Quebec premier wants Ottawa to ‘settle’ with SNC-Lavalin

Quebec Premier François Legault wants the federal government to settle with engineering firm SNC-Lavalin “as soon as possible” in order to protect jobs and the company’s corporate headquarters in Montreal.

The embattled firm is vulnerable to a foreign takeover, Legault said Thursday in Quebec City. And the longer its legal troubles drag on, the greater the chance it could fall prey to another company, he said.

“I want to do all we can do to protect this headquarters and protect the thousands of good, well-paying jobs we have at SNC-Lavalin.”

The company has been lobbying the federal government for a remediation agreement to avoid a criminal trial on charges of bribery and fraud related to its efforts to secure government contracts in Libya. Under a remediation agreement, the prosecution would be dropped in exchange for SNC-Lavalin admitting its wrongdoing and paying a financial penalty. Legault said SNC should pay for its alleged crimes, but its employees and the province’s economy shouldn’t suffer as a result.

“We know that SNC-Lavalin, that they didn’t follow legal rules — in Libya especially — and they have to pay for that, especially the people that were involved,” he said. “SNC-Lavalin, I met the president, they are ready to put on the table very large amounts of penalty.”