Trudeau faces troubling queries over SNC-Lavalin
Report says PMO intervened to have justice minister nix charges on Quebec firm
Justin Trudeau’s government is facing calls for an investigation into damning allegations that senior PMO officials pressed the former justice minister to seek mediation instead of pursuing criminal charges against a high-profile Quebec engineering company, SNC-Lavalin.
Trudeau’s adamantly denied the explosive — and politically damaging — story that Jody Wilson-Raybould was pushed out of the justice portfolio after refusing to bend to pressure from his office.
“The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false,” Trudeau told reporters Thursday in Vaughan. “Neither the current nor the previous attorney-general was directed by me or anyone in my office to take a decision in this matter.”
Yet that failed to quell the uproar that broke after the Globe and Mail reported Thursday Wilson-Raybould was shuffled out of the job after defying heavy pressure to direct the independent public prosecution office to negotiate a remediation agreement which would have resulted in the firm avoiding criminal liability for
actions it said were taken by individual employees.
Former Conservative justice minister Peter MacKay, who was also once a criminal prosecutor, said in a telephone interview he was “completely blown away” by what he called “unprecedented” allegations of political interference.
The problem, said MacKay, is that no one, including the prime minister, should give any instruction, or influence the justice minister as to how any prosecution should unfold.
“To have the prime minister or his staff direct her (Wilson-Raybould) to direct the prosecutor? If proven, that’s an offence in and of itself, that’s an interference with the administration of justice.”
Both Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh are expected to turn up the pressure on the government Friday. NDP MP Nathan Cullen said “all options” are on the table to get answers, from parliamentary committees to a full-fledged independent probe.
“We take the attorney general’s role very seriously and the idea that anyone would lean on them to not seek a proper conviction of a major and illegal donor to the party is … terrible,” he said.
Ian Brodie, who served as chief of staff to former prime minister Stephen Harper, said the allegations of political pressure on a prosecution decision have to be “answered right away.”
“I think we now need to know who talked to whom, when and what they said,” Brodie said, suggesting a commission of inquiry
as one route.
In Ottawa, it fell to the new justice minister, David Lametti, who took up Wilson-Raybould’s job in a January cabinet shuffle, to respond to opposition charges of political interference by Trudeau’s aides in the judicial process.
Lametti deflected questions by repeating the prime minister’s denials. In an interview with the Star and later in the Commons, he said no one in the PMO, including Trudeau, “directed” or “pressured” him or Wilson-Raybould on the SNC-Lavalin matter.
Asked if he had had any conversations at all with the prime minister or his office about SNC, Lametti said “haven’t had any. None at all.”
The Quebec engineering and construction giant has been lobbying
for months for Ottawa to negotiate what’s known as a deferred prosecution agreement.
SNC-Lavalin sought to avoid criminal fraud and corruption charges based on allegations it paid millions in bribes to win government business in Libya between 2001 and 2011.
The company’s stock price plummeted on Oct. 10, after the announcement that the public prosecution service will not “at this time” negotiate a mediation agreement with SNC-Lavalin.
Company president and chief executive Neil Bruce told Bloomberg News in December that failure to reach a negotiated settlement on the charges had “probably” cost SNC-Lavalin more than $5 billion in lost contracts.
The company did not answer
the Star’s requests for comment.
“The allegations that are in the media today raise the idea that Jody Wilson-Raybould lost her job for refusing to bow to pressure from the prime minister’s office,” Scheer said, accusing the prime minister in French of “hiding something.”
“It’s up to the prime minister to come clean on this,” he said.
During his press conference earlier Thursday, Trudeau said three times in English and twice in French that no one in his PMO directed Wilson-Raybould, or Lametti to take “any decision whatsoever” in the SNC-Lavalin prosecution. However, he did not directly address questions about whether or how he or his office may have tried to influence Wilson-Raybould’s decision, focusing instead on denying anyone tried to control the outcome. “At no time did I or my office direct the current or previous attorney general to make any particular decision in this matter,” said Trudeau.
Trudeau side-stepped a direct answer to questions about the exact nature of discussions between his office and WilsonRaybold, saying, “We have a tremendous positive working relationship with all members of our cabinet.”
But in question period, opposition Conservatives and New Democrats charged that Trudeau had pushed Wilson-Raybould from the justice post after she refused to bow to pressure on the SNC-Lavalin file. NDP MP Guy Caron drew a link between the company’s illegal donations to the Liberals and the help the company is now seeking.
“Illegal donations were made. SNC-Lavalin needs help. The PMO is happy to help. They pressed the minister of justice to try and sweep the accusations of fraud and corruption against them under the carpet,” Caron said.
“She refuses and she’s fired,” he said.
The construction giant admitted in 2016 to illegally funneling almost $118,000 to the federal Liberals and Conservatives between 2004 and 2011. More than $100,000 of that went to the Liberal party, party riding associations as well candidates in the 2006 Liberal leadership race. The Liberal party said at the time that it had reimbursed the money. As Lametti served up denials, Wilson-Raybould, now minister of veterans affairs, sat silently through it all. Leaving the Commons, she told reporters “no comment.”