{"id":23255,"date":"2019-03-15T18:44:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23255"},"modified":"2019-03-15T18:44:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:44:45","slug":"mps-report-snc-lavalin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mps-report-snc-lavalin\/","title":{"rendered":"MP’s REPORT: SNC-Lavalin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Leona Alleslev, MP
Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with any scandal things are never as\nthey appear on the surface and the SNC-Lavalin affair is no exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prime Minister is seeking to claim the\nmoral high ground convincing us there is \u201cnothing to see here\u201d. We must not be\ntaken in by this deception for this issue is as serious as they come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an attempt to argue their actions\nwere within the law, the Prime Minister, some Cabinet Ministers, Prime\nMinister\u2019s Office staff, and the Clerk of the Privy Council have claimed they\nwere acting to protect jobs. This couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. They have\nbeen unable to provide any evidence to support that SNC\u2019s failure to receive a\nDeferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) would affect any of the 9000 jobs.\nAdditionally, they argue that if found guilty, SNC would be unable to bid on\ngovernment contracts for 10 years \u2013 but that too is false, as the Liberals\ncould have easily changed the government procurement policy with the stroke of\na pen, without the need for a legal solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this Prime Minister were focussed on\njobs he would have ensured a promised pipeline was built rather than standing\nidly by as Alberta lost over a 100,000 jobs – threatening our energy security\nand the future of our oil and gas industry. If it were about jobs, he would\nhave fought to keep Sears in Canada and GM in Oshawa. He wouldn\u2019t have\nchallenged Boeing only to end up with no new fighter aircraft for our military\nand the loss of the Bombardier CSeries aircraft being built in Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears that the SNC-Lavalin scandal\nis about having friends in high places to use the full power of government, the\nPrime Minister included, to circumvent the law for mutual political and\npersonal corporate gain. For the Prime Minister and the Liberals they have\nindicated it was to curry favour in Quebec and win a provincial election, a\nfuture federal election, and for the Prime Minister himself to be re-elected in\nhis riding of Papineau. For SNC-Lavalin it could be to avoid a trial where\nother information about bribery and corruption would be revealed. A former SNC\nexecutive who spent 2.5 years in a Swiss jail for a similar offence is now a\nwitness for the prosecution in the current SNC corruption charges. Perhaps he\nwill provide information that SNC doesn\u2019t want the Canadian public to hear and\na deferred prosecution agreement is the only way to ensure it never sees the\nlight of day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the SNC-Lavalin corporate power\nbrokers including a former Clerk of the Privy Council and senior Bank of\nMontreal BMO board executive set to work (of note, the former Minister of the\nTreasury Board Scott Brison who resigned to spend more time with his family has\nnow accepted the position of vice chair of investment and corporate banking at\nBMO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They mounted an unrelenting campaign of\ninfluence to first have the criminal code legislation changed to allow a DPA \u2013 and\nthen to be granted a DPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they were denied access to this new\nlegislation by the independent judiciary – SNC had over 80 meetings with top\nofficials and Ministers at Global Affairs Canada, Innovation, Science and\nEconomic Development (ISED), the Privy Council Office, Export Development\nCanada, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), Public Safety, Treasury\nBoard, Natural Resources and Environment to discuss \u201claw enforcement and justice\u201d\nincluding 18 with top officials in the Prime Minister’s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even with all of that pressure \u2013\nSNC-Lavalin has not yet avoided proceeding to trial on corruption and bribery\ncharges. For the moment Canada\u2019s rule of law is winning with a score of corporate\npower brokers and political influence –  0 and the former attorney general –  1 – but the game is not up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current Attorney General David\nLametti has said he may still politically intervene and grant a DPA to\nSNC-Lavalin. SNC may still \u201cget out of jail free\u201d; and that would be\nunfortunate. <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Leona Alleslev, MPAurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill As with any scandal things are never as they appear on the surface and the SNC-Lavalin affair is no exception. The Prime Minister is seeking to claim the moral high ground convincing us there is \u201cnothing to see here\u201d. We must not be taken in by this deception for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-635","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 12:56:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}