Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will try to shift the focus from the SNC-Lavalin affair to his preferred campaign battleground -- climate change -- with the release this week of the Liberal party's first election-year ads.
Radio ads will air in the four provinces where the federal government is imposing a carbon tax after their conservative provincial governments refused to levy their own price on carbon: Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick.
According to the ads, an average family of four will receive more than $600 this year in Saskatchewan, more than $300 in Ontario and Manitoba and more than $250 in New Brunswick."We have a strong plan to fight it, one that leading scientists and economists support. It makes polluters pay and gives the money back to people."
The first payments will be visible to residents in the four provinces when they file their taxes this spring -- in plenty of time to register with voters before they head to the polls in October. In bombshell testimony before the House of Commons justice committee last week, former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould said she was improperly pressured last fall by the Prime Minister's Office, the finance minister's office and the country's top public servant to prevent a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
It is legally permissible for the attorney general to override the director of public prosecutions. Wilson-Raybould has said she considered the pressure on her to do so "inappropriate," although she concedes it was not illegal.
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