February 16 - 28, 2019
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
Jody Wilson-Raybould accuses Justin Trudeau
of interference in SNC-Lavalin case
Former Ca-
nadian
justice
minister Jody Wil-
son-Raybould says she faced intense
political pressure and veiled threats
related to the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Wilson-Raybould said that she
was warned directly by Prime Minis-
ter Justin Trudeau about the negative
consequences if the Quebec-based
company faced criminal prosecution.
Conservative Leader Andrew
Scheer said the RCMP should open
an investigation, and he called on
Trudeau to resign as prime minister
for his role in undermining the admin-
istration of justice and trying to over-
turn an independent decision by the
attorney general. He said the prime
minister has lost his moral authority
to govern.
“I was sickened and appalled by
(Wilson-Raybould’s) story of inappro-
priate and frankly, borderline illegal
pressure brought to bear on her by
the highest levels of Justin Trudeau’s
government,” he said.
Testifying at the Commons jus-
tice committee probing alleged politi-
cal interference in the prosecution of
the Montreal-based engineering and
construction company on February
27, Wilson-Raybould said she was
contacted by 11 officials in the Prime
Minister’s Office, the Privy Council and
Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office
on the matter when she served as jus-
tice minister and attorney general.
“For a period of four months
from September to December 2018,
I experienced a consistent and sus-
tained effort by many people within
the government to seek to politically
interfere in the exercise of prosecu-
torial discretion in my role as the at-
torney general of Canada in an inap-
propriate effort to secure a Deferred
Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with
SNC-Lavalin.”
Wilson-Raybould said she was
“hounded” by various officials through
phone calls, meetings and text mes-
sages.
“Within these conversations
there were express statements regard-
ing the necessity of interfering in the
SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential of
consequences, and veiled threats if a
DPA was not made available to SNC-
Lavalin,” she said.
Wilson-Raybould, who is still in
the Liberal caucus, testified for nearly
four hours as the key witness for the
Commons justice committee in a
packed room on Parliament Hill.
She chronicled a series of meet-
ings, including one with Trudeau and
Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick
on September 17, 2018. She told him
that she had made a decision not to
overturn the decision from the direc-
tor of the Public Prosecution Service
Kathleen Roussel to proceed with
criminal prosecution against SNC-La-
valin.
The prime minister cited poten-
tial job losses and the possible move
by the company, and asked her to
“help out.” The clerk then made the
case for a DPA and reminded there
was an election coming in Quebec.
“At that point, the prime minis-
ter jumped in, stressing that there is
an election in Quebec, and that, ‘I am
an MP in Quebec, the MP for Papine-
au,’” she recounted. ‘I was quite taken
aback.”
At that point, Wilson-Raybould
said, she posed a direct question to
Trudeau while looking him straight
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11
in the eye, asking if he was politically
interfering with her role and her deci-
sion as the attorney general.
“I would strongly advise against
it,” she told the committee she warned
Trudeau, who responded, “No, no, no,
we just need to find a solution.”
“Are you politically interfering
with my role as the attorney gener-
al,” Wilson-Raybould says she asked
Trudeau. “I would strongly advise
against it.”