CBC - Mar 25, 2019  - Neil Macdonald   
      
   At this point, the Philpott-Wilson-Raybould end game is obvious — destroy   
   Trudeau   
      
   Ex-ministers seen as defenders of democracy rather than politicians —   
   despite a most politician-like attack   
      
   Perhaps Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott are acting entirely on   
   principle, laying their bodies across the tracks to protect our democracy and   
   rule of law. Perhaps.   
      
   That's their story, anyway. And it's a good one, too, no denying that. A   
   politician cannot buy the kind of hagiography Philpott has enjoyed since she   
   quit Justin Trudeau's cabinet in solidarity with Wilson-Raybould, who is   
   herself now portrayed as single-   
   handedly protecting the justice system's integrity from attacks by crude ward   
   heelers in the PMO. A fellow political columnist suggested last week that   
   Philpott should resign as a Liberal because she is so immensely competent, so   
   strong, and so    
   principled that her fellow party members simply aren't worthy of being in   
   caucus with her.   
      
   Mmm-hmm.   
      
   In any case, Philpott and Wilson-Raybould are politicians who are being   
   treated as though they aren't politicians, which is every politician's   
   lustiest dream.   
      
   Certainly, the two of them have co-ordinated a most politician-like attack on   
   their party leader. I've been in this dodge 43 years now, and I have never   
   seen such exquisite destruction and perfectly timed execution.   
      
   And deflection. I assume there is an end game here, and I assume we will see   
   it sooner or later, and I have my own notions about what it is, having once   
   watched Brian Mulroney publicly pretend loyalty to Joe Clark while his   
   operatives worked to bring    
   down Clark's shaky Tory leadership, at one point distributing ABC (Anybody But   
   Clark) buttons, which were to be worn inside the jacket lapel, invisible, but   
   available to be flashed to those in the know. In 1983, Mulroney became leader.   
      
   Or having watched, from the media perch above the Commons, Liberal MPs working   
   as operatives for the then-unelected Jean Chrétien in the late '80s, moving   
   from desk to desk, working other members of caucus, as John Turner, the leader   
   they were betraying,   
    sat in his chair a few rows ahead, seemingly oblivious to what was going on   
   just behind him. Chrétien became party leader in 1990.   
      
   Or even, that same year, having watched an angry Lucien Bouchard, convinced   
   Quebec had once again been humiliated by the perfidious Anglos, storm out of   
   Brian Mulroney's government, sputtering that a leader's word must be "as   
   straight as the sword of the    
   king,'' as he walked away.   
      
   Of those three players, Bouchard was the closest to doing any of it on   
   principle, but even he had an end game. He established and led the Bloc   
   Québécois, creating another political pole in Ottawa, then became premier of   
   Quebec.   
      
   Philpott, though, explicitly denies any leadership ambition, or even any   
   ambition to bring down her leader, and so does Wilson-Raybould, and for some   
   reason, most of the parliamentary press gallery seems to be taking them at   
   their word.   
      
   Instead of treating the Philpott/Wilson-Raybould moves as a power play, which   
   is pretty clearly what they are, reporters have been swept along in the blast   
   waves the duo created with their resignations and declarations.   And please,   
   let's stipulate that    
   they are indeed a duo, not two ingenues who never imagined their principled   
   actions would cause this sort of uproar.   
      
   Just last week, Philpott reluctantly and with a heavy heart granted Maclean's   
   an exclusive interview, in which she said there is a lot more still to come in   
   this scandal, despite the Trudeau PMO's attempts to suppress it.   She   
   couldn't, of course, say    
   what is coming, because cabinet privilege prevents her from talking about a   
   Jan. 6 discussion with the prime minister, just that the discussion was far   
   more significant than previously reported, and that there is a lot more to the   
   story.   
      
   Also, she just wants to make her party better, which is sort of what people   
   who want to get rid of the leader always say.   
       
   If the Maclean's interview was intended as a bellows for an already   
   superheated story, it worked. For weeks, reporters in Ottawa have been diving   
   into the weeds, competing for the most incremental scrap.   
      
   On Friday, the main headline on the National Newswatch political aggregator   
   was a CBC interview in which a former Commons law clerk declared that the   
   parliamentary privilege Philpott enjoys as an MP frees her to say whatever she   
   likes about her Jan. 6    
   chat with Trudeau, as long as she says it in the Commons or while sitting on a   
   Commons committee.   
      
   Other journalists have observed that the order-in-council Trudeau created to   
   allow Wilson-Raybould and other cabinet confidants to talk about her time as   
   attorney general would apply to Philpott's Jan. 6 discussion, because   
   Wilson-Raybould was still    
   attorney general at that time.   
      
   And Trudeau himself seems to have clearly said Philpott and Wilson-Raybould   
   are free to add whatever they wish to the public record concerning   
   Wilson-Raybould's time as attorney general and her cabinet demotion in   
   January.  He's spoken about it publicly,    
   and Gerald Butts, Trudeau's former principal secretary, testified in detail   
   about it before the Commons justice committee.   
      
   Both ex-ministers, though, say they nonetheless remain constrained by honour   
   and principle.  They are not free to reveal misbehaviour by Trudeau and his   
   aides, only to say it exists and tease future revelations.   
      
   Wilson-Raybould followed up Philpott's interview by declaring she has more   
   facts and evidence for the committee, and will be providing some of it in   
   writing.   
      
      
   The simplest explanation is best   
      
   So, let's strop up Occam's razor and apply its austere logic to all this.   
      
   Might it simply be that Philpott and Wilson-Raybould are being coy because   
   they want to inflict maximum damage on Trudeau from within his own caucus,   
   which they know is the most effective place to do it?   Might they intend to   
   push for a leadership    
   review after this fall's election, or, even better, before it?   
      
   Trudeau has haplessly insisted that Philpott's and Wilson-Raybould's torpedoes   
   are just proof that the Liberals tolerate a diversity of views in their ranks.   
      
   Right.  Sorry, but that sounds a lot like the line John Turner peddled when   
   his own MPs were busy knifing him in the back: open party, grassroots   
   discussion, lots of room for dissent, blah, blah, blah.   
      
      
   Realistic advice   
      
      
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