The book launch guarantees that Jody Wilson-Raybould’s story will dominate the news, ensuring the Liberals receive more criticism for their faulty handling of the file.
By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 29, 2019.
The book launch guarantees that Jody Wilson-Raybould’s story will dominate the news, ensuring the Liberals receive more criticism for their faulty handling of the file.
OTTAWA—In the heat of the SNC-Lavalin controversy, the government was slammed for claiming jobs may be at stake.
Pundits attacked the statement that some of the of 9,000 company jobs could be lost, if the company did not benefit from a deferred prosecution agreement.
The narrative had a distinctly anti-Quebec flavour. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was attacked for saying he had a responsibility to protect jobs in his riding. He was blasted for even suggesting that, as a Member of Parliament, he had a duty to protect jobs in his riding.
Six months later, the chickens have come home to roost and the jobs are being lost. SNC is coming apart at the seams while Jody Wilson-Raybould is promising to lift a veil by publishing her own version of events the week after the election is officially called.
Hopefully she has a good ghostwriter because if she really intends to get elected as an Independent in Vancouver, the former minister won’t have time to be burning the midnight oil on writing a book too.
The book launch guarantees that her story will dominate the news, ensuring the Liberals receive more criticism for their faulty handling of the file.
Wilson-Raybould’s publisher announced the upcoming book launch the same week the Assembly of First Nations was meeting in Fredericton. The book, From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada, published by Purich Books and UBC Press, will be launched on Sept. 20.
Wilson-Raybould’s nemesis, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett, attended that meeting and outlined her government’s efforts on reconciliation. She drew particular attention to the decision to abolish the department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. “INAC was really about paternalism and in no way reflected the original spirit or intent of treaties or the original understanding of what that relationship was to be about,” she told the AFN’s annual gathering.
Wilson-Raybould could have partnered in this important work if she had accepted a cabinet appointment as the minister responsible for Indigenous services.
Instead, she could go down in history as the aboriginal leader who singlehandedly derailed her people’s agenda.
During the course of the unfolding debacle, Wilson-Raybould continued to state that she wanted to run as a Liberal in the next election because she shared the values of the party.
She and colleague Jane Philpott both repeated that, other than the prime minister’s treatment of the SNC-Lavalin case, they were pretty much onside with most other issues.
If Wilson-Raybould is really concerned about progress on Indigenous issues, why is she doing her best to make sure that Andrew Scheer wins the next election?
Personal hubris must trump her commitment to her people. That is the only explanation for her decision to publish a book timed to come out just days after the writ is dropped to formally launch the October election.
The book is being billed as a collection of speeches and previously published articles on her vision for achieving reconciliation. She is calling for the acknowledgement of Indigenous rights, replacement of the Indian Act, and Indigenous self-government.
All of those goals were possible, had she decided to remain in cabinet. Along with Bennett, she could singlehandedly have transformed the relationship from one of paternalism to a partnership of equals.
Instead, she is on the outside looking in, writing a book which will be long on theory and short on practical application.
Her decision to publish in mid-campaign is timed to do the maximum amount of damage possible to the first government that has actually embodied a vision for reconciliation.
Wilson-Raybould would be hard-pressed to name another prime minister that has made reconciliation the centrepiece of his governance effort.
Not only has the government aggressively pursued infrastructure investments in Indigenous communities, it addressed the most egregious inequality in the system, the fact that education funds available to Indigenous kids were only 60 per cent of what was spent on regular education.
Aboriginal language funding, one of the first cuts made by Stephen Harper, has been reinstituted under the Liberal watch. That decision offers some hope that more than 50 Indigenous languages may actually survive the very real threat of extinction in one more generation.
Liberals may have overpromised on reconciliation.
But at least Trudeau’s government is trying.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has given five major speeches which are supposed to outline his vision as a future prime minister.
The word “reconciliation” is not mentioned once. Conservative Senators have succeeding in blocking passage of bill C-262, which would have guaranteed that Canada’s laws respect the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
If Wilson-Raybould really wants to be a nation builder, she should stop helping Scheer.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
