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Five (other) times Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau made bad headlines
- Trudeau’s Liberal government has been rocked by a snowballing scandal, which has triggered the resignation of two ministers and badly tarnished the image of the golden boy premier
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in a political pickle. Trudeau and his team are accused of pressuring Canada’s first indigenous attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to make a deal with a Quebec-based engineering firm, and of demoting her when she refused.
The firm, SNC-Lavalin, was accused of paying bribes to get Libyan government contracts. The deal would have allowed the firm to avoid criminal conviction. If convicted, the firm would have been banned from receiving federal contracts for a decade.
SNC-Lavalin employs thousands in Quebec, Trudeau’s home province, and Wilson-Raybould said Trudeau worried about people losing those jobs.
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Jane Philpott, another senior member of team Trudeau, resigned Monday. Gerald Butts, a top Trudeau aide, resigned last week, and delivered testimony Wednesday. Some are wondering whether Trudeau himself will be able to hang on.
The whole story is particularly scandalous because Trudeau, elected in 2015, was a media darling for years, perceived as a champion of women and indigenous rights.
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Though this is arguably the first time Trudeau’s golden boy status has been tarnished, the shine had faded a few times before. Below, a look at Trudeau’s previous – albeit far lower stakes – scandals.
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