WilsonRaybould denies ‘end game’ plan
SNC CONTROVERSY
• Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould said Wednesday she never had long-term plan in mind during the SNC-Lavalin controversy that went beyond her doing the right thing in her previous role.
“For me, in terms of end game ... there was no specific end game that had anything to do with power or any specific action other than wanting to do my job and do it well,” Wilson-Raybould said in a wide-ranging interview with The Canadian Press in her Ottawa office on Wednesday.
Some of the Vancouver Granville MP’s former Liberal colleagues and other political observers have questioned what she wanted to achieve by speaking out about pressure she felt to intervene in the criminal prosecution of Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, suggesting she’s driven by ambition and playing a long game.
The idea might have been fuelled by a moment in 1983 when Wilson-Raybould’s father Bill — a prominent First Nations leader at the time — told then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau his daughters had dreams of holding Trudeau’s job one day.
“I have two children in Vancouver Island, both of whom, for some misguided reason say they want to be a lawyer,” Bill Wilson famously said. “Both of whom want to be the prime minister. Both of whom, Mr. Prime Minister, are women.”
Wilson-Raybould said Wednesday her actions in the SNC-Lavalin controversy were not about political manoeuvring.
“I find it remarkable that it seems inconceivable to so many people that there wasn’t an end game, that I was — through this SNC stuff — that I was actually just doing my job, and by doing my job and doing what I knew was the right thing to do, (it) resulted in this situation that now exists,” Wilson-Raybould said.
On Wednesday, a Quebec judge ruled that SNC-Lavalin should go to trial on charges of fraud and corruption over its dealings in Libya a decade ago.
Wilson-Raybould would not comment on the court case Wednesday, adding the upcoming trial will proceed in the way it is “supposed to proceed.”
“I’m very comfortable and confident with the approach that I took as the attorney general with respect to SNC and with respect to my role generally throughout the three-and-a-bit years that I was in that position,” she said. “I understood that role very well.”