Opposition accuse feds of coverup
LIBERALS AGREE TO ONLY LIMITED HEARINGS ON W ILSON-RAYBOULD AFFAIR
Liberals faced accusations of a coverup Wednesday after they agreed to hold limited committee hearings into an allegation that former attorney general Jody WilsonRaybould was improperly pressured to help SNC-Lavalin avoid criminal prosecution.
Their short list of three proposed witnesses does not include WilsonRaybould, who resigned from cabinet Tuesday.
The five Liberal MPs on the House of Commons justice committee used their majority to block an opposition motion that would have seen the committee hear from nine key players in the controversy, including Wilson-Raybould, current Justice Minister David Lametti, clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick and senior aides in the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office, including chief of staff Katie Telford and principal secretary Gerald Butts.
Liberals approved instead their own motion, which called on the committee to hear from just Lametti, Wernick and the deputy justice minister — although more could be added next week after getting legal advice, behind closed doors, on what steps the committee needs to take to avoid interfering with two ongoing court cases involving SNC-Lavalin. The Montreal engineering giant has been charged with bribery and corruption involving contracts in Libya.
The Liberals defeated an attempt by New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen to strike a compromise of six witnesses, adding Butts and two other senior PMO aides who were heavily involved in the SNC-Lavalin file.
They also defeated a Conservative motion calling on Trudeau to immediately waive solicitor-client privilege, which Wilson-Raybould has cited as preventing her from commenting on the allegation.
The Liberal motion calls on the committee to study the legal principles at the root of the controversy — including the recently added Criminal Code provision that made it legal to negotiate remediation agreements in cases of corporate corruption, a form of plea bargain in which a company pays restitution, but avoids criminal prosecution that could bankrupt it.
The motion also included looking at the so-called Shawcross doctrine, which spells out the degree to which an attorney general may consult with cabinet colleagues about a prosecution.
“That is not an investigation, that is simply going through the motions,” Cullen said after the meeting, accusing the Liberals of “battening down the hatches” to prevent any truth from coming to light.
“Liberals seem to think that this should be just a sort of study group, a book club to look at all sorts of interesting ideas about the law rather than the scandal that’s right in front of Canadians.”
Conservative MP Michael Cooper said the Liberals’ motion is “part of a coverup” and an attempt at creating “a diversion” with lengthy hearings on legal principles.