Sheila: How could you?

Image: Mackay Cartoons

*** This post has a footer Addendum added March 7 ***


Sheila: How could you?

Did you think we had forgotten 1996?

GlobalNews: ‘Ministers gone rogue’: Ex-deputy PM chalks SNC-Lavalin affair up to Wilson-Raybould’s inexperience

• “I think they need a little bit of political experience and they need to understand that when you get into a group, whether it’s the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the caucus and the NDP, you don’t always get everything you want, and part of being a good politician is being able to negotiate so you get something for everybody and not everything for one person,” Copps continued.

Sheila, Sheila; did you think we had forgotten?  Your own actions in 1996 as Deputy PM were characterized as volatile -- while Wilson-Raybould's are generally considered by many as measured, principled, and even stoical.

From the Canadian Encyclopedia):

• ... as "a 43-year old veteran MP", Sheila angrily resigned over Paul Martin's plans for the GST, but soon became keenly aware of the repercussions, so then, "insisted that she did not have to resign over her own broken pledge, made in the heat of an election campaign".
• "I felt relieved - I won't say glad - that she resigned," said Sarnia/Lambton MP Roger Gallaway, who pointedly added: "She might have left sooner." 

​But later on:

• A kiss on Martin's cheek after his Commons speech sealed her tacit approval of Ottawa's plan to instead pursue the harmonization of the federal tax with provincial sales taxes - a plan, as she angrily told Martin only two months ago, that she was not prepared to endorse.

Indeed, volatility is high on Sheila's list of personal attributes:

From Wikipedia:

• Her combative style and reputation for flamboyance were trademarks of her political career.

This current smear is not the only instance of Sheila's having failed to give any benefit of any doubt to her fellow females. Despite Sheila's claim of having been raped and fondled by provincial government males (CBC), she unaccountably denied other women the benefit of any doubt by tweeting her support for the accused Jian Gomeshi.

Yet ... from Macleans:

• Within days ... many of [Gomeshi's] staunchest defenders—among them Elizabeth May, Amanda Palmer and Judy Rebick—were asking themselves how they could have swallowed his version, hook, line and sinker.

But Sheila has apparently never moved off her stated viewpoint and we may get a clue as to why in the following comment from an unnamed politico:

From the same Canadian Encylopedia article cited above:

• Said one Liberal election strategist: "You never apologize in politics unless it's something that you don't have to worry about too much."

Sheila even cruelly made use of an anonymous rumour that Wilson-Raybould was not on speaking terms with her father at the time, intimating she might have been taking out on Trudeau some buried animosity toward her own father.

For one thing, Trudeau is hardly a father-figure; for another, this is far too bitchy and below the belt, even for a veteran politician who is accustomed to elbowing for first place.

Did Sheila take out on Chretien the fact that her own father had died and she was reduced to having to seek his advice from - what? - a seance?

From the above Canadian Encyclopedia article:

• She also bridled at the often blunt advice of many of her Liberal colleagues: resign. But as she explained at her dramatic news conference ... it was her conscience - and a spiritual communion with her late father, former Hamilton mayor Vic Copps - that settled the matter.
• "My father used to say there are two elements to public life that are critical: honesty and hard work," she said tearfully. "I think I've worked hard to sustain my honesty and I want to keep that."

One can't help wondering if Jody Wilson-Raybould had said anything "tearfully" would Sheila have suggested that was a bid for sympathy? As it was, Wilson-Raybould came across as extremely self-possessed and honest.

Sheila should not have had to work hard to "sustain" her honesty.  Either one is basically honest or one is not. And what Sheila has displayed does not appear to be honesty, but more like a vicious stab in the back, to what purpose one can only surmise.

There may well be a game being played here. Was Copps considering running again in the upcoming election? Is she now worried that Trudeau may be forced to resign as a direct result of the credibility attributed to Wilson-Raybould? Might Wilson-Raybould consider running for the leadership of the party? If so, might that be a reason for stressing a lack of experience and emotional maturity?

Sheila herself ran for leader back in 2004 and failed badly. Was she hoping for another crack at it?

From Wikipedia:

• She was supported by few MPs, and many questioned the relevance of her campaign.

Fact is, she reportedly had a hard time being allowed to run in her own riding, and kicked up quite a storm of accusations, even reportedly threatening to join the NDP if it became necessary.

Her apparent willingness to run under any banner open to her raises a further question: why is that she presents as Liberal, yet her journalistic career has consisted of writing for right-wing publications?  For the first time, I'm wondering, who the heck is she really?

Post Political Career: 

• After leaving politics [or it left her?], Copps wrote regular commentary for the National Post. In September 2005, concurrent with a redesign, she was introduced as a regular columnist for the Toronto Sun which was also published in various Sun papers across Canada. Copps quit her column in December 2007.
• She also hosts a weekly syndicated radio talk show, Weekends with Sheila Copps, focusing on lifestyle issues such as health and financial planning. She succeeded Dini Petty as host of the series. She is also employed by Quebecor, a Canadian media distribution company and then-owner of the Sun newspaper chain for which Copps previously wrote.

 
Sheila Copps sadly comes across as a ruthlessly ambitious, back-stabbing, any-port-in-a-storm opportunist. Not a pretty sight, and if she hadn't attacked the integrity of Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, I might never have gotten the full picture of her personally.

She certainly has every right to switch from side to side as she wishes, even though that does suggest a lack of ideological consistency.  But should it involve attempts to viciously undermine her contemporaries? One would have thought not.

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*** Addendum March 7: ***

Re: Gerald Butts Mar 6 appearance on CPAC:

Jody Wilson-Raybould has testified that she was repeatedly warned that prosecuting SNC-Lavalin could result in losses of jobs.

The people warning her - The Prime Minister, his right hand guy Butts, and the top bureaucrat Wernick - all insist there was no attempt to influence her handling of the case.

Gerald Butts went before the Justice Committee yesterday and denied there was any pressure placed upon her, and he can't imagine why she would say there was. He thought he may have mentioned the jobs issue once, but certainly did not pressure her.

But during his testimony before the Committee I actually lost count of the number of times he slipped in the words "9000 lost jobs", but it was around 15 times.  He was doing the same thing to the Committee that he denies was done to Wilson-Raybould.

Only one questioner asked, "Do we know for a fact that jobs would be lost?", but somehow the question never got answered.

Butts is a very smooth talker, knows how to present himself as exceedingly reasonable while circling almost every question put to him, insisting he's at a loss to understand what it was that upset Wilson-Raybould.

Macleans made it perfectly clear that it's unlikely jobs would disappear:

• SNC-Lavalin’s demise would not be the calamity its defenders claim
• Jen Gerson: Its contracts wouldn’t disappear. Its valued employees would still be valued. And the work just might go to companies that haven’t been accused of corruption

It seems far more likely that the jobs most feared to go down the tubes are the PM's and his partners in the current mayhem. His chances of winning Quebec in the upcoming election are reportedly not very good:

IPolitics: Why the Quebec election should have Justin Trudeau worried

• As the Quebec election makes clear, being the incumbent is no longer an advantage, even when you are great selfie material.