Safeguarding Canadian Jobs : Manipulating Voter Selection

"I and my team always acted in an appropriate and professional manner. So I am not in agreement with the characterization of events that the former attorney general gave in her testimony."
"We have always defended and looked to protect jobs in Canada and we will always do so."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gives remarks at the Labourers' International Union of North America, Local 183 Stewards Seminar in Toronto on Saturday, February 23, 2019.  (Christopher Katsarov / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

"I never raised this issue [proffering a Deferred Prosecution Agreement to SNC-Lavalin to avoid a criminal trial for fraud and corruption] with Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould. She approached me to tell me that my staff was approaching her staff, which I think is entirely appropriate."
"My staff, appropriately, would make her staff aware of the economic consequences of decisions, about the importance of thinking about jobs."
"She is entitled to her opinion."
Bill Morneau, Minister of Finance

"[Was it empathy for workers that led Trudeau to save SNC-Lavalin?] No. Because Justin needs votes in Quebec to win his next election."
"Imagine if [former Conservative Prime Minister] Stephen Harper acted that way. The Red Cross would have to send doctors to Radio-Canada [French-language CBC] to treat journalist victims of apoplexy."
"[If Quebecers continue supporting Trudeau now, in spite of this attack on the independence of the justice system] we are imbeciles."
Journalist Richard Martineau, Le Journal de Québec

"At that point [Trudeau] jumped in, stressing that there is an election in Quebec and that 'I am an MP in Quebec -- the member for Papineau'. I was quite taken aback. My response, and I vividly remember this as well, was to ask [Trudeau] a direct question while looking him in the eye. I asked: 'Are you politically interfering with my role, my decision as the attorney general? I would strongly advise against it'. The Prime Minister said, 'No, no, no -- we just need to find a solution."
"He [Finance Minister Morneau] again stressed the need to save jobs and I told him that engagements from his office to mine on SNC [Lavalin] had to stop, that they were inappropriate."
Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal Member of Parliament for Vancouver-Granville, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Thos cartoon appeared in the March 1 issue of Journal de Montreal. (Ygreck/Journal de Montreal)

A political bombshell was dropped over Parliament, the Government of Canada and the country at large on Wednesday when former Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould, removed from her position weeks after she had informed Prime Minister Trudeau and all his subordinates who had incessantly hounded her to have her overrule her Director of Public Prosecutions in advising SNC-Lavalin, facing a criminal trial for corporate malfeasance that her directorate would not agree to a DPA which would permit the Quebec-based engineering and construction firm to plead guilty, pay a fine, assure its corporate culture swore off fraud and bribery to allow it to get on with its customary bidding for governmental projects.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould was enabled in her testimony before the Commons Justice Committee hearings to unburden herself of the stress of carrying her indignation and outrage at her Liberal colleagues beleaguering her to bypass the rule of law to satisfy the electoral chances of re-election in October for the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues. They stressed the need to be a 'team player' by circumventing a law the previous government had installed to ensure that such scandalous Liberal illegal activities would not re-occur, by separating the Prosecutor's Office from the executive branch of government to make the former independent of the latter's potential interference.

As former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, this was a law that Ms. Wilson-Raybould was committed to upholding in the prosecution of her office. An office which in theory, was supposed to be free of any measure of interference by the Prime Minister or any members of the government, a code that they all breached with thoughts of impunity. A penalty was exacted upon the former Minister of Justice when it became evident she had no intention of doing their bidding to ensure a corrupt business venture's release from justice would result in the restoration of plentiful votes in Quebec.

SNC-Lavalin employs 50,000 people globally in its vast outreach as a competitive construction conglomerate, and 9,000 in Canada, almost 5,000 in Quebec alone. Canada's oil and gas industry whose economic value to the Canadian economy is vastly greater, employing far more workers directly and indirectly in the field and associated spin-offs, has faced resistance from this government, loathe to support the extraction and export of Canadian fossil fuels, preferring to import Saudi oil over providing Western Canadian fuel to eastern Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau's constant mantra of devotion to Canadian jobs rings hollow in light of reality.

SNC-Lavalin entered a "voluntary reimbursement program" with the Quebec government "to ensure mainly the recovery of amounts improperly paid as a result of fraud or fraudulent tactics in connection with public contracts". Once paid back the "participants could obtain a discharge that protected them from civil proceedings for fraud or fraudulent tactics", enabling them to continue bidding for government contracts. So much for changing the corporate giant's business culture.

In 2015 SMC-Lavalin and the African Development Bank Group reached a settlement "regarding allegations of sanctionable practices" by a company subsidiary in relation to two AfDE-financed projects, one located in Uganda, the second in Mozambique. The agreement "resolves allegations uncontested by the company of illicit payments ordered by former SNC International Inc. employees to public officials in order to secure contracts". "A conditional non-debarment for a period of two years and 10 months" ensued with the repayment of $1.5 million.

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. was forced to reimburse $117,803 in illegal contributions to the Liberal Party of Canada, to various Liberal riding associations and contestants in the Liberal Party's leadership race of 2006. The reimbursement was to its own employees for company-ordered contributions. The World Bank debarred SNC-Lavalin and 100 of its affiliates for a ten-year period in reflection of its corrupt business practices related to "the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project in Bangladesh" along with misconduct relating to another World Bank-financed Rural Electrification and Transmission project in Cambodia.

Its grasping, twisting tentacles reach near and far.

The currently-approaching criminal trials where the company is charged with fraud and corruption dates back to 2000 - 2011 for bribery to the value of $48-million in payoffs to corrupt Libyan officials in exchange for Libyan construction contracts, now awaiting trial in two Canadian courts. Despite all of this damning reality, several months after the Liberals assumed power in government, it signed an "administrative agreement" with SNC-Lavalin, giving it the freedom to bid and win contracts even though these criminal charges were pending.

An agreement, according to the federal Public Services and Procurement branch, particular to SNC-Lavalin, representing the only supplier in Canada fortunate enough to have been signed to such an agreeable compact.

Trudeau refuses opposition demand to recall Parliament over SNC-Lavalin affair

Stepping out: Trudeau will be far from Ottawa as the MPs look into the allegations; he is expected to attend a climate-change rally in Toronto Monday evening, the start of a number of events planned across the country next week.  (Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS)