Jodi Wilson-Raybould, in an open letter to her constituents, has announced she isn’t running in the next federal election. And she clearly states that the decision was not made ” to spend more time with my family or to focus on other challenges and pursuits.”

Wilson-Raybould accused the Prime Minister and top officials at SNC-Lavalin’s criminal court case of pressuring her to cut the company a deal to avoid being prosecuted for the alleged bribery of Libyan officials. She was kicked out of caucus and then ran as an Independent MP which is how she has been serving the Vancouver-Granville constituency ever since. Wilson-Raybould describes Parliament in the last six years as a regression, “It has become more and more toxic and ineffective while simultaneously marginalizing individuals from certain backgrounds. Federal politics is, in my view, increasingly a disgraceful triumph of harmful partisanship over substantive action.”

She says the crisis isn’t about individual  people in politics but the way democracy is practiced in Canada, the privileges given to political parties, the out of date first-past-the-post-electoral-system, the power of the prime minister, and she referenced the centralization of power in the hands of those who are unelected.

Jodi Wilson Raybould says, “The erosion of governing principles and conventions to the point where there are limited or no consequences for wrongful acts undertaken for political benefit. The lack of courage to speak the truth and the failure of bystanders to support those who do.”