OTTAWA—Conservative and New Democrat MPs furious at a Liberal vote that cut short a parliamentary probe into the SNC-Lavalin affair say they will continue to press for answers.“It’s a disgrace,” said Conservative Michael Cooper following a heated two-hour meeting behind closed doors. But without Liberal MPs backing the Opposition’s call to demand Jody Wilson-Raybould be released from confidentiality promises, the story of her departure from cabinet seems set to remain untold. The former attorney general, who accused the prime minister and his team of trying to politically interfere in a bribery prosecution of the giant Quebec company, says she’s limited by cabinet confidentiality from speaking any further about the unfolding scandal. Conservative justice critic Lisa Raitt says Canadians still don’t know why Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet a month after Justin Trudeau punted her to veterans affairs minister.Nor do they know why, after her story of resisting PMO pressure to overrule the independent prosecutors of SNC-Lavalin hit the headlines, Trudeau’s former top aide Gerald Butts quit, she said. He testified to the Commons justice committee to defend himself and the PMO against what he called Wilson-Raybould’s unfounded allegation of improper meddling. He took blame — and Trudeau echoed it — for an “erosion of trust” between the former attorney general and the PMO. He chalked it up to a deep misunderstanding, saying all they ever asked the former attorney general to do was “consider a second opinion” on an untested law. Days before Butts told his version, however, a second cabinet minister Jane Philpott resigned over what she said was her loss of confidence in the prime minister’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin case, and the government’s response to the news story after it all broke. On Monday, the Liberal government tried to put the whole mess behind it with ...
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