When The Minister of Everything Ran Out of Patience
Special to The Walrus
Chrystia Freeland stood by Trudeau through every crisis. Her resignation created a crisis of its own
By the end of the Liberals’ first term, in 2019, Justin Trudeau’s public image had been tarnished by a series of missteps and controversies. The prime minister faced controversy over a late-2016 holiday on the Aga Khan’s private Caribbean island, violating federal ethics laws. In 2018, his India trip drew criticism for Bollywood-like attire and the inclusion of Jaspal Atwal, a convicted attempted murderer, at a dinner reception. Then came the blackface scandal: during the 2019 election, Time published a 2001 photo of Trudeau in blackface at an Arabian Nights gala, a humiliating revelation that made international headlines.
None of these incidents, however, was as damaging as what would become known as the SNC-Lavalin affair. On February 7, 2019, the Globe and Mailreported that Trudeau and his staff had inappropriately pressured former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to defer the criminal prosecution of Quebec-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, which was facing fraud and corruption charges related to nearly $48 million in payments made to the Libyan government. Testifying before the House of Commons justice committee later that month, Wilson-Raybould said she’d experienced “veiled threats” and “a consistent and sustained effort” by senior government officials seeking to convince her to interfere in an independent criminal prosecution.
Ultimately, both Wilson-Raybould and her close friend Treasury Board president Jane Philpott—two women Trudeau had formerly held up as star ministers in his gender-equal cabinet—resigned their posts, saying they had lost confidence in the government. It wasn’t a good look for a prime minister who regularly touted his feminist bona fides—and it put some cabinet members in a difficult position with constituents looking for explanations.
Chrystia Freeland, for her part, chose not to wade into the murky waters. As deputy editor of the Financial Times a decade and a half earlier, she had not had a critical word to say against her boss, Andrew Gowers, even after it became clear that the newspaper was struggling under his leadership and that his days as editor-in-chief were numbered. Now, as foreign affairs minister, Freeland afforded the same loyalty to Trudeau, expressing in interview after interview her absolute confidence in the prime minister. The day after Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, Freeland told CBC Ottawa Morning that while she believed her colleague had spoken “her truth,” she was “very clearly of the view that the prime minister would never apply improper pressure.”
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