Will Wilson-Raybould ‘speak her truth’?
Ex-minister warns she remains limited in what she can tell MPs about SNC-Lavalin, but here are key questions she faces today
Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould has got a story to tell. That much we know.
We also know she has warned the House of Commons justice committee that she won’t be completely free to discuss allegations that she was pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene in criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin, because the government’s waiver of solicitor-client privilege applies only to her time as attorney general, a post from which she was shuffled in January.
Still, as all eyes turn to the committee hearing Wednesday, the biggest questions are simple: was she pressed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his officials to drop charges against SNCLavalin and cut a deal? Did she feel unduly pressured? If so, why didn’t she resign in protest as attorney general at any point? If not, why did she then resign from cabinet as veterans affairs minister on Feb. 11?
To tease out answers that will provide a fuller picture — one that will be judged by legal, not just political, standards — MPs will have to bear in mind some big principles at play when Wilson-Raybould finally takes a seat, and ask her probing questions even though she complains she is still not fully free to, as she put it, “speak (her) truth.”
Independence of the prosecution
This is a sacrosanct principle in Canada’s legal system. It means prosecutors make decisions on who to prosecute and how to apply the law free from partisan or political influence. It ensures everyone is equal under the law, and the criminal law will be applied equally to accused persons or corporations, no matter how much money or influence they have.
Yet, even before Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, academics suggested there was a “troubling” pattern of PMO meetings with Wilson-Raybould under the guise that “robust” and “vigorous” discussions were permissible.
The questions here for Wilson-Raybould boil down to what was her view of the prosecution underway? Did she have a preferred course, or did she leave the decision entirely to Kathleen Roussel, her deputy attorney general and the independent director of public prosecutions? And did WilsonRaybould regard Roussel’s decision — conveyed on Sept. 4 to the company — not to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin as final? Deferred prosecution agreements
Also called remediation agreements, the government introduced these as tool to prosecute white-collar crime to the Cana- dian justice system in 2018 after public consultations. Subject to a court’s approval, a deferred prosecution agreement spares an accused company a formal criminal conviction that could see it debarred from future contracts in exchange for paying heavy fines, and being required to comply with ethical reforms and independent oversight.
But Wilson-Raybould as justice minister did not sponsor the change to the Criminal Code.
Why was it instead stuffed into an omnibus budget implementation bill?
Was Wilson-Raybould aware of the SNC-Lavalin lobbying blitz to persuade Ottawa to make it the first test case, and grant it a deferred prosecution on bribery and fraud charges?
Did she fear it would set a bad precedent to give a deal to a company that has broken political financing rules and saw former executives plead guilty to bribery in a Montreal hospital construction project? When did she first communicate the DPP’s prosecution decision to the PMO or cabinet and what was the PMO’s reaction? The meetings We know of four times that Trudeau or his aides met with Wilson-Raybould or her staff, first in September and then a flurry of meetings in December. We don’t know if they were the only times it was raised with her, the tenor of the discussions, or even why SNC-Lavalin was raised.
Now it will be important for MPs to drill down to the purpose of the meetings and their tone.
Does Wilson-Raybould view these meetings as inappropriate? And if Wilson-Raybould felt she was being pressured on the file, did she view it as “undue” or “inappropriate” and why? Did Wilson-Raybould ever advise the prime minister or any of his officials that they were either dangerously close to or had crossed a line in talking to her about the SNC-Lavalin charges? If not, why not?
This is a critical question at the heart of these allegations. Cabinet solidarity Trudeau said publicly that if anyone including his former justice minister had felt “undue pressure or felt that we were not living up to our own high standards of defence of the rule of law and our judicial system and judicial independence, it was their responsibility to come forward and at no time in the fall did the former attorney general come forward to me.”
This, too, is a key question. Why didn’t Wilson-Raybould resign at any point prior to February to protest any interference or attempted interference at all in a criminal prosecution?
So what reason did WilsonRaybould give the prime minister when she finally resigned on Feb. 11 after the prime minister touted her continued presence in cabinet as evidence that the cabinet was united?
Was it principle or petulance?