From the Most "Transparent" Government In the Country's History, Part Deux

Corruption in Quebec can't just stay hidden:

Jody Wilson-Raybould was confronted by reporters today on Parliament Hill.

She was asked about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, and asked if Trudeau pressured her on the issue.
Here’s what she said:

“Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould speaks briefly w/ reporters on Parliament Hill: asked if she was pressured re SNC-Lavalin case, says “I’m still working w/ my lawyer”; asked if she’s still in Liberal caucus, replies “I’m a Liberal member of Parliament.”

Oh, I'll bet she is but her advisor is a former mentor to the Trudeau Foundation, so ...

 

Quelle surprise:

A judge has thrown out fraud and bribery charges against a former SNC-Lavalin executive after concluding delays in his trial had become unreasonable.

Quebec court Judge Patricia Compagnone stayed proceedings against Stephane Roy Tuesday. She said the delays created by the prosecution "are an example of the culture of complacency that was deplored by the Supreme Court" in its 2016 Jordan decision.

Roy was facing charges of fraud over $5,000 and bribing a foreign public official in connection with the company's dealings with the regime of the late Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi.

He was charged in 2014, and his trial was scheduled to begin at the end of May. In a hearing last week, his defence invoked the Jordan decision, which set time limits on criminal proceedings.

His case stemmed from the same RCMP Project Assistance investigation that led to charges against SNC-Lavalin. Those charges are fuelling controversy in Ottawa following a report that the Prime Minister's Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help the engineering firm avoid prosecution.

Meanwhile:

T.J. Harvey, a first-term Liberal MP from New Brunswick, won’t be running in 2019.

Despite not even having served long enough to get his lucrative MPs pension, Harvey says he’ll be returning to the private sector.

Also:

The Norman and SNC-Lavalin episodes show that what Trudeau promised to fix about the PMO during the 2015 election — making it more open, more transparent, and less controlling — remains broken. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

It’s not a particularly insightful point, given that people such as Donald Savoie have been banging on about the unholy concentration of power in the PMO since Justin Trudeau was in short pants. 

Literally, as Savoie has been going on about it since the days of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Savoie argues the concentration of power in the “centre” is — in part — a consequence of the spread of government. Central agencies such as the Privy Council Office and Treasury Board were meant to co-ordinate government business across the growing panoply of post-war departments, but instead telescoped power away from departments to the centre. And that telescoping has now continued to the point we have today, where the unelected and short-panted call all of the shots.

(Sidebar: now one knows one of the reasons why the Liberals are loathe to chuck SNC-Lavalin under the bus.)

**

It was just earlier this month that former CEO of SNC-Lavalin, Pierre Duhaime, pleaded guilty for his role in a bribery scam related to a Montreal hospital.

Just last week it was prosecutors in Quebec, aided by the RCMP, that were found to be investigating the company on bribery charges related to a Montreal bridge project.

If this is the company that Justin Trudeau wants to stake all his political capital on then we have to ask, what do they have on him?

Let's not forget Justin new whipping boy:

Lawyers for Vice-Admiral Mark Norman have taken aim at a key federal cabinet minister with new allegations about Treasury Board President Scott Brison’s links to the powerful Irving family and Brison’s role in the government’s plan to delay a supply-ship contract awarded to an Irving rival.