Michael Wernick

Trudeau’s longtime confidant and the clerk of the Privy Council will both testify in front of parliamentarians today. Watch it here.

Anne Kingston: Wednesday’s hearing will require that Trudeau’s former principal secretary find a high road heretofore untravelled by the government in its response to the SNC-Lavalin crisis

Jody Wilson-Raybould’s opening statement at a parliamentary committee pointed to four conversations in which senior Liberals worried about electoral consequences

Anne Kingston: Powerful men repeatedly refused to accept Wilson-Raybould’s authority. This isn’t a ’he said, she said.’ It’s a ’he, he, he-said.’

The firm lobbied hard in Ottawa, but it didn’t get precisely the deferred prosecution regime it hoped for and not everyone was open to its advances

David Moscrop: The Privy Council clerk’s soliloquy—though not objectively wrong—sowed confusion and suspicion of partisanship. Isn’t that what he’s trying to stop?

Stephen Maher: Canada’s top bureaucrat gives the Liberals a new line: Yes Wilson-Raybould was pressured, but no one was acting to pursue corrupt ends

In surprising testimony, Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick denounces reckless talk, defends the government, and declares the Wilson-Raybould affair can be settled ’fairly quickly’