Justin Trudeau: Canada's Prince of Sleaze

Andrew Coyne: Conflict of interest is the least of concerns raised by SNC-Lavalin affair:

Conflict of interest, frankly, is the least of the concerns raised by this affair. There is a strong whiff, rather, of abuse of power and, possibly, obstruction of justice.

CBC: RCMP looking at SNC-Lavalin affair 'carefully,' promise to take actions 'as required'

The RCMP says it's reviewing the facts of the SNC-Lavalin affair "carefully" in the wake of a new damning report from the ethics commissioner that found Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act, following renewed calls from the Opposition to investigate.

John Ivison: PM's defence to ethics czar reveals his nasty political side

In mid-July, after Dion [Canada's Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner] had presented Trudeau with the evidence he had gathered in the SNC Lavalin investigation, the prime minister’s counsel made a written submission, that tried (and failed) to sway the ethics commissioner from finding him guilty of trying to further the interests of the Montreal-based engineering giant. It was an ugly, mean piece of work that not only sought to portray former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould as over-wrought, irrational and incompetent, it also attempted to exonerate Trudeau from any inappropriate behaviour by his staff. ... Dion resisted the urge to nominate Trudeau for a meritorious service medal and instead found him guilty of contravening section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act, which prohibits public officer holders from furthering the interests of people or organizations.

The Insolence and Imbecility of Power

Justin Trudeau's Final Blunder?

Among journalists, Andrew Coyne is a very much smarter than most, and in the matter of SNC-Lavelin and the resignation of Trudeau's Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, he appears to have left the rest of the commentariat in the dust.

In a weekend article in the National Post, he makes five points that seem to leave little more to be said, other than Justin Trudeau's resignation speech. 

First:

The director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, it has been widely reported, decided not to offer SNC-Lavalin the remediation agreement it had so feverishly, and successfully, lobbied for. But in fact she may have had no choice. The relevant provision (sect. 715.3) of the Criminal Code sets out a long list of “conditions” that must be present and “factors” prosecutors must consider before they can even enter negotiations on such an agreement; another list sets out the “mandatory contents” of the agreement itself. First, prosecutors “must” consider “the circumstances in which the act or omission that forms the basis of the offence was brought to the attention of investigative authorities,” in the service of one of the legislation’s key objectives, “to encourage voluntary disclosure of the wrongdoing.” But SNC-Lavalin didn’t voluntarily disclose that it allegedly paid bribes of $48 million to Libyan government officials and defrauded various organizations in the country of $130 million. The matter only came to light after a lengthy police investigation.

Second:

... the agreement must include “the organization’s admission of responsibility” for the alleged offence. Has SNC-Lavalin explicitly admitted corporate responsibility in the Libyan affair? A lawyer friend who has closely followed the case can find no example of it, in any public statement. It has dismissed the charges against it as “without merit,” insisting any alleged crimes were the work of a few rogue executives “who left the company long ago.” Perhaps that weighed heavily in the director’s deliberations.

Third:

Finally, there is sect. 715.32 (3) of the Code, under the heading “Factors not to consider.” For offences under section 3 or 4 of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, it reads — SNC-Lavalin was charged with one count of corruption under sect. 3(1)(b) of the act, along with one count of fraud — “the prosecutor must not consider,” inter alia, “the national economic interest.” (This is not only a matter of domestic law. It is a virtual word-for-word transposition of our obligations under the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials.) So its defenders’ stated rationale for sparing SNC-Lavalin from prosecution — the dire consequences for jobs and the economy should the company be convicted, and presumably collapse — is not only economically suspect (SNC-Lavalin is not the only employer in the construction industry, nor would the work for which it has contracted disappear just because the company did) and morally dubious. It’s expressly precluded in law.

Fourth:

The DPP was not only within her rights, then, to refuse to negotiate a remediation agreement, she would arguably be breaking the law if she did. Suppose that were not true. Could the attorney general order her to? That, too, is far from clear. Under the law the attorney general is required to sign off on a prosecutor’s decision to negotiate a remediation agreement. But the prosecutor needs no such consent to decline to negotiate; neither is there anything in the law that says the attorney general can order her to.

Fifth:

This is not contradicted, as another lawyer friend points out, by that much-quoted provision in the Director of Public Prosecutions Act — the one obliging the attorney general to make public any order “with respect to the initiation or conduct” of “any specific prosecution.” Whatever limits that places on the AG’s ability to influence the “conduct” of a prosecution, it would seem to grant no power to stop one after it has started, still less to order a remediation agreement be pursued in its place.

Understandably, therefore,Trudeau keeps Wilson-Raybould firmly gagged by the solicitor-client privilege that only he can waive. After all, who better than the former Justice Minister to draw the attention to the circumstances that make Trudeau's action in firing Wilson-Raybould indefensible.

Source 

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