WATCH: The former Attorney General testified Wednesday in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and referred to the matriarchs who shaped her upbringing.
Bill Wilson said his daughter, Jody Wilson-Raybould, was brilliant on Wednesday hile testifying in the SNC-Lavalin affair.
It didn’t surprise him at all when she referred to her upbringing on Vancouver Island as a member of the Wei Wai Kai First Nation in Campbell River.
“I come from a long line of matriarchs and I am a truth teller in accordance with the laws and traditions of our Big House,” said Wilson-Raybould during her testimony. “This is who I am, and this is always who I will be Gilakas’la, Thank you.”
“She was paying tribute to her mother and her grandmother after whom she is partially named,” said Bill. “Her grandmother gave her a very prestigious name in our culture. She wanted to impress upon people who she is.”
He thinks his daughter’s testimony has backed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into a corner.
“Trudeau has a lot of ass-saving to do here. He is in big trouble and he tended to dismiss it and I think one of the reasons he did it is because he and his henchmen thought we’re just dealing with an Indian, we’re just dealing with a woman,” said Bill.
Bill Wilson had his own televised face to face encounter with another Trudeau, Pierre, back in 1983 during a constitutional conference.
“I have two children on Vancouver Island both of whom want to be the prime minister, both of whom, Mr. Prime Minister,are women,” Wilson told Pierre Trudeau.
“Tell them I’ll stick around till they’re ready,” replied the then prime minister.
“And he laughed, everybody laughed because he always wanted to get the last word in and so I waited and waited and I said if you’re sincere I can have one of them out on a plane this evening. She was 12,” recalled Bill.
It happened many years later than that but one of those daughters, Wilson-Raybould, is now making another Trudeau very uncomfortable.
“Yesterday was so important,” said Bill. “You had a woman who was prepared, had the documents, the honesty, the integrity and the presence to tell us the truth.”
Dean Stoltz
