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Editorial off-key

Re: "For whom the bell tolls," Neil Godbout editorial.
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Re: "For whom the bell tolls," Neil Godbout editorial.

To suggest that because the attorney generals for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton did not intervene during the Iran-Contra and Monica Lewinsky scandals means Jody Wilson-Raybould was right not to intervene in the SNC Lavalin decision is not only a bad faith argument, it is an apples and oranges comparison.

The former were clearly criminal acts; the latter was nothing of the sort.

No sex or no money changed hands.

Rather, the SNC affair demonstrated that though bright and willing, JWR was underqualified for such an important position of justice minister and it was a bold and risky political move by Justin Trudeau to appoint her.

What made the SNC affair sadder was the other important and oft-forgotten fact, that the SNC was a side issue for Wilson-Raybould, which conveniently fit into her resistance to get her way on other matters.

Her emails to Butts released to the justice committee revealed she left discussions about SNC to staff and indicated to Butts her real interest was Indigenous litigation rights and was peeved that the PMO had not signed off on her new litigation directive to Crown prosecutor.

Going out the door of Justice, her Jan 11 thunderclap announcement of a new litigation directive for all Crown prosecutors to seek out of court settlements with aboriginal litigates signalled her real intent.

Last June, she refused to appear before the Senate committee to discuss (educate herself) on the new deferred prosecution legislation, because she was too busy.

Her concern to save the PM from potential scandal actually foreshadowed events she herself set in motion. After the initial leak about undue pressure, she could have doused the leak by saying nothing illegal happened.

Instead she fanned the leak into a public drama and climbed out on a limb of righteousness from which she ultimately fell, taking her friend Jane Philpott with her because of her faulty legal interpretation and hubris.

John Donne, my favourite 17th century poet, was a religious man whose poem "for whom the bells toll" is one of many meditations he wrote.

However Godbout has it wrong. This meditation is an expression about man's potential hubris.

"No man is an island" and we are all part of mankind, he wrote. "Any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." (all of us).

To succeed we must engage, to be a part of, not stand alone.

Jon Peter Christoff

West Kelowna