Two noteworthy revelations in the SNC-Lavalin scandal have come to light. The first deals with impropriety, and the second with what can only be called corporate extortion.
First, The Star reports the following:
As former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould debated whether to intervene in the corruption prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, she received legal advice from her department that underscored what an unprecedented move that would be.Compounding the impropriety of the Trudeau government putting pressure on Wilson-Raybould to direct the Public Prosecutor to enter into a Deferred
The legal advice prepared by the department set out her possible options on the SNC-Lavalin prosecution, including the ability to seek outside legal advice, but it stressed that no chief prosecutor has ever intervened in a specific case, and that any decision to intervene must be “hers alone.”
“Any decisions by the Attorney General of Canada are hers to make, independent of political considerations or processes, and in the public eye,” the document states.
Prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavlin is the revelation in documents obtained by The Canadian Press of the extortionate measures by the company to get what it wanted:
The documents... describe something called “Plan B” — what Montreal-based SNC might have to do if it can’t convince the government to grant a so-called remediation agreement to avoid criminal proceedings in a fraud and corruption case related to projects in Libya.A recent news report, which I am not currently able to find online, cited the commitment that SNC-Lavalin made to stay in Quebec after receiving a huge loan/grant from the Quebec government, so clearly, this threat was a thuggish bluff. As well, as I outlined in a recent post, there is plenty of current work federally for the company, even if it is barred for 10 years from bidding on federal contracts, and nothing in a conviction would prevent it from getting provincial contracts, of which it also currently has many.
Under that plan, SNC would move its Montreal headquarters and corporate offices in Ontario and Quebec to the U.S. within a year, cutting its workforce to just 3,500 from 8,717, before eventually winding up its Canadian operations.
“The government of Canada needs to weigh the public interest impact of the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin,“ the presentation reads.
The company’s board and senior management were prepared to quickly bundle parts of the business that had no role in the Libya case into a new entity, putting the “trio of possibly convicted entities” into another organization that would operate “on a reduced business level in Canada or heading into eventual wind-up,” they read.
The details appear to contradict public statements by chief executive officer Neil Bruce, who has denied both that the company threatened to move its headquarters, and that the company cited its some 9,000 Canadian jobs as a reason the construction giant should be granted a remediation agreement.
The company walked back the comments days later in a statement, saying a remediation deal was the best path to protect its Canadian workforce.
Trudeau enthusiasts will continue to see his pressure on Raybould-Wilson as a noble expression of economic nationalism. More critical thinkers may draw the conclusion that the Liberal government was simply being cowed by the thuggish tactics of a corporate extortion artist.
Of course granting a DPA would have been unprecedented . It was new legislation. Because it was new legislation her decision to not use it was just as unprecedented.
ReplyDeleteThe issue, as I understand it from the report, rumleyfips, is not about the DPA, per se, which, as you note, was new legislation. The issue was that no Attorney-General has ever intervened in a public prosecution before.
DeleteI have no sympathy for JWR. She appears to have been out of her league in the MOJ/AG post. Was the "pressure" she faced on the SNC-Lavalin file inappropriate? Then why didn't she step down? This whole SNC thing is a tempest in a teapot made public because someone was not doing their job very well.
ReplyDeleteAnd, now it comes to light that she sat on a file for 18 months denying an innocent man his freedom! And, she's gone through 4 Chief's of Staff. Trudeau tried too hard to make his Cabinet "balanced". Unfortunately, it meant he appionted some people not up to their task.
UU
For me, UU, the real issue is that the government seemed to be bending over backwards for a company making threats. That attempt to tamper with the justice system should give everyone pause.
DeleteThere is a mob mentality in the higher echelons of our society, Lorne.
ReplyDeleteEveryone should find such thuggishness abhorrent, Owen.
DeleteThis is what happens when you have a Trudeau without a Keith Davey.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the Rainmaker would make of all this, Mound.
DeleteIt's said that a scandal affords two options - nip it in the bud or, if you can't manage that, be proactive and get out ahead of it. Trudeau did neither.
ReplyDeleteButts left. That achieved squat. The clerk of the privy council retired. Again, little to nothing.
This is coming to resemble the "knife in the back" experience that took down Diefenbaker, Joe Clark, John Turner and Stephane Dion. The Fenian seems to be an integral part of the dump Trudeau camp. Who is rallying to JT's side? Not many that I can see.
It does look like Trudeau should beware when in the vicinity of sharp objects, Mound.
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