Jody Wilson-Raybould delivers her opening statement as she appears at the Justice committee meeting last month. Wilson-Raybould submitted more material to the members of the committee this week. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press ). Photo courtesy of CBC.
Jody Wilson-Raybould says she has been kicked out of the Liberal caucus.
In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Wilson-Raybould wrote, she has been informed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that she was removed from the Liberal caucus and the confirmed Vancouver-Granville candidate for the federal Liberal Party.
I have just been informed by the Prime Minister of Canada that I am removed from the Liberal caucus and as the confirmed Vancouver Granville candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election. More to come…
— Jody Wilson-Raybould (@Puglaas) April 2, 2019
Wilson-Raybould, who wrote to her fellow Liberals earlier today in hopes of convincing them to let her stay, stepped down from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet in February after he shuffled her out of the coveted justice portfolio.
I have just been informed by the Prime Minister of Canada that I am removed from the Liberal caucus and as the confirmed Vancouver Granville candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election. More to come…
— Jody Wilson-Raybould (@Puglaas) April 2, 2019
Jane Philpott followed suit three weeks later, surrendering her role as Indigenous services minister over what she called a lack of confidence in how the Prime Minister’s Office had handled the SNC-Lavalin controversy.
It’s the latest twist in the turmoil that has roiled the top ranks of the Trudeau government for weeks, fuelled by allegations that Wilson-Raybould was improperly pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene in the criminal prosecution of the Montreal-based engineering firm.
And it comes on the heels of a fresh uproar over a key phone conversation between the ex-minister and former Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick, the country’s top bureaucrat _ a conversation Wilson-Raybould secretly recorded.
That recording was released Friday as part of her evidence of what Wilson-Raybould calls an intense pressure campaign to persuade her to override a decision to deny SNC-Lavalin a remediation agreement, which would allow the engineering giant to avoid criminal proceedings on corruption and fraud charges.
With files from The Canadian Press
CHEK News
