Could the Fall Elections Have Been Influenced by Trudeau’s Ethics Breach?
Photo credit/Mention de source: Enkhjin Ross
Stefania Rotundu
(FR) Le gouvernement libéral du Premier Ministre Justin Trudeau a été impliqué dans l’affaire SNC-Lavalin. Il a été découvert au début de cette année que le Premier Ministre aurait en effet fait pression sur la Ministre de Justice et Procureur Général Jody Wilson- Raybould, afin qu’elle ne poursuive pas en justice l’entreprise multinationale SNC-Lavalin. Ayant refusé tout compromis, Wilson-Raybould a été expulsée du parti libéral. Cependant, les derniers sondages montrent que cette affaire n’a pas eu d’effets sur les intentions de vote des Canadiens.
The discovery of the SNC-Lavalin affair sent ripples through the Canadian news cycle at the onset of 2019. Articles by CBC and the Toronto Star reported it as impacting the core of Canadian democracy. News reports disclosed that Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau intervened in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a Canadian multinational construction and engineering company, in order to save his election seat in Quebec. Trudeau claimed to be saving jobs for Quebecers who otherwise would have been laid off had the company been criminally prosecuted.
SNC-Lavalin faced prosecution in Canada for allegations of bribery and fraud in Libya. In what appeared to be a breach of the constitutional principle of prosecutorial independence, the Prime Minister met with former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to discuss the case. As Attorney General, Raybould could overrule the prosecution’s decision not to invite SNC-Lavalin to a remediation agreement, which would have avoided a criminal prosecution and forced a negotiation with the construction firm. When Raybould did not interfere in the prosecution’s decision, she was subsequently demoted to Minster of Veterans Affairs in a cabinet shuffle. In light of this controversy, not only was Trudeau accused of intervening in the justice system, but he was also accused of being misogynistic, due to his remark that the former Attorney General “saw things differently” from himself.
The accusations of misogyny against the self-declared feminist divided women's opinions across Canada, as well as within Trudeau's party itself. Jody Wilson-Raybould - who was Canada's first Indigenous Attorney General - was eventually expelled from the Liberal caucus altogether, subsequently alienating Indigenous populations who supported her. Additionally, in response to the allegations against Trudeau, the Treasury Board President, Jane Philpott, resigned from cabinet and was also expelled from the Liberal caucus. Philpott's resignation, as well as the expulsions of her and Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus, made headlines due to its irony; the women's vote had played a significant role in putting Trudeau's party in power in 2015.
As the 2019 federal elections drew near, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion ruled that the Prime Minister was in violation of ethics law when he pressured the former Attorney General into halting the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. However, while Trudeau saw a drop in the polls immediately after the Canadian news reported the affair, recent federal polls showed that the matter had little to no effect on voting intentions. The first Ipsos poll after the results of the Ethics Commissioner's report showed that the two main parties, Trudeau's Liberals and Scheer's Conservatives, shared a statistical tie. Before the SNC-Lavalin affair, however, the Liberals were in the lead.
With Trudeau having won a minority government in the 2019 federal election and the Conservatives holding the popular vote, it leaves us to wonder how much of an effect the SNC-Lavalin scandal really had on the elections. Could Trudeau have won a majority government if not for this affair?