Liberal member called for vote in meeting to determine if Jody Wilson-Raybould should testify again amid disapproval

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party has come under fire for preventing the former attorney general from testifying again to parliament, further intensifying a political crisis that has engulfed the Canadian prime minister and his government.

The Liberal-dominated justice committee convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday to determine if they should hear further testimony from Jody Wilson-Raybould over allegations that senior officials tried to interfere with the prosecution of an engineering firm accused of bribery.

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Conservative and New Democratic members had called on Wilson-Raybould to return to the committee. But less than 30 minutes into the emergency meeting, a Liberal member called for a vote amid shouts of disapproval from opposition members.

Peter Julian, a member of leftwing New Democratic party, called the vote “disgusting”. Colleague Tracey Ramsay said she was “shocked at the behaviour” of Liberal members.

Last month, Wilson-Raybould told the committee that she had experienced sustained and inappropriate pressure from senior Trudeau aides to abandon the prosecution of engineering company accused of bribing Libyan officials. The company, SNC-Lavalin, has lobbied for a deferred prosecution agreement, meaning it would pay a fine in lieu of criminal prosecution.

Wilson-Raybould exhaustively chronicled meetings with senior government officials, but she remains unable to speak about events following her removal as attorney general. She resigned from cabinet on 12 February and is also prohibited from speaking about her decision to step down.

On 6 March, Trudeau’s former adviser, Gerald Butts, testifiedhe had never acted in an improper manner and suggested the dispute was a misunderstanding.

Following his testimony, Wilson-Raybould said in a statement that her previous testimony “was not a complete account but only a detailed summary” and expressed her readiness to provide a fuller recollection of events.

After Wednesday’s vote, Conservative member Pierre Poilievre accused the Liberal party of “trying to silence the former attorney general”.

“Canadians deserve to know what those event were. So far the prime minister has kept in place a partial gag order preventing them from finding out,” he said.

Opposition members will try once more to recall Wilson-Raybould on 19 March, but that vote is also likely to fail, given Liberal control of the committee.