Who Really Runs the Trudeau Government? | Celina Caesar-Chavannes

Okay, so two questions. Then we'll go in two directions from that. The first question is, like, who is running the show as far as you're concerned in the Trudeau government, or who was then? And maybe it's Trudeau, but maybe it isn't. I'm curious about that. I mean, I've heard from other people that I've talked to that he is markedly absent during discussions of ideal significance, let's say. He's not particularly interested in policy; he's not interested in the details of governing. Now, I don't know that to be true, and so that's part of the reason I wanted to talk to you.

I also want to know once you realized who you're actually responsible to. You know, which is a very good realization, right, in a democratic system to remember that. I can understand perfectly well why you would have forgotten that, given the glamour and glitter around the dawning days and your relative inexperience. So then once you came to that realization, what changed? How did you start doing things differently, and what happened?

So let's do the first thing first. Who is running the show or who was running the show as far as you're concerned, and what did that mean?

Yeah, so as far as running the show, I think most Canadians would remember that when Harper was the prime minister, people kept saying that the prime minister's office was really centralized; all decisions were made there. Nothing changed with Trudeau. It was the central office; it was his principal secretaries, Jerry Budd and Katie Telford, that were primarily running the show. I don’t think I’m the only one that would say this. I think, you know, Bill Morneau left, said the same thing; others have left and said the same thing. So don’t—this is not a sanitized perspective. This is something that I witnessed, and I think it's actually true.

When it comes to, you know, after the incident with Jody Wilson-Raybould, when Jerry Budd stepped down, I thought he was the only adult in the room. When he stepped down, it became very apparent that things were going to get a lot worse before they got a lot better. We could talk about that later.

What happened after I made that recognition was I did things completely differently. I still kept getting into a lot of trouble for things, but at this point, I was doing it for the right reasons, without getting into good trouble. Oftentimes, you'd be given a speech and said, "Here, read the speech. Say what's on the speech and don’t deviate." I’d say, "Forget it. I'm not saying what's on this speech. This speech has nothing to do with the people of Whitby, it has nothing to do with the people that I serve."

Tell me the three things that you want me to say that are really important; I'll say those. But I need to make sure that I'm representing Whit. So, I'd write my own speeches. I'd make sure I'd say them in French and English because I didn't want anybody to knock me for it. I really made sure that I wasn't doing the cookie-cutter politician move where you'd see one person send out a tweet, and everybody's tweet looks exactly the same. That wasn't me. I was very clear to make sure that the people of Whit knew that I was serving them. If I couldn't tweak the messaging, I posted nothing.

I think towards the end—especially in March of 2019—I just decided that I was not going to let the actions of one person dictate how I left government. I was not going to let Justin Trudeau continue to present himself as this sunny ways, great politician when I knew that he was the emperor with no clothes on.

So what did you do about that? You had some famous blowups as you departed from the political scene. Now, this is reminiscent—you mentioned Bill Morneau and Jody Wilson-Raybould. Another reason I wanted to talk to you is because you know three establishes a pattern, and there seems to be a very close affinity—maybe I'm wrong about that—but from the outside, a close affinity between what happened with Morneau and what happened with Raybould and what happened with you. That’s three.

So maybe you could let everybody who’s watching and listening know about these other people that departed and why you think that happened. Also, tell us when you decided to speak in your own voice again, given that you weren't given the opportunity to speak as the press secretary anyway. Tell us what happened with Bill Morneau and Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Then also what happened to you when you started to reclaim your territory, let's say?

Yes, yes. So it didn’t start with us, though. I want to be very clear: Leona Alleslev left way before—a decorated military person who decided to leave and cross the floor to the conservatives really early in our mandate because she was so disenfranchised with the Prime Minister.

Other people left; Eva Nassif also left because of the bullying that she received within the party. So there were a few people. So it's not just three. By the time Jane Philpott, a decorated medical professional, left, we were way beyond threes at that point. So yes, yes.

There were quite a few. I would say for me, I didn't have to have a public blowup with the Prime Minister when I told him that I was leaving in early March of 2019. I was very clear, for all of the reasons that we discussed before—feeling tokenized, not getting the support of the Prime Minister, just being very much marginalized within a liberal. Which makes me so upset because it's one thing to say, you know, you did some missteps, but I felt duped by a party that I really thought understood what it meant to be center, understood what it meant to have equity and justice—what it meant to have those things, and to be disenfranchised by them because I wanted more for the people that I served was disenfranchising for me.

Yes, it was definitely. That is the word—thank you very much. That is actually the word: betrayal.

So I called the Prime Minister and I said, "Look, I'm not running again." I didn't even have to give him a reason; I just said I'm not running again. It's four years; I'm not getting a pension; I'm not getting anything. I just don't want to do this.

First, he said, well, that was the same day that Jody Wilson-Raybould had stepped down. He couldn’t afford to have two women of color leave the same day. That's what he told you?

Really? Like, dude, that's not my problem. That was his first response to your—

Yes.

Okay, so I'm going to play psychologist here for a minute. Because that's really not— that’s seriously not good—right? Because if he was a wise man and if he was a mature man, he would have understood that you put your—you divested yourself of your business; your life took quite a turn. And that even if you two didn’t get along, the fact that you’d been in government for only four years and you were leaving without running for re-election without a pension meant you were going back to square one in many ways.

So the first thing he should have said, even if he would have been somewhat truly self-aware and still putting his own interests first, he should have at least had the bloody sense to act as if he cared about what you were telling him. The fact that his first response was, I’m dead serious about that— like, even if he was faking it, you know, even if he was a wise faker, the first thing he should have done was say something like, "Well, you know, I know we’ve had our differences. I really appreciate your service; you put an awful lot on the line for this. It's really unfortunate it didn't work out. Is there anything I can do for you to make your departure more straightforward? I wish we could have worked together more sincerely."

Definitely, definitely.

And then, if he was a genuine human being, so to speak, that would have actually bothered him. But the fact that he came out and said, "I can't afford to have two women of color leave the same day"—all that means is that every single thing that you regarded was as a betrayal was, in fact, a betrayal.

Absolutely, that's absolutely inexcusable.

But wait, there’s more—that’s not all he said. That was the first thing he said. So I said, "You know, Justin, perhaps if not today or tomorrow or at some point in the future—you’ll understand the level of sacrifice that I’ve made to be in this role." I repeated it again: "Not today or tomorrow, but someday, I hope you understand the level of sacrifice."

And then he was not happy with that. He said, "Oh my God, oh my God, Selena, I can’t believe that you’re talking about my privilege!" I was like, "What?" He said, "You know," he started talking about the fact that he has, you know, had death threats too. And in my mind, I’m going, "But you have an RCMP detail. When my kids had death threats, I didn’t have anybody!" Right? Like, so there’s a lot of stuff missing from this story, Jordan, that you’re not—I’m not putting out.

But he went on and on about how I needed to appreciate him because he came to the riding during the by-election and how I should be, you know, grateful to him. And I just was like, "Oh hell no!" I said a few choice words to him after that because I lost it at that point.

And, yeah, what did you say? You can tone it down. What were you conveying, put it that way?

I was conveying that I wanted him to know who did he think he was speaking to. Like, I'm not a child; I'm not someone that he could just reprimand. I'm a colleague, and as a person in a professional capacity, if he went off the way he did with me on someone else, he would have been taken straight to HR. That doesn’t happen because he has parliamentary privilege, and so he’s able to get away with those kinds of things. And I wanted to make him darn sure that he was not going to get away with it with me.

And I knew that he called on the prime minister's line, and so I know that whatever I'm saying that happened in this exchange is recorded somewhere. So I told him absolutely not: "You are never going to speak to me like that again."

At the same time, though, Jordan, that would have stayed completely quiet. I would have never mentioned that I had that phone call with the Prime Minister ever until the issue with Jody Wilson-Raybould came up.

And go through that?

Yes. And so Jody Wilson-Raybould, for those who don't know, was the first indigenous Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. A decorated lawyer—a really, really, really admirable, smart person. When you talk about merit, absolutely has the merit for the job.

Now, whether or not you like what she did within the context of this situation is irrelevant to me. The fact that the Prime Minister's Office pressured her to do something that she knew would get her possibly disbarred—and that the Ethics Commissioner found the Prime Minister in breach of and actually wrong for pressuring her to allow this company to pressure her into doing something— is quite telling.

So she was actually in the right by not taking the pressure or advice of the Prime Minister. But that’s not the point. The point is, after this all happened with Jody, she was being pressured to do something that she knew was unethical, was wrong by legal standards.

She said she wasn’t going to do it; she stepped down. She was demoted first, then she stepped down as Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and then she was thrown out of the party—her and Jane Philpott.

Jane Philpott, again, a decorated medical doctor who was the Minister of Health, the President of the Treasury Board, and another ministry within our government. The Prime Minister, after that, decided that he was going to go on national television and apologize to Canadians for the kerfuffle that was happening within his government.

He said the words, and I’m being—I’m going to misquote here, so we could look up the words at some point. But he said, "I want Canadians to know that my office door is open and it is available for anyone to come in, and that I treat everyone with basically kindness and respect in sunny ways."

I listened to that and I said, "Absolutely not!" I had the first phone call with him in which he raked me over the coals for not appreciating him, although I had sacrificed just as much as he did and did exactly what he did to get to his position. I ran; I was elected. He just had a different title.

We both worked hard, but I needed to appreciate him for whatever reason. He raked me over the coals for that.

And then the second time I went to him, after that meeting, I said, "I was going to go to him and say, ‘Look, you know what? We both said things we didn’t mean on that phone call. Let’s try to—"

This is the last call that you described, that’s correct.

The last phone call. I went to him after that, and just like I'm sitting across from you now, I said, "Let’s be adults here. We said some things we didn't mean, let's move it along."

The level of contempt and almost hatred that he approached me with—I have never felt more scared in my life of someone to be in a room with.

And I knew that wounded narcissism—oh no, I have not—rings a bell, no?

Well, beware of it, seriously.

So, okay, okay, so that’s a very—that's a hell of a thing to say. Seriously, that's quite a thing to say that you were afraid.

Okay, so I want to know why. Why were you afraid?

That’s a—yes, because that’s look, that’s a whole different level of anything that you’ve revealed so far, right? The worst thing that you’ve really revealed so far is the last conversation that you had with him where you both lost your temper and exchanged some harsh words, right? And there was all this strangeness surrounding Raybould and Morneau at that time too. But now you go there in an attempt to—what would you say? I wouldn’t say smooth over the waters.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. Put some putty on it or something, right?

Right, right. Well, people get upset and they say things that are emotional and then they can have a calm discussion about it, and set things moderately right so they can go ahead. But you said there was a terrible tension in the room that you associated with both contempt—and that’s not good.

Contempt is a very, very dangerous emotion.

So married couples going for counseling who roll their eyes at one another have about a 99% chance of being divorced in the next year. Contempt is not good.

And contempt plus hatred, that’s seriously not good.

And contempt, hatred, plus fear in the target—that’s really not good.

Okay, so now tell me exactly what transpired in that meeting and why you had that reaction.