Vancouver MP Joyce Murray named Treasury Board President

Thestar.com
March 19, 2019
Alex Ballingall and Susan Delacourt

Vancouver MP Joyce Murray is the newest member of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, as the Liberal government continues to grapple with the fallout of the SNC-Lavalin controversy.

She was named Treasury Board President and Minister of Digital government in a ceremony at Rideau Hall Monday morning.

The prime minister was forced to fill the position for the second time this year, after Markham--Stouffville MP Jane Philpott resigned as Treasury Board president in February, citing “serious concerns” over the allegations of political interference in the criminal case against the Montreal-based engineering giant.

Murray, a former provincial environment minister in British Columbia and MP for Vancouver Quadra since 2008, will be familiar with the work at Treasury Board, given that she was the parliamentary secretary in that portfolio since the Trudeau government took power in 2015. She was the runner-up in the 2013 Liberal leadership race that Trudeau won, and championed electoral reform during that contest, a policy that Trudeau went on to promise during the 2015 election only to abandon after he became prime minister.

She also opposed the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion, a massive infrastructure project the Trudeau government continues to promote in the face of opposition from environmentalists and some Indigenous communities. Earlier this month, she told the Tyee she was “very committed” to persuading Trudeau to abandon the pipeline expansion, because she shares concerns over the project’s impact on marine life -- especially the endangered southern resident killer whales off the B.C. coast -- and Indigenous opposition.

The Liberal government bought the pipeline for $4.4 billion last year, and has repeatedly pledged it will get built.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Julie Payette pose with Joyce Murray (middle) after Murray was sworn in as Treasury Board President during a cabinet shuffle at Rideau Hall Monday.

Speaking to reporters after she was sworn in, Murray said she is honoured to assume the role at Trudeau’s cabinet table, and said key files in her new job will be handling collective bargaining with public sector unions and working on the difficulties created by the bungled Phoenix pay system.

She also underscored her previously stated position that -- while she opposed the Trans Mountain expansion -- she will “never accept” arguments that the project is bad for the global climate. That’s because federal support for the project helped spur Alberta to sign on to the Trudeau government’s pan-Canadian climate plan that includes a requirement for carbon pricing nationwide, she said.

Murray also reiterated her support for Trudeau amidst the SNC-Lavalin affair.

“We are all very united in the important work that is being done,” she said.

Murray’s ascension to cabinet marked the third cabinet shuffle in three months for the Liberal government, and came the same day that Canada’s top public servant Michael Wernick -- accused by the opposition of pro-Liberal testimony in his denials of wrongdoing in the SNC-Lavalin affair -- announced he will resign as clerk of the Privy Council.

The latest cabinet move comes after Trudeau’s first Treasury Board president, Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison, announced in January that he would leave politics to spend more time with family. In response, Trudeau moved Jody Wilson-Raybould to veterans affairs from her post as justice minister and attorney general. Montreal MP David Lametti replaced her in that position, while three other MPs were sworn into new positions at the Liberal cabinet table.

But weeks later, in the wake of the first report of the SNC-Lavalin controversy Feb. 7, Wilson-Raybould abruptly resigned from cabinet, forcing Trudeau to make further changes. On March 1, the prime minister shuffled his cabinet again, naming longtime Liberal MP Lawrence MacAuley as veterans affairs minister, moving Marie-Claude Bibeau to agriculture, and adding the international development portfolio to status of women minister Maryam Monsef.

Philpott created the latest cabinet vacancy by resigning just three days later. She said in a statement at the time that it was “untenable” for her to stay in cabinet because she had “serious concerns” about Wilson-Raybould’s allegation that Trudeau and officials in the PMO and finance minister’s office inappropriately pressured her to drop a criminal prosecution against SNC-Lavalin last fall.

Trudeau and his former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, have denied Wilson-Raybould’s allegations and have repeatedly said the prime minister and his officials have done nothing wrong. Trudeau has pointed to the almost 9,000 Canadians employed by SNC-Lavalin, and said discussions about stopping the criminal case against the company last fall were over concern about the economic impact of a conviction.

Such a result could bar SNC-Lavalin from bidding on federal contracts for 10 years. The company reaped 31 per cent of its global revenue from Canada in 2017, according to its latest annual report, but will not say what share of that comes from government contracts.

The company has pushed for a “deferred prosecution agreement,” a new legal tool created by the Trudeau government last year to allow corporations accused of crimes to admit wrongdoing, pay fines and agree to co-operate with authorities.

In the wake of Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, Trudeau admitted there was a breakdown in communications that may have led to the former attorney general feeling pressured to give SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement last fall.

Murray told reporters Monday that she has no outstanding questions about the controversy and that she supports Trudeau in his pledge to work on improving communication within the Liberal caucus.

“I have expressed my confidence in our prime minister and my support for the work that we are doing,” she said.