Then, some three years later, the Trudeau government was found to have pressured then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to spare SNC Lavalin, one of Canada's largest engineering companies, from prosecution for bribing Libyan officials in return for lucrative government contracts between 2001 and 2011.
After the Canadian ethics commissioner said Trudeau had violated federal conflict of interest rules, he said, "I assume responsibility for everything that happened in my office." He added, "We recognize the way this happened shouldn't have happened," but said his government was acting in the interest of the national economy.
Ultimately, Trudeau lost two star female cabinet ministers (they resigned) — including the first indigenous woman to become minister of justice — and the scandal almost cost his Liberal Party's hold on power.
Now the charismatic G7 leader has a different problem on his hands. It not only threatens to deal a fatal blow to the once impenetrable Trudeau brand, it also casts unwelcome scrutiny on his immediate family and on an international charity juggernaut with links to Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and several other well-known celebrities and leaders.
The latest imbroglio is related to the government contract handed to the WE Charity to run a $660 million program for students unable to find summer work due to Covid-19.
Despite the fact that the charity paid Trudeau's family members for speaking engagements, Trudeau never thought to recuse himself from the cabinet decision on the contract. The federal ethics commissioner will also investigate Finance Minister Bill Morneau's involvement in the decision, since his daughter currently works for the charity. Since the revelations, Trudeau and his finance minister have both publicly apologized for not removing themselves from cabinet conversations regarding WE. On Thursday, Bardish Chagger, the minister of diversity and inclusion and youth, revealed that WE could have received a maximum of about $32 million for its role in administering the program
This controversy comes just as Trudeau, thanks to a savvy response to the Covid-19 epidemic that prioritized science over politics, began to recover the political capital that could regain his majority if an election were called.
Pollster Shachi Kurl told me Trudeau's handling of the pandemic accounts for about a 20-point increase in his approval ratings but has "not restored him to his original glory."
"It only took the worst-ever pandemic to hit Canada to help restore his brand," she said.
His latest apparent lapse in judgment means Trudeau may add one more ethics violation to the two he has already earned from the Bermuda trip and SNC Lavalin scandal.
It's not me but we
Trudeau has claimed it was the public service that recommended WE as the only charity in Canada able to manage the multimillion dollar contract aimed at giving students paid summer volunteer placements.
As the controversy deepens, the federal contract with WE wa
