of his testimony, because we're talking about the top operative for the prime minister basically laying bare why they did what they did and all the political calculations that were at play.

So this is something super rare that we would not normally hear at all, but they're using it to buttress their claim that this was not about her. It was about Scott Bryson resigning. So what happened was Scott Bryson, an MP out east, resigned. He was a longtime cabinet minister. And this set in motion a cabinet shuffle, which Jerry Butt says they never wanted to happen. We did all we could to dissuade him, to take Christmas, to think about it, and at least give the prime minister a chance to talk him out of it. It would trigger a cabinet shuffle, and the prime minister was happy with the team he had. They decided to move Jane Philpott to Treasury Board, which is the portfolio that Scott Bryson held.

The prime minister spoke to Minister Philpott in person, one-on-one, in his office on Sunday the 6th. She said Minister Wilson-Raybould was an excellent choice for Indigenous services, but worried she would see it as a demotion. Indigenous services, but worried she would see it as a demotion. Minister Philpott then told the Prime Minister that she worried that Minister Wilson-Raybould might wonder if her move were connected to the DPA issue. Which is fascinating because this is like her good friend, who we now know has resigned, saying, hey guys, by the way, like this is how it's going to be viewed. They decide to... They've obviously already had this conversation. Yeah, and they discard that advice and they still go ahead with moving her. And so they move Jody Wilson-Raybould,

they call her up and they say, we're going to move you to Indigenous services. And they say, Gerald Butt says the reason for that is because of her prominence and her advocacy for Indigenous people and they thought it would be a good fit and the government's focus on reconciliation and the priority they placed on that file. Except for when they tell her she's

not happy. I had never seen anyone do it before in 13 shuffles over many years. The former attorney general turned down a cabinet portfolio. She makes the point to them that she spent her entire life fighting the Indian Act and to be in charge of a portfolio in which programs are implemented under such an act is offensive to her. I want to say here, Mr. Chair, that I should have known that, and had we had more time to think of the cabinet shuffle, I probably would have realized it. And this is where the politics of it gets fascinating, because why didn't they just leave her in justice then? If she really didn't want to go, if she felt it was an insult,

why wouldn't she leave it in justice? And just find someone else to go to Indigenous courts. Exactly, right? And you literally would not be at this point right now if that had been the case, probably, right? My advice was this. If you allow a minister to veto a cabinet shuffle by refusing to move, you soon won't be able to manage cabinet. Cabinet invitations are not the product of shared decision making. But you got to think now when you look back, which, you know, according to Jerry Butts, was ostensibly made on principle, is now the root cause of a scandal that has engulfed their entire government and could possibly lose in the election.

given the priority that they have placed on reconciliation, given what they said about how important this file was to them, that they wouldn't have thought that it would have probably not sat that well for her to be shifted to a portfolio that she, you know, she really, truly felt a certain way about, given her life's work. Right. Gerald Butz does say today, which I also thought was really an interesting insight. He references all these text messages that come after the shuffle between him and Jody Wilson-Raybould. And he really seems to suggest that this is where trust really starts to break down between him and Jody Wilson-Raybould and between Jody Wilson-Raybould and the prime minister. Yeah. He says that basically, given their conversations, that trust between her and people in that office was breaking. And I think that is really interesting. The one thing, the sort of question that I still have, though, is what were those conversations like? And we didn't get Jody Wilson-Rayb SNC-Lavalin and the decision she wouldn't make. Like, what other things did she ask of them?

How did the trust break down? Because he said he alluded to the fact that he had those text messages, but he didn't want to read them. The Privy Council's office, Mr. Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet. Welcome, Mr. Wernick. Michael Wernick, he also testified today, very different tone from Jerry Butts. Extremely different, like very noticeably different. I think it's funny because there was a lot of content to what he had to say, but most people, I think, walked away just thinking about his tone.

Of course, he's the one that gave that very unique testimony a few weeks ago, I think it was now, in which he started off with this long opening statement talking about the state of politics right now and the fact that he thought that things were so bad that it could lead to somebody maybe getting shot in the next election. When people use terms like treason and traitor in open discourse, those are the words that lead to assassination. Very interesting comments from the top public servant. And there were a lot of accusations that he was too partisan. And today he came out, you know, just as we said, Jerry Butz didn't come out guns blazing.

He did come out guns blazing. I am profoundly disappointed to be accused of partisanship by people that have never met me. My career is on the public record. I have held the highest security clearances that this country can offer for many years. Even in the questioning, you know, he was asked about certain things that Jody Wilson-Raybould had alleged and specifics of their conversation, and he would respond by saying things like, I wasn't wearing a wire. I haven't been asked the question, Mr. Angus. I do not have independent recollection of what I said. I did not record the conversation. I did not wear a wire. I did not take contemporaneous notes.

And he said that a few times, and it was just a very different tone. And as a result, it became way more combative with members of the committee. It's so funny, Jerry Butz has been such a partisan figure for the past three and a half years, but his exchanges with the committee were actually not combative very much at all.

No, he's like talking a lot about being Kate Breton. Yeah, friends, and I know you well, and been a long time. As is Ms. May, we could have a terrorish game if there were one more Kate Breton around this table. And it was the total opposite with Michael Warnick. Right. And of course,

Jody Willis-Rample alleged last week that he essentially, the best word for it is threatened her in a phone call that the prime minister was determined to get this done, determined to find a solution on SNC-Lavalin. I think he is going to find a way to get it done one way or another. He is in that kind of mood and I wanted you to be aware of it. Yeah, she said that he made veiled threats to her and he was asked about those and at first he said he didn't recall the specific language that she had alleged and then later on he was very specific and said, no, I never threatened the Attorney General. So once again, maybe a bit inconsistent, but hard to tell two very different versions of the Attorney General. So once again, maybe a bit inconsistent, but hard to tell two very different versions of the same conversation. Vashti, I know this is like such a tough question

to end today. I do understand the concept that two people can have very different ideas of what the truth is. I am firmly convinced that nothing happened here beyond the normal operations of government. Particularly if there's a breakdown of trust around those relationships.

So I get that part of Jerry Butz's testimony. Although there does seem to be big discrepancies here about what happened. For example, whether or not she communicated that her mind was made up and whether or not she told people to back off. And so what are we supposed to do with all of this now? Yeah, I wish I knew. I feel like I've been thinking about that a lot ever since the testimony ended.

And I really do feel like without some kind of third party impartial adjudicator of what is and what isn't fact, it's going to be really hard as Canadians to figure out what the truth is. And I say that because, you know, the Justice Committee wants to call back Jody Wilson-Raybould, like opposition MPs on the committee want to, and she says she's willing to. And I imagine that you'll have to put exactly what one side said to the other. It feels like a court case kind of in the court of public opinion, but there's no judge. Like there's nobody who's going to say at the end of the day, here's what was presented that I don't have any doubt in. Here's fact. Here's like, that's not going to happen. It's a partisan justice committee that's listening to all of this. I don't even know, are they going to produce a report at the end? And what will that report will really say? Like, I know the ethics commissioner

is looking into it, but it just feels like we've heard so much and so many different stories. Like, who at the end of the day is going to tell us, here's what you can and you should believe? That doesn't really exist. So I'm at a little bit of a loss to know how we navigate towards finding the truth. But I mean, I guess it'll just be more of a judgment call.

We'll listen, we'll keep hearing various sides, and at the end of the day, Canadians will just have to think, you know, who and what do I believe? And I hope you'll come back to wade through all of this with us. I hope so, too. Thank you so much, Vashi. Thanks, Jamie. Okay, a lot of stuff to go through there. Thanks so much for sticking with us.

But one more thing before we go today. As Vashi mentioned in our conversation, the deputy justice minister testified yesterday. And that deputy minister said her office prepared a legal opinion about the consequences of an SNC-Lavalin conviction. And that Jody Wilson-Raybould instructed her not to send that legal opinion to Michael Warnick and the Privy Council, which is the office that supports the prime minister. So what does this report say? And why did Raybould say don't send it? This is something we'll be watching for when the prime minister reacts to all this testimony on Thursday morning.

But for right now, that's all. And thanks for listening to FrontBurner. raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.