Trudeau’s Ex-Adviser and Close Friend Testifies in Political Crisis

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Gerald Butts, a close friend and former political aide to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who testified before Parliament on Wednesday.CreditCreditSean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

By Ian Austen

March 6, 2019

OTTAWA — Gerald Butts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada’s close friend and former political aide, repeatedly denied on Wednesday that he and others in the government had improperly pressured the former attorney general to negotiate a settlement of a criminal case.

Mr. Butts was speaking in an opening statement before a parliamentary committee. He is the first person to present the government’s view of the controversy that has engulfed Mr. Trudeau just seven months before a national election, creating a political crisis for his leadership.

“This, to me, begs the entire question of what constitutes pressure,” Mr. Butts said, speaking in a calm and lowered voice. “According to the former attorney-general, 11 people made contact with her office over four months. That’s two meetings and two phone calls per month.”

The crisis began last month when Mr. Trudeau and top officials in his government were accused of having improperly pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was then the justice minister and attorney general, to settle a criminal case against a major Canadian construction and engineering company.

That company, SNC-Lavalin, had been charged with bribing Libyan officials during the dictatorship of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and defrauding the Libyan government.

A criminal conviction against SNC-Lavalin would bar it from doing government business for a decade, potentially imperiling jobs in Quebec, its headquarters.

Appearing before the House of Commons justice committee, Mr. Butts said he was surprised at how Ms. Wilson-Raybould had framed the events, quoting from text messages between the two that he characterized as cordial, noting that she had signed them in a shortened form of her first name, “Jod.”

Shortly after the accusations were first reported in The Globe and Mail, Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned her post. Last week she testified before the justice committee, detailing the pressure she said she felt from Mr. Trudeau and his team to settle the case.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Butts abruptly resigned from his position, denying in his resignation letter that he had pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould and saying that he and “those around me acted with integrity.”

When Ms. Wilson-Raybould appeared before the committee, she spent nearly four hours laying out a detailed narrative of how she was, in her view, improperly pressured by Mr. Trudeau and his aides, including Mr. Butts.

She described 10 meetings, 10 calls and several emails in which, she said, she had been asked to order prosecutors to use a new law to cut a deal with the company in which it would pay a multimillion-dollar fine to avoid a criminal verdict.

The testimony by Ms. Wilson-Raybould, who was Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister, was as provocative as it was detailed. At one point, she compared her treatment to President Richard M. Nixon’s infamous move to quash the Watergate investigation.

In the end, SNC-Lavalin’s case is proceeding as a criminal prosecution. But in January, Ms. Wilson-Raybould was moved from justice to the less prestigious post of veterans affairs, prompting some to say she was punished.

After Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, Mr. Trudeau faced more criticism. Some said it appeared that a prime minister who describes himself as a feminist and who has made a priority of reconciling past wrongs with Canada’s Indigenous communities had joined with a mostly male group of political enforcers to gang up on an Indigenous woman.

Mr. Butts faced a delicate task in his testimony, political analysts said. While he must outline a compelling alternative to Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, he cannot suggest that she was not telling the truth.

While the justice committee hears its witnesses, Parliament’s ethics commissioner is also examining the accusations. Andrew Scheer, the Conservative opposition leader in Parliament, has called for Mr. Trudeau’s resignation and has asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to open a criminal investigation of the matter, an idea Mr. Trudeau rejects.

Mr. Trudeau’s political troubles greatly intensified on Monday when Jane Philpott, a cabinet minister who led the treasury board and is widely respected, handed in her resignation.

“I’ve been considering the events that have shaken the government in recent weeks and after serious reflection, I have concluded that I must resign as a member of cabinet,” Ms. Philpott said in her resignation letter.

Follow Ian Austen on Twitter: @ianrausten.

Catherine Porter contributed reporting from Toronto.