SNC-Lavalin controversy may not sway voters

SNC-Lavalin ruling won’t necessarily sway voters,

The federal integrity commissioner’s finding that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the conflict of interest rules is an aftershock to the earthquake that rocked the government through the first few months of this year.

The SNC-Lavalin scandal had already inflicted permanent damage on Trudeau’s personal brand. And the timing of Mario Dion’s report, which comes just 10 weeks before the election, was unfortunate for the Liberals, who had clawed their way back in the polls after the initial rattle.

But, barring any further pre-vote reverberations — like, say, news emanating from an RCMP investigation of the government’s actions — Dion’s scathing report is unlikely to shake the political landscape in significant ways by mid-October.

Between now and then, the prime minister must show contrition for the mistakes that he made, and he must convince the public that his only interest was in protecting Canadian jobs and not the bottom line of a powerful corporation accused of engaging in corrupt practices overseas.

Let’s start with Dion’s finding that Trudeau violated Section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act by trying to influence his then-justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to benefit the interests of a third party: SNC-Lavalin.

That’s not good for Trudeau, who was elected to power in 2015 on his promise to lead a government guided by Sunny Ways. It’s especially troubling because he broke the Conflict of Interest Act once before, with his decision in 2017 to take the family on a free vacation to a Bahamian island belonging to the Aga Khan.

Sunny Ways do not mesh with taking gifts from rich and powerful friends. Nor do they fit with applying undue and improper pressure to affect the prosecutorial discretion of the attorney general who, in the case of Wilson-Raybould, cuts a rather sympathetic and even heroic figure.

But the real blows to Trudeau’s reputation were inflicted earlier this year when the testimony of Wilson-Raybould, of former Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick, and of Trudeau’s former principal secretary Gerald Butts were playing out on live TV.

It was then that most Canadians, at least the Canadians who are likely to care about such issues, made up their minds about who was right and who was wrong.

Dion has added little to the cache of known facts about the case, beyond laying bare the unrelenting nature of Liberal efforts to convince Wilson-Raybould to give SNC-Lavalin the deferred prosecution agreement that would allow the company to avoid trial on corruption charges. It is not likely that large numbers of Canadians were sitting in wait to hear what Dion said before deciding whether the Liberals deserve a second term in office.

And polls taken in the weeks after the SNC-Lavalin affair stopped making headlines suggest the scandal’s long-term impact was not profound. When asked in late spring to state their top political concerns, Canadians named the economy, health care and the environment, not corruption and backroom deals.

Then there is history to consider.

Pronouncements against prime ministers, even those made on the eves of elections, do not necessarily sway votes. Just look at what happened in 2011 when Stephen Harper was found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to provide opposition members the information they needed to assess his government’s legislation. That prompted an election that ended in a Conservative majority.

More than that, there are Canadians, especially in Quebec where SNC-Lavalin is based, who understand Trudeau’s efforts to prevent the company from facing a court action that could prevent it from bidding on federal contracts for 10 years. It does not defy credibility to believe he was truly worried about a potential loss of thousands of jobs.

And yes, his explanation for his actions amounts to a political calculation aimed at preserving Liberal votes. But all actions taken by governments are, at their core, political calculations.

Quebec is shaping up as a significant battleground for all parties in the campaign. That means the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc will need to tread gently when criticizing Trudeau’s efforts to defend SNC-Lavalin.

For his part, Trudeau will have to do what he can to convince voters they were not bamboozled when he sold himself as a likable guy who would govern by consensus. Accepting responsibility for what happened, as he did after the release of Dion’s report, will help that. Pointing out his disagreements with Dion, which he also did, will not.

But most importantly, he will have to stress his interest in preserving jobs, both inside and outside Quebec.

If he can use the scandal to refashion his brand from sunny-ways-guy to economic champion, the SNC-Lavalin affair may not be as disastrous for the Liberals as it seems to be this week.