Alexandra Morton, featured in Twyla Roscovich’s documentary, Salmon Confidential, is a Canadian American marine biologist best known for her 30-year study of wild killer whales in the Broughton Archipelago in British Columbia. Since the 1990s, her work has shifted toward the study of the impact of salmon farming on Canadian wild salmon.
Some years ago when attending the annual press conference for the Vancouver International Film Festival fall film fest, upon entering the Vancity Theatre, my young lefty feminist friend (at the time a VIFF film traffic co-ordinator), the multi-talented Selina Crammond — who at present is the hard-working, year-round Director of Programming at DOXA, Vancouver’s spectacular homegrown documentary film festival, which kicks off tomorrow, by the way! — approached me the moment I walked through the open doors to the theatre, excitedly stating to me, “Raymond, you’ve got to see Twyla Roscovich’s documentary, Salmon Confidential, it’s the best doc at VIFF this year!” (there is nothing more in life that I like than having my interests taken care of by women of conscience — and, let me tell you, Selina has long kept me on the political straight and narrow, reinforcing always the principled way I must conduct the affairs of my life).
From a political perspective, what struck me most about about the issues uncovered in Salmon Confidential was that the Stephen Harper government, aided by the Christy Clark government had muzzled scientists for both levels of government, and rather than address the problems that were destroying the salmon population along British Columbia’s coast, accepted significant amounts of money from the fish farming industry in exchange for not acting to remedy a problem that was destroying the wildlife ocean population along British Columbia’s once pristine coast.
What does the above recitation on the failure of government have to do with the headline of today’s VanRamblings post? Simple.
Who we elect to power in Ottawa, and across the water in Victoria, has a dramatic effect on the environment, on the livability of our towns and cities, and on our coast — and arising from the plangent work of Jody Wilson-Raybould this past four months, uninformed, apolitical Canadians would appear to be on the brink of re-installing (this time) a far-right Andrew Scheer-led government in Ottawa, which like all far right governments will move legislation to protect the interests of Big Oil and their corporate donors, at the expense of the preservation of our planet, and the quality and viability of the economic lives of the vast majority of Canadians.
In early January of this year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s popularity was at an all-time high, supported by 56% of Canadians (15% more than his Liberal Party), with the Conservative Party’s Andrew Scheer stuck back at 28%, the same as his party (the base of the Conservative party is redolent of the Trump base, or as Hillary Clinton referred to them, “the deplorables”), with the NDP at 15%, Elizabeth May’s Greens at 8%, and Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party and the Bloc Québécois tied at 4%.
As of earlier this week with the publication of the Léger poll …
Just 27% of respondents said they’d vote for Trudeau’s Liberals — 13 points behind Scheer’s front-running Conservatives, who, at 40%, were in the range needed to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons.
The Tories led in every region except Québec, where the Liberals enjoyed an eight-point lead with 31% support; the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois were tied at 23 per cent.
Nationally, the NDP had 12% support, one point ahead of the Greens; Maxime Bernier’s fledgling People’s Party of Canada registered just 3%.
Now, we’re still about six months out from the federal election (Monday, October 21st), but it ain’t lookin’ good for those us who give a good galldarn about the environment, about transit, affordable housing, diversity, Canada’s policy on refugees and immigrants, and in British Columbia, our dwindling salmon stock and the viability of our coastal waters.
A great deal has been written about Jody Wilson-Raybould running to become our next Prime Minister. “Saint Jody,” people across the nation have written, “We want Jody as our next Prime Minister. We need a person of principle at the helm of our government.”
‘Ceptin, one thing.
Jody Wilson-Raybould doesn’t speak French. Not a word — showed absolutely no interest in learning Canada’s “other” official language when in Ottawa, the mother tongue of 7.2 million Canadians (that’d be 20.6% of Canada’s population), and the millions more for whom French is a fluent second language. In 2019 or beyond, what is the possibility that a majority of Canadians would vote for a unilingual English-speaking Prime Minister? And what would be the divisive Trumpian impact, if Canadians were to cast their ballot for a unilingual English Jody Wilson-Raybould as Prime Minister (at the head of the Green Party? — watch your back, Elizabeth May)?
Vidkun Quisling (on the left, above) was a Norwegian military officer and politician who nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany during World War II. The derogatory term “quisling” is usually meant to mean “traitor” or collaborator. He was shot for treason after the war.
As we wrote above, four months ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was sitting pretty in the polls, and well on his way to re-election. Sunny ways had carried the day. In early May 2019, his political prospects would appear to be foundering. How did this change of circumstance occur?
A well-respected commenter, a former, much-beloved and admired elected official and Professor Emeritus in UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, wrote on VanRamblings’ Facebook timeline yesterday the following about Canada’s former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, “A team player at her worst who played gender politics, who perceived herself to be ‘not answerable to the PM’, and figured she could act out.”
As this series about Jody Wilson-Raybould draws to a close, let us review Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s conduct over the past four months …
Following the resignation of Treasury Board President Scott Brison, Prime Minister Trudeau announced a Cabinet shuffle on Monday, January 14. In the week prior to the shuffle, Mr. Trudeau met with Jody Wilson-Raybould to tell her he was moving her to a newly-created, senior portfolio, where she would become the new Minister of Indigenous Affairs, allowing her free reign to redefine the state and nature of the relationship of Canada’s indigenous peoples to the federal government. Ms. Wilson-Raybould refused Mr. Trudeau’s assignment. One of VanRamblings’ correspondents wrote yesterday, “He should have fired her right then and there.” Instead, Ms. Wilson-Raybould accepted the post of Minister of Veterans Affairs. On February 12th, Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned from her Ministerial post.
1. In leaking to the Globe and Mail the alleged PMO efforts to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case while still a Cabinet Minister, one would have to ask, “Where would be the integrity in that?” And although she says she felt inappropriately “pressured” to suspend the criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin and instead have the firm pay a fine, the “pressure” turned out to be just 10 meetings and 11 phone calls over a four-month period. Some pressure! Importantly, at the end of the day she was still allowed to make the decision on SNC-Lavalin.
2. Following her resignation from Cabinet, Jody Wilson-Raybould accused the Prime Minister and PMO staff of “interference” on the SNC-Lavalin file, in the process creating a constitutional crisis that carried through the two succeeding months.
3. On March 6th, Ms. Wilson-Raybould said “Trudeau’s offer of Indigenous Services was like asking Nelson Mandela to administer apartheid,” going on to state, “My fear and disappointment is that despite sounding the alarm providing advice, pushing and challenging, sharing perspectives of lived Indigenous experience, providing a lens into the reality of being Indigenous, the federal government has fallen back once again to a pattern of trying to ‘manage the problem’ with Indigenous Peoples. In my view it is never appropriate or proper to have as a goal managing the challenges and the byproducts of colonialism. The goal must be to right the wrongs, to address the wrongs, to change patterns, transform the foundations and all that we do must be framed to achieve these goals.”
Subsequently, the nine remaining indigenous members of the Liberal caucus publicly expressed support for the Prime Minister, stating that “over the course of the past four years, Canada has seen a generational restorative change in the relations of Canada’s indigenous people’s to the federal government. We fundamentally disagree with Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s construction of the government’s accomplishments over the course of the past four years — or as Ms. Wilson-Raybould has stated, lack of accomplishments — in re-defining the relationship of Canada’s aboriginal peoples to the state.”4. Ms. Wilson-Raybould has made the story about herself and has displayed no concern that she threw her fellow Liberals MPs under the bus, many of whom will lose their seats and their jobs because of her damning testimony against Trudeau and members of the PMO, and ongoing, vengeful conduct towards the Prime Minister.
5. As Attorney-General, Ms. Wilson-Raybould sought to appoint a conservative justice of Manitoba’s Queen’s Bench into the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, an entreaty that was soundly rejected by the Prime Minister.
6. During her tenure as Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould failed to appoint Supreme Court justices to fill the 48 vacancies on Canada’s high courts in the provinces and territories across Canada, and for her term as AG was consistently called out for failing to do so, all the while impeding the judicial process and the rights of Canadians to a timely hearing of charges leveled against them by the state, and arising from the Jordan ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada (mandating a maximum 30-month period for a case to be heard by Supreme Court justices in the provinces and territories), the creation of a circumstance that resulted in tens of thousands of cases being stayed or dismissed, with the courts having to release accused murderers, rapists, child sex offenders, and the worst of the worst among Canada’s criminal element.
Further, Ms. Wilson-Raybould failed to reverse the mandatory minimums legislation brought in by the Harper government, as stipulated as a priority in the mandate letter she was given by the Prime Minister upon being appointed Attorney General, on November 4, 2015.7. Over the course of the past four months, Ms. Wilson-Raybould has turned to retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell, long the most conservative member of Canada’s Supreme Court, for advice and counsel, refusing from the outset to meet with her fellow British Columbian, lecturer at UBC’s Law School when Ms. Wilson-Raybould was enrolled in the university’s law school programme, the retired Honourable former Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, Beverly McLachlin.
Again we ask, is Jody Wilson-Raybould a quisling? In substance and effect, has Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s public conduct this past four months, and longer, been at the behest of members of the Conservative Party of Canada? Have members of the Opposition directed or had a hand in Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s public statements about the Prime Minister, and the Liberal Party?
From the outset, journalists have asked, and politicos have wondered, “What is Jody Wilson-Raybould’s endgame?”
The answer to that would appear abundantly clear to anyone with open eyes, and to be perfectly frank would seem to be the only logical conclusion one could draw from Jody Wilson-Raybould’s public conduct over the course of the past four months: destroy the reputation of the Prime Minister and important members of the PMO staff, bury the prospects of the re-election of her (now former) Liberal caucus members so deep under the ground that they’ll never see the light of day again, paint herself as Canada’s new patron saint of principled Canadian politics, as Saint Jody the Saviour of All That is Right and True, and bide her time til the day when she can place her name forward as a candidate to become Prime Minister of Canada.
History may be unkind to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — but there is no question that in the fullness of time, Jody Wilson-Raybould will not fare well, and 100 years from now her contribution to Canadian politics will be viewed as self-serving, destructive, disloyal and utterly at variance with the interests of Canada’s indigenous population, and the people of Canada.
 |
 |
 |
