The Former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister will finally testify to the Justice Committee in regards to his part in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
The day after former Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould testified to the committee, Butts wrote a letter asking to testify before the committee himself.
Butts’ letter comes in light of former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s bombshell testimony which implicated him and others in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Wilson-Raybould told the committee last week that she was hounded with “express statements regarding the necessity for interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential for consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA (deferred prosecution agreement) was not made available to SNC.”
Wilson-Raybould was sacked as Minister of Justice in mid-January.
A month later Gerald Butts resigned, citing the developing SNC-Lavalin scandal in his resignation letter while denying any wrongdoing.
In his resignation, Butts said “I categorically deny the accusation that I or anyone else in [the Prime Minister’s] office pressured Ms Wilson-Raybould,” while Wilson-Raybould’s testimony says the opposite.
As Principal Secretary, the Prime Minister’s most senior advisor, Butts is among those implicated in the attempts to influence Wilson-Raybould into granting the Quebec engineering firm lenient treatment for accusations of political interference.
One of Wilson-Raybould’s most shocking claims is that the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, allegedly threatened Wilson-Raybould during a call the two had on December 18th.
As Principal Secretary, Butts would have inside knowledge on what efforts Wernick and others made to allegedly pressure the former Minister of Justice.
“We believe that it is important that Mr Butts respond to the account of the meeting of the 18th provided by Ms Jody Wilson-Raybould, in addition to the other allegations about him and PMO colleagues mentioned in her testimony,” said Justice Committee Chair Anthony Housefather.
Later this week Butts will have to defend himself in the wake of Wilson-Raybould’s scathing testimony which contradicts everything he has said previously.
