Loyalty is a scarce commodity in politics.
When an individual decides that they’re going to go into politics, generally there’s both a fair bit of ego and ambition involved.
A novice candidate first has to secure the nomination, which takes organizational ability, and an energized, experienced and crack team behind her or him. Once the nomination is achieved — no mean feat, that — there’s a whole campaign team that needs to be put into place, competent, organized professionals who know how to get the candidate’s message out.
A bit of history concerning Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau, age 24 in 1996, as a student at the University of British Columbia
After attaining a bachelor of arts degree in literature from Montréal’s McGill University at age 22 in 1994, Justin Trudeau traveled to British Columbia — the province where his mother was raised, continues to live, and where he had spent a great deal of time with his mother’s family — to enrol in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education, where he went on to attain a Bachelor of Education degree in 1998, and a teaching certificate, securing employment post graduation at the West Point Grey Academy, where he taught both French and math, later going on to employment with the Vancouver School District, as a much-beloved teacher and colleague at Winston Churchill Secondary, in Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood.
Active always in politics, and long committed to a reconciliation process with Canada’s indigenous peoples, Mr. Trudeau first met Jody Wilson-Raybould when both were students at UBC, continuing their relationship when he was teaching school in our city, and after passing the bar in 2000, she was employed as a provincial Crown prosecutor in Vancouver’s Main Street criminal courthouse for three years, from 2000 to 2003.
Colleagues of Ms. Wilson-Raybould, like respected criminal defence lawyer Terry La Liberté described Ms. Wilson-Raybould as a smart, fair, and a skilled prosecutor, who treated defendants with compassion, saying …
“She has actually talked to the people who are affected. She has worked with these people and made choices about their future in a really meaningful way.”
In respect of the federal Liberal party, after almost a decade in the wilderness, when newly-elected Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau ran to become Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister in the 2015 federal election, in the lead up to the election, he made it a point to approach and speak several times with Jody Wilson-Raybould, asking her to consider running as a candidate in the newly-created riding of Vancouver-Granville, promising that he would put the full weight of the Liberal party campaign apparatus behind her campaign to secure her run for office.
Mr. Trudeau made it clear to Ms. Wilson-Raybould, on numerous occasions, that he believed it was past time that a Prime Minister elevate an indigenous woman into a federal cabinet, which was exactly what he did when he appointed his first Cabinet on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015, appointing Jody Wilson-Raybould as Minister of Justice & Attorney General.
At present, Justin Trudeau is Canada’s Prime Minister. Let’s take a look at those two latter words: Minister, means Mr. Trudeau is a Minister of the Crown. In respect of the word Prime, according to the Oxford dictionary, prime means primary, chief, principal, foremost, first, paramount, major, dominant, supreme, overriding, cardinal, pre-eminent and number one.
Politically, it is understood federally that Cabinet Ministers serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, and in the case of provinces, the Premier.
Read what Sonya Savage — a star candidate for Alberta’s United Conservative Party and respected Calgary lawyer, with a master of laws in environment and energy, who has worked in senior positions with Enbridge and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the MLA-elect for Calgary-North West and the likely choice to take on the energy portfolio — has to say in this CBC article on who will make the cut when Alberta Premier-elect Jason Kenney announces his cabinet tomorrow morning …
“You serve at the pleasure of the premier-elect and I’ll be happy to serve in any capacity,” Savage said on Wednesday. “First and foremost is to represent the people who elected you.”
Exactly. Should Ms. Savage make Jason Kenney’s first Cabinet, as is likely, she will serve at the pleasure of the Premier, as all of the Ministers of the current British Columbia NDP government serve at the pleasure of Premier John Horgan. That is Politics 101. Canada’s is Justin Trudeau’s government. British Columbia is John Horgan’s government, plain and simple.
Baleful that Jody Wilson-Raybould never grasped this basic political precept, in place across every government, in every country across the globe.
Justin Trudeau shares a moment with this wife Sophie Gregoire on election night 2015
On October 19th, 2015, the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party won 184 seats in the 338 Parliament, gaining an unexpectedly large majority government. One of those seats belongs to Mr. Trudeau. When it came to appointing his first cabinet, Mr. Trudeau had an embarrassment of riches from which to choose, of the 183 returning or newly-elected Members of Parliament in Canada’s 23rd national government, ambitious and accomplished all, and possessed of the belief that s/he would make a superb Minister of the Crown and serve the people of Canada well in such capacity, 153 of whom were to be sorely disappointed when Mr. Trudeau announced his cabinet.
Note should be made that Canadians heard no whinging or public gnashing of teeth from the 153 Liberal members of Parliament who failed to make Justin Trudeau’s first cabinet.
At least for most Liberal Members of Parliament, loyalty to the party under whose banner they ran, and the Prime Ministerial candidate they had committed to support and (they did, and with the exception of Jane Philpott, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Celina Caesar-Chavannes) still do, remains of paramount importance, as does loyalty to the Prime Minister.
VanRamblings’ studied & informed supposition as to the outcome of this year’s election
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the leader of the country, and the leader of the Liberal Party, the political figure who offers the Liberal Party of Canada, its many thousands of members, the sitting and supportive Members of Parliament and the people of Canada, the best opportunity to retain government, to continue to work on behalf of all Canadians, even if the win this coming October 21st is to result in a reduced majority, the latter thanks to the imprecations of Jody Wilson-Raybould, a sentiment of condemnation many members of the Liberal caucus, in every province and territory, have expressed to attentive and heedful members of the press.
Let’s take a look at the qualifications of Canada’s current Attorney General and Minister of Justice (pictured above), the Honourable David Lametti …
Prior to his recent appointment, Dr. Lametti was a full, tenured Professor in the Faculty of Law at Montréal’s McGill University (Mr. Trudeau’s alma mater), specializing in property, intellectual property as well as private and comparative law. He was also a member of McGill University’s Québec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law and a co-founder and member of the McGill Centre for Intellectual Property Policy. He served as the Associate Dean (Academic) of the Faculty of Law, McGill University, from 2008 to 2011. Multilingual, Minister Lametti has taught at the university level in French, English, and Italian.
In addition to his responsibilities as a professor, Dr. Lametti was a member of McGill University’s Senate and a Governor of the Fondation du Barreau du Québec, as well as president of the governing board for his children’s — André, Gabrielle, and Dominique’s — school.
Dr. Lametti holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Laws from McGill University, a Master of Laws from the Yale Law School, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Law from Oxford University. Prior to starting his doctoral studies in law, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice Peter deCarteret Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Clearly, Minister Lametti is a piker, and unqualified to become, and now serve as, Canada’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
When Justin Trudeau appointed his first cabinet, did he appoint the accomplished Dr. Lametti as Canada’s new Attorney General and Minister of Justice? Nope, he didn’t. He appointed a former junior Crown Counsel, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who went on to believe that she had the divine right to serve in that capacity for as long as she remained interested in doing so.
Humility and forbearance, thy name is not Jody Wilson-Raybould.
Part 2 of 3 of Dancing With the One That Brung Ya, tomorrow.
