Good News: Justin Trudeau is on the Ropes

It's good news that prime minister Justin Trudeau is on the ropes (see Ian Austen's "Trudeau’s Political Woes Mount With Demands for More Inquiries"). Trudeau is accused of demanding that his justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, settle a criminal case with Quebec-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, and then moving her out of justice to the department of veteran affairs when she refused.

Wilson-Raybould resigned instead. Wednesday she was before the justice committee of the Canadian House of Commons providing damning testimony against Trudeau:

During nearly four hours of testimony before the House of Commons justice committee on Wednesday evening, the former minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, repeatedly contradicted and undermined Mr. Trudeau’s assertions that neither he nor his staff acted improperly in trying to settle a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin, a multinational construction and engineering company based in Montreal.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s description of 10 meetings, 10 conversations and a series of emails about the criminal case from senior government officials dominated social media and news coverage in Canada on Thursday, as Andrew Scheer, the Conservative opposition leader in Parliament, asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to open a criminal investigation of the matter.

[snip]

Mr. Trudeau has acknowledged that he and others spoke with Ms. Wilson-Raybould about cutting a deal in the case, in which SNC-Lavalin has been charged with paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Libya while the country was controlled by the dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, but he has denied acting improperly.

The deal would have seen the company pay a large penalty but not receive a criminal conviction, which would have barred it from government work for a decade — and possibly led to its leaving Canada or cutting thousands of jobs, particularly in Quebec.

Basically this is the same defense Trump gave for not pursuing any penalties against the Saudi regime for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Despite the well-reported spat with Trump at last year's G7 meeting in Quebec, Trudeau has operated in lockstep with the White House -- arresting Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, pushing regime change in Venezuela. etc.

Trudeau came to power, 2015, at a time when Obama was losing his stride and neoliberals were hankering for a new bottle to pour their vinegar. Trudeau fanfare was ecstatic. He even appeared, like Obama had before him, in a Marvel comic book. Trump's upset win the following year in the U.S. presidential election cast Trudeau in the role of defender of neoliberal orthodoxy against an engorged populist bogeyman, a role Trudeau has had difficulty performing; it's to the point now where he has capitulated. Trudeau is an empty suit, more gutless and played out in less than four years than Obama was in six.

The fall of Trudeau hopefully portends the fall of Macron in France.