Breaking News: Top Canadian Bureaucrat, formerly unknown outside of Ottawa, reveals himself to be the Pimple on Canada's Ass - News Paper

Look who just slithered out from underneath a rock?
Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council,

PCO Clerk fears 'somebody's going to be shot' during coming election campaign

You have to hand it to former Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canadians would never have got to know the seamy, underbelly of the federal political scene in Ottawa with all of it's crony's and creeps...if she had not suddenly resigned from the Federal cabinet in a huff a week or so ago.

First, I have to apologize to my American readers for devoting yet another post to yet another update on this tedious, parochial story.  But look at it this way.  This is exactly how the incessant blathering about Russiagate and, who's that fellow?  Robert Mueller? appears to us Canucks. Canadians would all like to face south and shout in unison:  "Get over it already!

Back to the current Canadian political crisis.  So much has happened over the past 24 hours it's very hard to keep track.  Here is a timeline from yesterday but today there's been one hand grenade after another lobbed in Ottawa today...mainly by the "Empire strikes back" [Trudeau] forces, as I will call them. Watch the video of Wernick's opening statement at the link in the headline.  What a fearmonger!  Suggesting that someone is "going to be shot" just because the circle is closing in on the corrupt cronyism, conflict-of-interest and obstruction of justice folks who have been scratching one another's arses in Ottawa for years.  Suggesting that it is improper to use the words "Treason" or "Traitor" to describe politicians who have contravened fundamental tenets of international law time and time again, including by fostering coups in Ukraine and Venezuela, not to mention totally ignoring a blatant "Travesty of Justice" involving CSIS and the RCMP . [NOTE: I regard the non-investigation of the Nuttall Korody episode--and several other cases very similar in fact/evidence--as far more serious than the case at hand...the SNC Lavalin case.]

Why is it that every time you roll over a rock on a political beach at low tide...one of these slithers out?

Please read the following snippet from CTV and I will have more comments to follow:

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"Wilson-Raybould wasn't pressured, is free to talk, top bureaucrat says

OTTAWA -- Canada's top bureaucrat launched a blunt and vigorous defence Thursday of the government's handling of the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, declaring allegations of political interference to be false and even defamatory.

• Scroll down or click here for a full recap of the committee via our live blog

Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council, took opposition MPs to task for jumping on the anonymously-sourced allegations to accuse the government of obstructing justice.

He challenged former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould's assertion that solicitor-client privilege prevents her from responding to the allegations that she was improperly pressured by the Prime Minister's Office to spare the Montreal engineering giant a criminal trial on charges of corruption and bribery related to government contracts in Libya.

Wernick was testifying during the first round of hearings by the House of Commons justice committee into the affair that has rocked the Liberal government, resulting in Wilson-Raybould's resignation from cabinet last week and the departure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's principal secretary, Gerald Butts, earlier this week.

The allegations first surfaced in a Globe and Mail report two weeks ago, citing unnamed sources.

"I'm here to say to you that the Globe and Mail article contains errors, unfounded speculation and, in some cases, is simply defamatory," Wernick told the committee.

From everything he knows, Wernick said the Prime Minister's Office handled the matter with integrity. There was vigorous debate internally about whether Wilson-Raybould should exercise a legal option to instruct the director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, to negotiate a remediation agreement with SNC-Lavalin. That agreement is a kind of plea bargain in which the company would pay restitution but not get a criminal conviction that could financially cripple the company by barring it from bidding on government contracts.

Wernick said those discussions were perfectly legal and didn't cross the line into improper pressure on the attorney general, whom he noted was repeatedly assured by Trudeau that a final decision on the matter was hers alone.

"We are discussing lawful advocacy that the minister take a lawful decision which in the end she did not take," he told the committee.

Wernick noted that he's not a lawyer. But based on his many years experience as a senior bureaucrat under multiple Liberal and Conservative governments, he said he doesn't believe solicitor-client privilege stops Wilson-Raybould from telling her side of the story.

He said he doesn't see where she was acting as a solicitor and that the matter was never discussed in cabinet so she wasn't giving advice to cabinet either.

"The prime minister said at every occasion verbally and in writing that she was the decider so she was not giving legal advice to the prime minister," he said.

"She was the decider, the full and final decider. She can't be the fettered solicitor and the battered decider, (as portrayed) in that horrible, vile cartoon at the same time. It's one or the other."

Earlier Thursday, Justice Minister David Lametti also told the committee it was appropriate for the Prime Minister's Office to discuss the matter with Wilson-Raybould…."

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Greencrow says:  I think letting Wernick shoot his mouth off in the hearing was a big, perhaps fatal mistake for the Empire.  Why?  Because now the average Canadian knows the kind of bullying that's been going on...and that Jody Wilson-Raybould was subjected to.  Hey, the guy accused Canadians of being ready to "shoot" someone...and of speaking out in a "vomitorium" [social media] about their concerns.  I'm surprised he didn't accuse us all of being anti-Semites.  Perhaps that'll come after he finds out that Canadians won't buy his bullying.  Can you just imagine the kind of threats, veiled and not-so-veiled, that he made to JWR behind closed doors?  The guy's a creep and should resign...just like his tag team partner, Gerry Butts did.

Finally, all the protestations from Butts and now from Wernick, are proven empty lies and half-truths.  How do we know?  Because of what happened to Jody shortly after she dared to defy Butts, Trudeau and Wernick.  She lost her job.  The proof is in the pudding.

from Greencrow As The Crow Flies https://ift.tt/2STlqmP
Breaking News: Top Canadian Bureaucrat, formerly unknown outside of Ottawa, reveals himself to be the Pimple on Canada's Ass - News Paper