SNC-Lavalin

Saturday May 15, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 15, 2021

Trudeau cleared in WE Charity scandal but former finance minister broke conflict law, says ethics watchdog

The federal ethics commissioner has cleared Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of wrongdoing in last summer’s WE Charity scandal.

July 24, 2020

Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion also concluded Trudeau’s finance minister at the time, Bill Morneau, did breach the Conflict of Interest Act when he failed to recuse himself from cabinet deliberations on the summer student grants contract.

In his investigation report, Dion stated that Trudeau — who apologized for not recusing himself from cabinet talks on the now-cancelled program — didn’t have a close relationship with the Kielburger brothers, while Morneau — who faced similar allegations — “placed himself in a conflict of interest on several occasions.”

The Conservatives were swift to denounce the commissioner’s report, titled “Trudeau III” since it’s the third ethics commissioner probe into the PM.

The Liberal government’s decision to give WE Charity a $43 million contract to run a $900 million student grant program quickly blew up into a major scandal last summer following reports that Trudeau and Morneau’s families had ties with the organization.

July 30, 2020

Reporting by CBC News and Canadaland showed the prime minister’s mother Margaret and his brother Alexandre were paid in excess of $300,000 by WE and its entities for speaking engagements over the last four years.

“Although the connection between Mr. Trudeau’s relatives and WE created the appearance of a conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict is insufficient to cause a contravention of the Act’s substantive rules,” wrote Dion.

“The duty to recuse is only required when the public office holder would be in a potential conflict of interest.”

Friday July 31, 2020

Today, Trudeau thanked the commissioner for his work.

“After his full review, the commissioner found that there was no conflict of interest. This confirms what I have been saying from the beginning,” he said.

“At the heart of this initiative was getting support for youth during this pandemic as fast as possible.”

Dion’s report did find that Morneau, who stepped down from cabinet and as an MP in August, had the opportunity to “improperly further WE’s private interests.”

“The examination found the relationship between Mr. Morneau and WE included an unusually high degree of involvement between their representatives and afforded WE unfettered access to the office of the minister of Finance, which amounted to preferential treatment,” wrote Dion. (CBC) 

 

Friday December 20, 2019

December 20, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 20, 2019

After year of political turmoil, SNC-Lavalin gets most of what it wanted in plea deal

After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s failed efforts to see SNC-Lavalin avoid prosecution led to him losing two key ministers, his edge in the polls and (almost) his party’s hold on government, the Quebec engineering firm at the centre of the controversy walked away today with a plea deal that looks a lot like what it asked the government for in the first place.

August 20, 2019

A judge on Thursday accepted the plea deal that a division of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. struck with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Under the agreement, the company pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud over $5,000 in relation to the company’s activities in Libya.

All other charges have been dropped.

“We are happy. The company is happy,” said SNC-Lavalin lawyer François Fontaine. “The fact that the charges are no longer pending over the head of the company is good. The uncertainty around that kind of proceeding is bad for business, is bad for the company.

“So we’re very happy that it’s now over. We are free to bid as normal. This guilty plea does not prevent construction, or any other entity of the group, to bid on public contracts.”

April 2, 2019

After SNC-Lavalin was hit with fraud and corruption charges over its actions in Libya between 2001 and 2011, officials from the Prime Minister’s Office spoke with then justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, asking her to reconsider offering the firm a deferred prosecution agreement.

Under newly passed legislation, a deferred prosecution agreement would allow the company to avoid trial providing it paid hefty fines and continued to adhere to a number of conditions for a period of time.

Had the company been convicted in court of bribing Libyan officials — including Saadi Gadhafi, son of the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi — to get lucrative government contracts, it could have been blocked from competing for federal government contracts in Canada for a decade.

“I have long believed in the essential necessity of our judicial system operating as it should — based on the rule of law and prosecutorial independence, and without political interference or pressure,” Wilson-Raybould said today on Twitter.

February 9, 2019

The allegation that Trudeau improperly tried to influence the attorney general significantly depressed the prime minister’s voter support.

Trudeau defended his actions by saying that he was trying to prevent the loss of jobs in Quebec, but the damage to the prime minister’s reputation had been done — just as federal political parties were readying themselves for a fall election.

The deal SNC-Lavalin struck to avoid trial may not have been a deferred prosecution agreement, but it resulted in almost the same outcome for the company.

All other charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea on one charge of fraud over $5,000, plus an agreement to pay $280 million in fines and comply with a probation order for three years. (CBC) 



 

Friday September 12, 2019

September 12, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 12, 2019

Did Trudeau really give ‘the largest’ waiver of cabinet confidence in history?

Forced to address the SNC-Lavalin scandal on the first day of the federal election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau made a sweeping statement.

“We gave out the largest and most expansive waiver of cabinet confidence in Canada’s history,” he said in response to reporters’ questions about a Globe and Mail article that said the RCMP’s efforts to examine the SNC-Lavalin affair have been stymied by the government’s refusal to lift cabinet confidentiality.

But legal experts tell CTV News they’re not sure how Trudeau is measuring what he calls the most “expansive” waiver of cabinet confidence, let alone how true his claim is.

Some other examples from past years include former prime minister Stephen Harper approving confidence waivers for the RCMP investigation into the Senate spending scandal.

Harper’s predecessor Paul Martin gave the Gomery Commission cabinet documents linked to the Liberal sponsorship scandal that rocked Ottawa in the mid-2000s.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer also spoke about the SNC-Lavalin affair on the first day of electioneering.

“The RCMP is investigating into possible obstruction of justice charges in the prime minister’s office,” Scheer said Wednesday as he formally launched his campaign.

However, the Globe and Mail said Mounties want to thoroughly question witnesses as part of an “examination,” not a formal investigation.

The SNC-Lavalin affair has been trailing Trudeau for months, ever since former justice minister Jody-Wilson Raybould alleged that she was inappropriately pressured by the prime minister and his office to end the criminal prosecution of the Quebec engineering giant. (CTV News) 

 

Tuesday August 20, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 20, 2019

Justin Trudeau’s ‘Just Watch Me!’ Moment

June 18, 2019

Justin Trudeau doesn’t apologize, at least for non-historical transgressions. His non-apology apologies tend to follow a formula: to assert his behaviour was “appropriate” and unimpeachable, to suggest “people can experience interactions differently” (and that his interpretation of the experience is the correct one), and then to wrap it all into a “teachable” moment.

But the prime minister’s flagrant “I can’t apologize” on Wednesday after he was found in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act for not the first, but the second time, established a breath-taking new level of righteous imperiousness, even for him. It even brings to mind his father’s defiant “Just watch me!” line during the 1970 October Crisis. Pierre Elliot Trudeau was responding at the time to a reporter’s question about how he planned to restore order in Quebec. Days later, Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, leading to a police crack-down against dissidents—and a national controversy.

May 10, 2019

The subject under discussion now isn’t civil liberties. It’s another democracy bedrock: a justice system free from political interference. After conducting an independent investigation, Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion released a damning report Wednesday that found the prime minister and his staff made a “flagrant attempt to influence” the judicial process in efforts to press justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson Raybould to halt criminal prosecution of the Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin. Dion found Trudeau violated a section of the Act that prohibits public-office holders from using their position to try to influence a decision that would improperly further the private interests of a third party, in this case SNC-Lavalin.

January 15, 2019

Trudeau’s response to the report suggested a haughty disregard on several levels—to the office of the ethics commissioner, to the Conflict of Interest Act, as well as to Canadians’ basic comprehension of what words mean. He “accepted” Dion’s report and took it “very seriously,” Trudeau said, while also saying that he disagreed with a central conclusion: “Where I disagree with the Commissioner is where he says that any contact with the attorney general on this issue was improper.” He delivered a generic: “What happened over the past year shouldn’t have happened.” And, for good measure, he said, “I take full responsibility,” calculated to be repeated in media headlines, which it was.

But not only did the Prime Minister not take any responsibility, he reframed his violation of the Conflict of Interest Act as a civic virtue, and a probable campaign-trail mantra: his job is “to stand up for Canadians and to defend their interests,” Trudeau said. And Canadian “interests,” by Trudeau’s own metric, equals jobs: “I can’t apologize for standing up for Canadian jobs because that’s part of what Canadians expect me to do.” (Chatelaine) 

Tuesday May 28, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 28, 2019

Wilson-Raybould, Philpott to run again as independent candidates

Former ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott will be running for re-election in the fall federal campaign as independent candidates, though have both cited an intent to align themselves with the Green Party on some issues.

March 8, 2019

The two former Liberals and close political allies donned white and unveiled their next political moves in consecutive announcements in their respective ridings on Monday. Meanwhile in Ottawa, Green Leader Elizabeth May said while she she’ll push for their re-election, she is “at a loss” as to why the two wouldn’t join her team after a serious courting.

Wilson-Raybould, who was Canada’s first-ever federal Indigenous justice minister and attorney general, said being an MP has been one of the greatest honours of her life and she wants to be elected again to return to the House of Commons, without any party affiliation.

“Today is a good day,” she said during the much-anticipated announcement in her Vancouver-Granville, B.C. riding. “I know who I am, and I am not a party person.”

Philpott, who held a trio of cabinet positions over the course of the last four years, said her decision to run again comes in part out of a desire to show young women that you shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.

March 27, 2019

“What lesson would it be for those young girls if I were to walk away… with my tail between my legs… I need to persevere,” Philpott said in her Markham-Stouffville Ont. riding announcement. “We’re going to do it together.”

Running as independents will prove to be tougher campaigns to wage and win, given the additional supports available to recognized parties in the Canadian electoral system. While they will likely continue to help each other, the political realities in their ridings differ. Wilson-Raybould won her seat in 2015 with 44 per cent of the vote, while Philpott won with 49 per cent.

“There will be challenges but with your support I am confident that running as an independent is the best way to go about it at this time, and the best way to transform our political culture,” said Wilson-Raybould.

Similarly, Philpott spoke about how this decision will free her from the confines of partisan politics. She said she hopes that her and Wilson-Raybould’s campaigns will start a tradition of more independent candidates running, and winning. (CTV)