Friday Post

Your week-end send-off ...



I won't bother parsing through that self-serving non-apology Pierre's useless douchebag sputtered out in hopes that he won't bleed away votes. It's offensive and absurd on its face. The very idea that the pantomime was, in any way, a "teachable" moment shows the arrogance and utter disconnect that horrid frat-boy has with reality and basic morality. Indeed, his entire time occupying his dad's former office has been a disgrace.

Instead, I will highlight the logical discrepancies of Justin's chief lackeys, Gerald Butts and Michael Wernick. They may fall on their swords for Justin but he will never be as grateful to them as they were to occupy plum positions in the banana republic known as Canada.


Four major differences between what Buttsy said and what Jody said:

The September 16 decision

Jody Wilson Raybould: My view had already formed at this point.

Gerald Butts: In fact, I learned for the first time while watching the former attorney general’s testimony, that she had made on final decision on the 16th of September. My understanding is that nobody in the PMO or PCO knew that at that time either.

The dinner at Chateau Laurier

JWR: On December the 5th of 2018, I met with Gerry Butts. We had both sought out this meeting. I wanted to speak about a number of things, including bringing up SNC and the barrage of people hounding me and my staff.

GB: Minister Wilson-Rayboul solicited the meeting with me. She also raised the subject with me. She asked if I had a view on the file and I said that I understood our offices were working together on ideas. We talked briefly about the idea of asking a retired Supreme Court justice for advice but I noted I had no expertise in the matter.

The December 18 meeting

Wilson-Raybould said her chief of staff Jessica Prince was urgently summoned by staff from the PMO, while Butts said the meeting was not urgent. Butts said Wilson-Raybould took the Op-Ed comment out of context, having originally meant to suggest the PMO would support the attorney general’s decision no matter what. Wilson-Raybould said the PMO office said a “solution” must happen.

The cabinet shuffle

JWR: On January the 7th, I received a call from the Prime Minister and was informed that I was being shuffled out of my role as minister of justice and attorney general of Canada…. I stated I believed the reason was because of the SNC matter. They denied this to be the case.

GB: The prime minister replied that he was doing the shuffle because he had to and because he thinks it’s the best thing for the government and the country. He repeated that he wouldn’t be doing it at all if it weren’t for minister Brison’s departure.

Michael Wernick's second round of testimony (not under oath):

By late that same summer, the federal government launched a public consultation on its integrity regime, including the possibility of including deferred prosecution agreements into Canadian law. The change wanted by SNC now had its chance to find broader support. And a few months later—and featuring a submission from SNC—the consultation concluded.

And then, as if by magic, a proposal for deferred prosecution agreements was buried into page 202 of the 2018 federal budget. ...

The DPA circle was now squared—and with barely any scrutiny. A little over two weeks later SNC met one last time—on July 5—with both Bouchard and Marques, the latter now also in the PMO.

All that was left was for SNC to be offered its deferred prosecution agreement. Only the offer never came. On Sept. 4, 2018, the government said it would not offer a DPA to SNC.

The shock must have been immense; to the company, to the political staff who took the dozens of meetings and to the bureaucracy that had done the same.

Whatever assurances were given to SNC at whatever level, nobody had counted on an attorney general impervious to the concerns of a major Quebec multinational. Or the concerns of her colleagues and their staffers, for that matter. ...


And while Liberals and Wernick were busy putting the squeeze on Wilson-Raybould in private, SNC was putting a public squeeze on the Trudeau government, taking out full-page ads in major newspapers to wonder why the government wasn’t doing its part to keep it from legal ruin.

“The Government of Canada passed legislation in 2018 to allow companies to settle charges via a remediation agreement,” the ad released in October said. “And yet the new law is not being made available to SNC-Lavalin for unknown reasons.”

But Canadians now know the reasons. Or rather, we know the reason: Wilson-Raybould. And the SNC ad can now be read as a company instructing the people it lobbied—both in the public service and amongst the political ranks—to make everything right by overruling that reason.

**

At committee, Lisa Raitt questions Michael Wernick about his phone conversation with Kevin Lynch, chair of SNC-Lavalin board and a former privy council clerk.

Raitt: Don't you see that Lynch's easy access to your office "is a problem for this country"?
Wernick: "No." #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/P2NJc4Er7m

— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) March 6, 2019

This Texas hail storm just gets better:

SNC-Lavalin has a lost a court bid to overturn the public prosecutor’s refusal to negotiate an agreement that would see the company avoid a criminal trial.

In a ruling Friday, the Federal Court of Canada tossed out the Montreal-based engineering firm’s plea for judicial review of the 2018 decision by the director of public prosecutions.

SNC-Lavalin faces accusations it paid bribes to obtain government business in Libya — a criminal case that has prompted a political storm for the Trudeau Liberals.

It's not like 9,000 jobs will be lost (or that SNC-Lavalin is the only company in the country).

More like 8,762.


Also - the entirety of the Trudeau government is an affront to western Canada:

The prime minister is confident defending his alleged efforts, and those of his officials, to politically interfere with a criminal case against an admittedly large employer in Quebec in the name of saving 9,000 jobs (3,400 in Quebec).

The loss of 110,000 energy-sector jobs in the West was obviously not so compelling to him and his team. Quebec jobs were apparently worth the brazenness the former attorney general so deliberately and unflappably testified to before the Commons justice committee. ...

What the prime minister was prepared to do to save SNC-Lavalin is staggering in its own right. And let’s be clear here — it is the Quebec company as an entity that was to be saved. The engineering and technical jobs surely would be absorbed by other firms, possibly in other provinces. The efforts of the prime minister and his inner circle to protect a Quebec institution stands in starkest contrast to the neglect or outright hostility his government has shown the reeling energy sector. ...

There have been other Quebec-based companies whose plights have captured the imagination and the attention of the federal government, that help make the point and contribute to the frustration in Western Canada. The remaining Western Canadians who were not already feeling a little second- or third-class in the eyes of the prime minister and the Liberal government have been given reason for pause by this unfolding affair.

This scandal now has life of its own and it is producing offspring: resignations, revelations, polls, more shuffles than a Saturday night game of Hold ’em … and the further exacerbation of Western alienation.

And:

“I remind the prime minister again, he’s not the prime minister of Quebec,” Moe said.

Moving on ...



They're just veterans:

According to a recent report, there are now about 40,000 Veterans waiting for word on whether their financial assistance applications have been approved.

Of course, while they are waiting, those Veterans can’t access disability benefits.


The number of Veterans waiting for those disability benefits has surged by 11,000 than the year before.

And to make matters even worse, the waits are going up.

On one hand, one had parents on waiting lists thanks to an unfeeling and wasteful government. On the other, one has a government that doesn't quite realise how important therapy is for autistic students:

Parents of children with autism came by the hundreds to Queen’s Park Thursday to protest dramatic changes to the support their children will receive as of April. 1.

It led to an emotional and angry Question Period as some parents wept and others hurled insults at Premier Doug Ford and Children, Community and Social Service Minister Lisa MacLeod.