Why help Snc-lavalin?

Re: People break laws, not companies, Chris Selley, March 9

Yes, Mr. Selley, it is difficult for people to break companies. But companies can break laws. They can sue and be sued. Like people, they can bribe foreign officials. They can conspire to murder their enemies and can even deploy drones to help them commit those murders. For all we know, it was a corporation that, along with Lee Harvey Oswald, killed president John F. Kennedy.

As for all those innocent bystanders that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seeks to coddle, who bothers to give a wife beater a pass on criminal prosecution just because his conviction might deprive his innocent children of financial support they need to survive? The shareholders and pensioners of SNCLavalin have benefited for decades from the ill-gotten gains this company has received by bribing officials in Canada and abroad. Is it not time for those pensioners and shareholders to repay at least some of their windfall?

And, if it is just fine to throw the pensioners of Sears and Eaton’s under the bus because their employers were incompetent or unlucky, surely we can allow the pensioners of SNC-LAVAlin to suffer when their employer is proved to have been a crook.

What it all boils down to is this: should public prosecutors lend Snc-lavalin a helping hand because it makes illegal donations to the political party that happens to be in power? I am guessing that Mr. Selley is not so keen on that idea. Patrick Cowan, North York, Ont. to respond to allegations of abuse. Bruce Couchman, Ottawa