The entire national Liberal caucus will be meeting tonight to deal with the aftermath of the SNC scandal.
This comes after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould sent a letter to all of her Liberal MP colleagues indicating that she wants to remain a member of the Liberal team and offering a detailed explanation of her current position on the SNC-Lavalin scandal swirling around her
Jane Philpott left a meeting of her fellow Ontario Liberal M-Ps after just a few minutes, leaving them to debate the question of whether she should remain a member of caucus.
In the letter, Wilson-Raybould stops short of explicitly saying that she still has confidence in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, though the Vancouver-Granville MP says she believes that she, the Liberals, and their leader all still share the same vision for Canada.
“I know many of you are angry, hurt, and frustrated. And frankly so am I, and I can only speak for myself. I am angry, hurt, and frustrated because I feel and believe I was upholding the values that we all committed to. In giving the advice I did, and taking the steps I did, I was trying to help protect the Prime Minister and the government from a horrible mess,” Wilson-Raybould writes in the letter, obtained by CTV News.
Her new letter hit the inboxes of the 179-member Liberal caucus around noon, just as the 77 Liberal MPs who represent Ontario ridings were gathering to discuss whether Wilson-Raybould and fellow former cabinet minister Jane Philpott should be able to remain members of the Liberal team.
Some MPs who were entering the Ontario caucus meeting said they still hadn’t had a chance to read it. Other regional and issue-specific caucuses of Liberal MPs have either discussed the matter already, or plan to meet to discuss her and Philpott’s status in caucus.
In the letter, Wilson-Raybould says that the choice is ultimately up to her Liberal colleagues, but she implores them to consider that “the choice that is before you is about what kind of party you want to be a part of, what values it will uphold, the vision that animates it, and indeed the type of people it will attract and make it up.”