Editor:
I found Pamela Gold-smith-Jones’ take on the ousting of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott (Coast Reporter, April 5) to be extremely misleading and entirely self-serving. After stating she considers the two women to be good friends, Goldsmith-Jones then promptly throws them off the dock. She cites the taping of the conversation between Wilson-Raybould and Michael Wernick (Privy Council) as a kind of last straw that justified the ousting of the two women when it is merely a red herring to distract from the real issues. By saying things like, “It’s in the Criminal Code; it’s a legitimate tool,” Goldsmith-Jones seems to be priming the public for the inevitable granting of a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin in hopes of limiting the resulting outrage. DPAs are only in the Criminal Code because one powerful company – SNC-Lavalin – lobbied the Liberal government over a number of years to put them in the Criminal Code so that they could then apply for one in order to escape prosecution for serious alleged crimes committed in Libya. But you would never know that from listening to Goldsmith-Jones because she is “one of a big team.”
In Goldsmith-Jones we have an all-too-typical politician eager to look the other way, toe the party line, and sacrifice whatever principles she may have come to the job with in order to stay in “the team.”
In Jody Wilson-Raybould we have someone who actually has principles and also has a clear understanding of how our system of justice and our system of government were designed to work. In her vital position as Minister of Justice and Attorney General, her first responsibilities were to the independence of the justice system and the good of the country, not to the electoral prospects of the prime minister and the Liberal party in Quebec. This is exactly the sort of person we need more of in politics.
Joseph S. Davis, Gibsons
