Meili may not have case with SNC fears

Opposition is always about opportunistically tying government to scandal and corruption, as has now happened to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government on the Snc-lavalin file.

For Leader Andrew

Scheer’s Conservatives, Trudeau’s alleged meddling is the thing of which opposition hopes and dreams are made.

Since the Globe and Mail reported last week that Trudeau’s office applied pressure to former justice minister Jody Wilson-raybould to help the Quebec-based engineering firm avoid criminal prosecution on fraud and bribery charges, the federal NDP has asked federal Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion to investigate the claims.

As National Post columnist Andrew Coyne put it,

“we have yet to hear a direct, on-the-record denial of the allegations by either side.” What we have now heard is Trudeau say: “I told her directly that any decisions on matters involving the director of public prosecutions were hers alone.” This was followed by Wilson-raybould’s rather thundering resignation from cabinet Tuesday.

We should also recall the provision in last year’s omnibus budget bill that lets corporations charged with criminal offences duck prosecution via “deferred prosecutions agreements,” now at the centre of the controversy.

All this came into place, Coyne also noted, “after a strenuous campaign of public advertising and private lobbying (14 meetings with officials in the prime minister’s office alone) by — who? — why yes, Snc-lavalin.”

The violation of federal anti-corruption legislation by the giant Quebec-based international engineering firm dating back to 2015 stems from long-standing accusations of providing $48 million in bribes to Libyan public officials from 2001 to 2011. However, this is but one of many international and national scandals swirling around Snc-lavalin, which would include its 2016 admission of violating the Elections Canada Act by providing tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations to the federal Liberals.

After years of trying to spin comparatively minor ethics violations for trips and clam fishing licences into scandal — and often looking silly and sophomoric in doing so (see: the Conservatives now-pulled “Heritage Minute” parody ad) — Scheer now has a massive Liberal government political scandal dropped into his lap.

But while Trudeau and the Liberals might very well lose their majority government over this, does it spill over to every provincial government that has had dealings with the massive Snc-lavalin? Is there any relevance to the engineering or even management services Snc-lavalin is providing in Saskatchewan? Or are we seeing Saskatchewan NDP Opposition Leader Ryan Meili doing his best to glom on to the story-du-jour in the hopes the Snc-lavalin taint will rub off on Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government?

At a news conference in Saskatoon on Monday, Meili waxed on about Snc-lavalin being “in the news” and having a $700-million contract (one, admittedly, in legal dispute over technical delivery issues) with Saskpower signed under former economy minister Bill Boyd’s watch. This ties his “checkered history” with that of the engineering giant, Meili theorized. “When we look at the history between the Sask. Party and Snc-lavalin over the past decade, with nearly $10,000 in publicly disclosed donations going one way and three-quarters of a billion dollars ($765,846,640) in contracts going the other, it’s enough to give the people of the province pause, especially when our political donations and conflict of interest rules are so lax,” Meili said in a news release.

Essentially, he came close to alleging pay-for-play. But what was his basis for these allegations? Does Meili really believe $10,000 in donations (largely for Sask. Party premiers’ dinner tickets over the years) is the same as $48 million in bribes to Libyan officials? A thousand dollars for a table at the annual premier’s fundraiser — the same fundraisers NDP premiers used to shake down business donations — gets you a $700-million tendered contract?

Meili is right that lax corporate and union donation rules in Saskatchewan need to be changed, but he may be harming his cause by trying to tie that to Trudeau, Wilson-raybould and Snc-lavalin.

There is a huge federal Trudeau government scandal, but that doesn’t mean Saskatchewan is part of it.