A Governmental Scandal Swallowing Justin Trudeau

"It is my conclusion and my assertion based on all the information that I have that there was no inappropriate pressure on the Minister of Justice in this matter."
"I conveyed to her [former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould] that a lot of her colleagues and the prime minister were quite anxious about what they were hearing and reading in the business press about the future of the company [SNC Lavalin, Quebec-based engineering giant], the options that were being openly discussed in the business press about the company moving or closing."
"So I can tell you with complete assurance that my view of those conversations is that they were within the boundaries of what's lawful and appropriate; I was informing the minister of context."
"She may have another view of the conversation, but that's something that the ethics commissioner could sort out."
"I am here to say to you that The Globe and Mail article [that first raised the alert over political interference in Canada's justice system] contains errors, unfounded speculation, and in some cases is simply defamatory."
"I worry about the rising tides of incitements to violence when people use terms like 'treason' and traitor' in open discourse. These are the words that lead to assassination."
Michael Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council

Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould attend a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

The Quebec-based engineering and construction company SNC-Lavalin Inc. with its global reach employing an estimated 50,000 workers internationally and just under ten thousand throughout Canada, has been growing its business exponentially, with the aid of millions it has paid out in bribes to foreign authorities to enable it to win contracts abroad. Quebec itself has a wholly-deserved-and-earned reputation for graft and criminal proceedings in its own construction projects; this fast-and-loose business atmosphere seems congenital.

SNC-Lavalin is facing a trial it would much rather not be involved in, since the evidence available will assuredly ensure that it will be found guilty of criminal offences under Canada's laws penalizing Canadian corporations that bribe foreign officials. Should it indeed be found guilty, under that law which will exact a financial penalty, the other, far more injurious penalty to the company will be shutting it out of the privilege of bidding for government contracts within Canada for a decade.

Executives with the company undertook to lobby the prime minister's office and any other Members of Parliament that could be useful to their case of avoiding trial; no fewer than 50 high-level lobbying meetings took place. The company lobbied for an act of Parliament to bring in a dispute resolution, effectively a remediation agreement that would allow the company to evade trial, plead guilty, pay a fine and promise to reform its corrupt business practices.

That convention, otherwise called a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), was tucked into an omnibus economic bill presented to Parliament, but never identified much less debated, and was approved along with the complex add-on bill. Leading SNC-Lavalin to believe they were 'home-free'. But the Public Prosecution Service informed them that a trial was set to proceed nonetheless. The-then Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould refused to intervene, preferring for justice to take its course.

Despite which, she was pressured on a number of occasions by the prime minister's chief adviser, Gerry Butts, the prime minister himself, and eventually the Clerk of the Privy Council, a civil servant who had reached the pinnacle of civil service as head of the entire civil service, a non-elected official taking it upon himself to lecture an elected Member of Parliament and one of the most senior of the government's Cabinet Ministers. A man who spoke, astoundingly, of the danger of 'assassination'.

The DPA is clearly not meant to be utilized as a get-out-of-jail-free passport to any company which, like SNC-Lavalin has engaged in truly criminally egregious business practices that embroiled their top executives in handing out millions in bribes to foreign movers-and-shakers for lucrative contracts. In any event, one of the issues that the DPA warns it cannot be used for, is the protection of jobs. In that the issue of supporting employment is a non-starter in evaluating who may qualify for a DPA.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, under questioning by the official opposition and other political parties, much less journalists, continues to engage in circumlocution rather than respond directly to the questions put to him, questions such as why it was that he chose to yank a Minister of Justice whom he assured a decision on the matter was hers to make, out of the ministry and given instead a relatively minor ministry of Veterans Affairs. 

The timeline of meetings that took place between himself, the former Attorney General, his principal secretary Mr. Butts, (now resigned, falling on his sword as Trudeau's confidant and chief adviser; his Eminence Grise), and the Clerk of the Privy Council and the pressure placed on the Attorney General speak volumes of the government's desire to avoid a trial for an influential Quebec company at a time when a federal election looms close on the horizon, and Quebec votes are in danger of wavering should SNC-Lavalin face a guilty verdict.

The Prime Minister, his confidant Mr. Butts and Canada's senior civil servant all stressed the potential loss of thousands of jobs should SNC-Lavalin go under. They're talking about a possible 10,000 jobs nation-wide. On the other hand, Justin Trudeau's complete disinterest in building badly needed pipelines to ship Alberta oil to foreign destinations, much less to Eastern Canada to replace Saudi oil imports has resulted in a shutdown of investment and the loss of an estimated 100,000 jobs in the oil industry in Western Canada.

A government is meant to unify a country in a common purpose. Where's the justice?

SNC posted gloomy quarterly earnings that showed the company lost $1.6 billion in the past three months. (Christinne Muschi/Reuters)

"This is a crisis that has become all about Justin Trudeau. He has badly mishandled the affair from the beginning, driving one of his most important cabinet appointments into a rebellion over who is to be believed."
"He has undermined his oft-repeated claims of devotion to a feminist agenda and Indigenous reconciliation. He is seeking to control the damage via a wall of silence that belies his pledge of an open and transparent administration. He is forcing members of his caucus to choose sides, putting their fear of public fallout against the words of a colleague whose job was to protect and follow the law."
"And he has yet to answer why he demoted Wilson-Raybould from her job after she stood up to him. If not as punishment, then why? And if it was indeed punishment, what does that say about Justin Trudeau, his respect for women, and all the talk of higher principles we've had from this government?"
Kelly McParland, journalist, National Post

'Our employees are being used as the puck in a political hockey game,' Neil Bruce says   
Neil Bruce has been CEO of SNC Lavalin since 2015. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)