Trudeau's image as 'feminist' hero takes a hit

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks in Toronto. Photo / AP

Spare a thought for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's scheduler - and maybe another for Trudeau himself.

Yesterday, Trudeau announced his party was ousting two prominent female leaders - Jody Wilson-Raybould, the once-rising star who until January served as Canada's first indigenous attorney-general, and Jane Philpott, the respected former president of the Treasury Board - after they challenged his handling of an ongoing political scandal.

Today, Trudeau attended a previously scheduled event for young female leaders who aspire to leadership positions like the Cabinet roles that Wilson-Raybould and Philpott held. Later, he kept an appointment with Inuit leaders working to improve relations with the Government.

As he addressed the women in Canada's House of Commons, about 30 tuned their backs on him.

"He's not acting as a true feminist," said Deanna Allain, a first-year student at McMaster University who attended. "He is not lifting up women in politics."

The protest says much about the challenge facing the 47-year-old Prime Minister.

The telegenic son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau swept to power in 2015 promising a new era for Canada in which government would be transparent, women would be equal, and Canada would take painful but important steps towards reconciliation with indigenous communities - and became a global icon along the way.

But as he heads into the federal election in October, the political controversy that led his Liberal Party to expel Wilson-Raybould and Philpott is threatening his standing among the very people he boldly promised to include, promote and represent.

Though his Government is taking pains to cast the ouster of the women as a matter of party discipline and the scandal as a misunderstanding, his handling of the crisis is raising questions about his commitment to inclusion - questions that will likely hurt him at the polls.

"The Prime Minister has taken a massive personal hit on his brand," said Nik Nanos, a Canadian pollster.

Among female voters, a key Liberal constituency, Trudeau once enjoyed a 10 to 20 percentage point advantage, Nanos said. That margin has shrunk to perhaps 5 points.

"The primary driver is disappointment," Nanos said.

Dozens of young women here for Daughters of the Vote turn their backs as Trudeau speaks -in solidarity with Ms Wilson-Raybould and Ms Philpott pic.twitter.com/aAhdlDHrcS

— Peter Julian (@MPJulian) April 3, 2019

The controversy rocking Ottawa didn't start as a matter of gender or indigenous equality. But that's how it's now playing out. And that's a dangerous development for the Liberals.

At the heart of the scandal are allegations that Trudeau and his office pressured Wilson-Raybould as attorney-general to defer the prosecutionof SNC-Lavalin, an engineering firm from Trudeau's home province that was accused of bribery - and demoted her to a lesser Cabinet role when she resisted.

Canadian authorities charged the Quebec firm in 2015 with paying bribes to secure business in Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. Under deferred prosecution, a legal tool used by authorities in several countries, firms that are charged with crimes may avoid convictions if they admit wrongdoing, pay fines and commit to stricter compliance rules.

Wilson-Raybould told a parliamentary committee in February that Trudeau, top aides and government officials pressured her inappropriately, resorting to "veiled threats" to get her to offer the company such a deal.

Trudeau moved Wilson-Raybould in January from attorney-general and minister of justice to minister of veterans affairs. It was widely viewed as a demotion. She resigned from veterans affairs in February.

For Justin Trudeau, is it too late now to say sorry? https://t.co/6RhM5wPZJG @GlobeDebate pic.twitter.com/4FwlYtom4p

— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) April 3, 2019

Trudeau and his aides have denied any improper pressure. They say it's normal for the prime minister's team to discuss legal matters with the attorney-general.

If SNC-Lavalin were convicted, the firm would be prohibited from federal contracts in Canada for 10 years. Avoiding a trial, Trudeau's team says, was about saving Canadian jobs.

No one is alleging that money changed hands or laws were broken.

But in the months since emerged in February, the conversation has shifted from a debate about the relationship between the executive and the judiciary, to a conversation about who in Canadian society really holds power.

Trudeau, a self-proclaimed feminist, put together Canada's first gender-balanced Cabinet, stocking his team with talent from outside the Ottawa establishment - including Wilson-Raybould, an indigenous lawyer from British Columbia.

Now her account has cast doubt on Trudeau's commitment to stated principles.

In her testimony, Wilson-Raybould described being undermined and bullied by a predominantly white male team. She reminded her peers that Canada had a long history of using the law against indigenous communities, and said - forcefully - she would not be cowed.

"Nobody in here wants to have to pick who to believe between Jody Wilson-Raybould and Chrystia Freeland," says Trudeau to young women in the House. "Nobody wants to know that one person has to be right and another person has to be wrong between Jane Philpott or Maryam Monsef." pic.twitter.com/JFd05ranDP

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) April 3, 2019

"These are the teachings of my parents, grandparents and my community," she told the House of Commons justice committee. "I come from a long line of matriarchs and I am a truth teller in accordance with the laws and traditions of our Big House."

Soon, Philpott resigned in solidarity.

Some saw sexism or racism in the way the crisis was handled and the story was covered. After Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet, a Canadian Press piece sourced to unnamed Liberal insiders cast her as uncooperative and selfish.

"Trudeau's team has tried to explain it as 'She's not a team player,'"said Priscilla Settee, a professor of Indigenous studies and women and gender studies at the University of Saskatchewan. "It's an argument that men always use against women, that they are not team players, they don't understand how it works."

"As a First Nations woman, it seems like things can only so far and then, it falls back to he large structures, to political domination, to colonialism."

University of Toronto political scientist Sylvia Bashevkin said it's too late for the Liberals to change leaders before the October election, and too early to say whether women who supported Trudeau in the last election will vote for a different party this time around.

But she said there's no question that expelling Wilson-Raybould and Philpott could hurt Trudeau's prospects. Now that they've been ejected from the Liberal caucus, the pair may feel more inclined to speak freely about their experiences in Trudeau's Cabinet, uninhibited by the demands of party loyalty.

"They've been martyred."