EGREGIOUS ETHICS
Justin Trudeau pledges to “take responsibility” for his latest breach of the federal Conflict of Interest Act. But nothing he said Wednesday suggests the election-focused prime minister will do anything other than try to bury a damning report by the ethics commissioner on the long-running SNC-Lavalin affair.
The report is too important, however, to let that happen, and the RCMP is reading it with interest. Good.
To start with, Commissioner Mario Dion concludes that Trudeau clearly tried to influence then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to halt the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which faces bribery and fraud charges. Just as dismaying, Dion reveals a pattern of sneaky, sleazy behaviour inside the Prime Minister’s Office that was not publicly known.
For example, staff in the PMO continued to meet with SNC-Lavalin’s legal team even as they were talking with Wilson-Raybould’s staff about finding a “solution” (as everyone euphemistically called it) to the issue at hand: a ruling by the Public Prosecution Service that it would not grant SNC a “deferred prosecution agreement.” SNC wanted such a deal because, if criminally convicted, it would face a 10-year ban on bidding for federal contracts. Wilson-Raybould wouldn’t overrule the prosecutor.
PMO officials continued meeting with SNC’s lawyers even after the company had filed an appeal of the prosecutor’s decision. In fact, Trudeau’s officials actually stepped up those meetings during the fall of 2018, when Wilson-Raybould was being repeatedly pressed to revisit the prosecutor’s stand.
Next, PMO officials tried to persuade Wilson-Raybould to seek an external legal review of her position by an ex-Supreme Court justice. At the time, Wilson-Raybould turned this down, but Dion reveals that even as PMO officials suggested it, they already had legal opinions in hand from two former top court justices. Wilson-Raybould was unaware of this parallel legal track.
Meanwhile, among the strategies mulled by PMO officials and SNC-Lavalin was a proposal to have former chief justice Beverley McLachlin preside over some sort of “settlement conference” between the director of public prosecutions and the firm. (Trudeau told the ethics commissioner he had not been apprised of this pitch.) McLachlin, sensibly, had “reservations” about it.
Character attacks inevitably formed part of the prime minister’s statements to the ethics inquiry. His legal counsel wrote to Dion that the relationship with Wilson-Raybould was “challenging and tense” and that there was “significant friction.” This was utterly irrelevant to the issue at hand, of course.
Finally, Dion himself faced serious obstacles in researching parts of his report.
Nine witnesses told him they thought they had relevant information but could not legally disclose it because of cabinet confidence. Dion’s staff asked the Privy Council Office to enable these people to speak with him, but was turned down. This meant that “witnesses were constrained in their ability to provide all evidence,” Dion writes.
Nevertheless, he concludes, “The authority of the Prime Minister and his office was used to circumvent, undermine and ultimately attempt to discredit the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions as well as the authority of Ms. Wilson-Raybould as the Crown’s chief law officer ... I have no doubt that the result of Mr. Trudeau’s influence would have furthered SNC-Lavalin’s interests. The actions that sought to further these interests were improper …”
In sum, Trudeau and his team tried unsuccessfully to politicize the criminal justice system on behalf of SNC-Lavalin, and engaged in a mountain of double-dealing along the way.
How exactly will he “take responsibility” for that?