By Canadian Press

Cabinet members openly debate Jody Wilson-Raybould’s future in Liberal caucus

Apr 2, 2019 | 8:51 AM

OTTAWA — A day before a crucial Liberal caucus meeting where former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould could be shown the door, members of the Trudeau cabinet are focusing on what was behind her decision to surreptitiously record a phone conversation with the country’s top public servant.

On his way into the weekly cabinet meeting today in Ottawa, Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne criticized Wilson-Raybould’s ethics, saying he had never recorded any conversations he had while working as a lawyer.

Tourism Minister Melanie Joly said what Wilson-Raybould did in secretly recording her Dec. 19 phone conversation with Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick was “fundamentally wrong.”

Her comments followed the sentiments of some of her caucus colleagues, who on Monday openly declared it was time to remove Wilson-Raybould from caucus.

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Ontario’s Liberal MPs are due to have a mid-day meeting to discuss the issue, before Wednesday’s meeting of the full group.

Wilson-Raybould provided a 17-minute audio recording to the House of Commons justice committee last week to bolster her contention that she was improperly pressured last fall to intervene to stop the criminal prosecution of Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, who had earlier testified in response to Wilson-Raybould’s allegations, has submitted additional documentation to the committee related to the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Those documents could be released publicly by the committee later today.

The Canadian Press