Canada's Liberal Government of Justin Trudeau

"There's never been two resignations in recent memory of people resigning on principle ... together."
"The difference here is that Trudeau explicitly promised in the last election to do business differently than previous governments [transparency, equality, ministers free to run their departments free from prime ministerial interference]."
"In the past, one of the things -- and there are exceptions to this -- that would have characterized the cabinet appointment would have been, at a minimum, vetting for pretty severe levels of loyalty to the party. In this case, that wasn't something the prime minister prioritized when he put his cabinet together."
"[Wilson-Raybould and Philpott hadn't been] socialized to that norm [of the leader-centric model that Trudeau has claimed he rejected]. When he tried to tell them what to do on a particular issue, they just said no."
Chris Cochrane, politics professor, University of Toronto

"Secret in-camera meetings or private notices should not be a shield to prevent the upholding of the law and members' [Members of Parliament] rights."
"We were expelled prior to the commencement of the Liberal caucus meeting. The prime minister's words that night to the Liberal caucus are important to underscore, because expulsion should not be his decision to take unilaterally. However, the decision had been already made."
"This is a constitutional convention [one codified in the Parliament of Canada Act]."
"[Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to eject former cabinet ministers Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus represented] a breach of the Parliament of Canada Act."
Former Minister of Health and Treasury Board President Dr. Jane Philpott

Former cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott have been expelled from the Liberal caucus. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Dr. Philpott, now sitting as an Independent in the House of Commons since last week being ejected from the Liberal caucus by Justin Trudeau, and refused, along with Jody Wilson-Raybould, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, to run in the forthcoming federal election as Liberals as they had intended, accuses the Liberals of having failed to hold a legally required caucus vote in the wake of the 2015 election in recognition of expulsions from caucus, upholding the reality that MPs are not accountable to the party leader; the leader is accountable to Members of Parliament.

But then, bypassing legalities, particularly those that were passed into law by the previous Conservative-led government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is a favourite with this parliament. When Justin Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister he intended to fashion a new Canada and began by re-naming government departments to better reflect his agenda and his 'new direction' for Canada, while ironically proclaiming when abroad to his G-20 peers, "Canada is Back!"

He meant, of course, Liberal-led Canada. And like his father before him, his Canada would be socialist, progressive in orientation, with a kind eye toward repressive, socialist countries like China and Cuba. Trudeau was anxious to make his mark on the world stage and he began by demonstrating how cheerfully Canadian he is, open to progressive idealism that embraced the world at large, women and labour, the environment and refugees, Indigenous Canadians and the LGBTQ-2 community in an equal and open setting of mutual admiration.

He set out to cut a dashing figure in India, and succeeded. He somehow managed to ally himself repeatedly with those suspected of terrorist activities, sympathetically offering them 'understanding' and Canadian tax awards to ameliorate hurt feelings. He endeared himself to minority enclaves and brought into his cabinet ministers born in Afghanistan and Somalia, authorized to act in the very best interests of their adopted country. Muslims have pride of place in the Liberal caucus and "Islamophobia" does not.

Although the previous cabinet under Stephen Harper's Conservatives had almost equal representation between men and women, Justin Trudeau was quick to strut with pride and exclaim his 'feminist' credentials for dividing positions equally between men and women, issues such as experience and qualifications set aside as irrelevant. At every turn Trudeau made a concerted effort to set aside anything the previous government had brought into law, including the aforementioned Parliament of Canada Act with its amendment to decentralize political power back into the hands of ordinary legislators.

The deposed Wilson-Raybould had been a Crown prosecutor, a treaty commissioner, the regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations when she was crowned by Justin Trudeau as the first Aboriginal woman to hold the cabinet post of Minister of Justice. She has testified that she was hounded aggressively by order of the prime minister to have her change her mind about not instructing the prosecution service to offer engineering-construction giant SNC Lavalin a deferred prosecution rather than a criminal trial. She refused and was removed from her post.

Dr. Philpott's career was as a family doctor, an associate professor at University of Toronto, with advocacy work for HIV/AIDS in Africa in her portfolio. She decided to support Jody Wilson-Raybould with whom she had worked in close collaboration while both were in Cabinet, protesting that she had been dealt with unethically and unfairly, and calling upon the prime minister to do the honourable thing and admit his culpability. She resigned her post voluntarily, after Wilson-Raybould had resigned from her brief stint as Minister of Veterans Affairs to emphasize her claims of political interference.

There is a mystery to all of this. The Liberal caucus embarked on a smear-whisper campaign against both these women who have stood their ground, demanding accountability of the prime minister and his loyal henchmen for having pressured Wilson-Raybould to accede to Justin Trudeau's plan to save SNC-Lavalin from a criminal trial and the fall-out from conviction which would eliminate SNC from any government contracts for a decade, to which the company threatened a move of its corporate offices abroad, and the relinquishing of Canadian jobs.

Given the extent of what the public knows now about the behind-the-scenes, unethical behaviour and bullying on the part of the prime minister and his flunkies, and the associated condemnatory behaviour of the Liberal caucus in standing firm behind the prime minister as they are expected to do as ideologues and participants in a personality cult of a leader who will not be denied his way, why would both these women who resigned and spoke the truth on a matter of conscience and principle, insist they must be reinstated as Liberals?

• Jody Wilson-Raybould (far left) and Jane Philpott (second from left) were illegally bounced out of caucus without a vote, contends long-time Vancouver Liberal Bert Paul. MCPL MATHIEU GAUDREAULT, RIDEAU HALL