Re: SNC-Lavalin Scandal

by Sandman Fri 22 Mar 2019, 9:09 am

What’s next in SNC-Lavalin affair after Philpott hints there is more to come? | At Issue

CBC News: The National
Published on Mar 21, 2019

by Sandman Fri 22 Mar 2019, 9:16 am

Voting marathon over SNC-Lavalin scandal ends, 30 hours later

Published Thursday, March 21, 2019 5:59AM EDT
Last Updated Friday, March 22, 2019 12:58AM EDT

OTTAWA – The record-setting House of Commons marathon voting session over the SNC-Lavalin scandal has come to an end, more than 30 hours after it began. The standoff launched Wednesday by the opposition Conservatives came to an end around 12:50 a.m. Friday morning, after earlier on the government—hit by new comments from former cabinet minister and current Liberal MP Jane Philpott—experienced a close call on one of the 257 confidence votes.

The longest yet voting marathon of this Parliament ended with relatively little fanfare, except for some jeers from the opposition benches, and applause from bleary-eyed MPs. The continuous voting wiped out more than a day of government business, while the SNC-Lavalin controversy is set to wage on.

In an interview with Maclean’s magazine that made waves on Parliament Hill on Thursday, Philpott said that there is “much more to the story that needs to be told.”

Philpott, who resigned from cabinet earlier this month citing a loss of confidence in the way the government is handling the scandal, said in the interview that she believes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his top staff have been trying to “shut down” the story.

“My sense is that Canadians would like to know the whole story. I believe we actually owe it to Canadians as politicians to ensure that they have the truth,” Philpott said.

Proceedings in the House reached a fever pitch late in the afternoon on Thursday when it appeared the opposition may have caught the Liberals shorthanded and in a position of putting the government in peril over losing one of the confidence votes.

During the reading of one of the motions, more than 100 votes in, according to several opposition MPs dozens of Liberal MPs scurried in, prompting the opposition to argue that their votes should not be counted because they were not in place in time. This led to considerable back and forth and had many onlookers on their toes at the prospect of the government falling on a confidence vote based on not having enough MPs in the chamber to vote in support of a single line item from the estimates.

Eventually, assistant deputy Speaker Anthony Rota ruled that it was not his job to rule on where certain MPs were where they needed to be, and instead put the onus on the offending Liberal MPs to disqualify themselves. A handful did, but not enough to lose the vote and the proceedings continued. Despite this, opposition MPs continued to raise ire over the outcome throughout the night, imploring the cameras inside the House be reviewed to determine if the vote count as it had been established, was accurate.

The Conservatives launched the overnight series of confidence votes on budgetary measures on Wednesday as their latest procedural display of outrage over what they consider a prolonged “cover up” of the controversy. At the heart of the affair: allegations from former attorney general and justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould that she faced high-level “veiled threats” and months-long attempted political interference from senior government officials in the criminal prosecution of the Quebec engineering giant.

Facing questions about this latest development during a budget photo-op in the GTA, Trudeau—who like his fellow leaders was in and out of the House over the course of the votes—dismissed Philpott’s assertion that more needs to be aired. Trudeau said there has already been a “fulsome” accounting of the scandal, with more work to be done by the federal ethics commissioner’s office that is probing the matter.

Trudeau also pointed to Wilson-Raybould’s delivery of four hours of testimony on Feb. 27, after Trudeau waived solicitor-client privileges and cabinet confidences so that she and anyone who participated in discussions with her could “address relevant matters.”

Wilson-Raybould—who over a month ago first stood in the House and implored that she be allowed to “speak my truth”— told the committee that this unprecedented waiver still limited her.

This was something former top Trudeau adviser Gerald Butts disputed when he testified. He also cast doubt on how Wilson-Raybould characterized some key interactions and cited SNC-Lavalin jobs as the Liberals’ main motivation.

Both Wilson-Raybould and Butts’ testimonies occurred before the House Justice Committee, which was probing the matter before Liberal MPs shut it down on Monday, saying Canadians had heard all they need to make their own conclusions about the controversy.

On Thursday, Trudeau also maintained that so long as both Philpott and Wilson-Raybould want to be in the Liberal caucus, they are welcome, even though during a meeting of the Ontario MPs in the Liberal caucus on Wednesday, members of the caucus expressed displeasure with Philpott. He already lost one outspoken Liberal MP from that province this week, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, who relegated herself an independent MP for the remainder of this Parliament.

'If she’s got more to say, say it': Liberal MP

At least one Liberal MP isn’t holding back on her frustration over the slow drip of news that Wilson-Raybould and Philpott have been contributing to in relation to this scandal.

She’s calling on her colleagues to “clear the air,” once and for all.

“There’s no reason that Jane or Jody cannot go in to the House of Commons, [cite] parliamentary privilege, talk as long as they want, say anything they want,” Sgro said.

“I think to clear the air, to everybody’s satisfaction, and for them, is to go on in to the House of Commons.”

Sgro said that Philpott is “well aware” of how some Liberal MPs feel, and she said that she is concerned that the ongoing scandal is hurting Liberal prospects in the GTA, where she, Philpott, and Caesar-Chavannes all currently hold seats.

“We don’t want to damage the party, we’ve got a lot of work to do and this is hanging over our head with this innuendo… if there’s something to be said and clearly there is, it’s an opportunity to say it to the Canadian public,” she said.

In the Maclean’s interview, Philpott was asked about the prospect of using the protections MPs have when speaking in the House of Commons to say what she thinks needs saying. She said she would “prefer to err on the side of caution in terms of the very serious oaths that I made when I became a cabinet minister to respect confidentiality.”

Record-setting marathon vote

This voting marathon is record-setting as the longest one of this Parliament. The next longest continuous stretch of voting was in March 2018 over the India trip affair. In that instance, the Conservatives also initially also pledged "about 40 hours" of votes, and it ended up being a 21-hour procedural standoff.

This filibuster-type tactic was triggered after the Liberal majority shut down the latest in what has been a series of attempts over the several weeks to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau take further steps to allow Wilson-Raybould speak further and in more detail about the scandal.

Particularly the opposition have been keen to hear more about the series of events that unfolded after Wilson-Raybould was shuffled into veterans affairs. She has said that she believes what many saw as a demotion, was connected to her refusal to bow to calls to reconsider a remediation agreement for SNC-Lavalin, a measure federal prosecutors remain adamantly opposed to.

Wilson-Raybould left the veterans affairs portfolio in the early days of this scandal, and there’s since been two federal cabinet shuffles to readjust Trudeau’s front bench following her and Philpott’s high-profile departures.

Neither Wilson-Raybould nor Philpott were present for the opposition motion vote, nor were they seen in the Commons during the marathon session of confidence votes.

Throughout the marathon, Conservatives voted against every line item, which Liberals used to try to score political points on social media, pointing out some of the government programs and services the Tories opposed. Though, from the Conservative’s perspective, their “no” votes were to signal they do not have confidence in the government.

There were no normal House proceedings on Thursday as a result of the ongoing votes, meaning no question period, and no committee meetings. Among the committee meetings cancelled was the meeting of the House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee, where the opposition Conservatives and New Democrats wanted to discuss the prospect of that committee picking up a new probe of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

That meeting is now set to happen next Tuesday, which is not a scheduled sitting day. There, the opposition will be advancing a motion seeking approval to launch what they call a “corruption scandal,” and to call Wilson-Raybould and Philpott to testify.

“By shutting down the Justice Committee’s investigation into his involvement in the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal, Justin Trudeau has shown his contempt for Parliament and the duties of its members to hold him to account. It is now more important than ever for the Liberals to waive privilege and to allow the Ethics Committee to investigate and report on its findings,” said Conservative ethics critic Peter Kent.

In anticipation of the late-night sitting, cots were set up on the government side just outside the House of Commons chamber.

Armed with the latest Philpott comments, opposition MPs periodically rose on various points of order to reference them and try to poke at the Liberals to see if there would be any movement on agreeing to re-open aspects of the affair. The voting concluded without the Liberals biting on any of these attempts, but all sides thanking the parliamentary staff that also worked around the clock to accommodate the session.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/voting-marathon-over-snc-lavalin-scandal-ends-30-hours-later-1.4345382

by Tazzer Fri 22 Mar 2019, 1:24 pm

Wilson-Raybould to reveal more details, documents on SNC-Lavalin affair

Canadian Press

Published: March 22, 2019

SNC-Lavalin Scandal - Page 27 CPT105537552_large

OTTAWA — Jody Wilson-Raybould plans to reveal more — in writing — about her accusation that she faced improper pressure to prevent the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

The former attorney general has written to the House of Commons justice committee to advise that she intends to make a written submission.

She says the submission will disclose "relevant facts and evidence" in her possession that will further clarify her previous oral testimony at the committee and "elucidate the accuracy" of statements made by other witnesses who followed her.

"I trust that the committee will receive this information as part of, and in follow-up to, my testimony on Feb. 27, 2019," Wilson-Raybould writes.

"Further, I do hope my response to the committee’s specific request and the additional information will assist the committee in completing its study on this important matter and in preparing its final report."

The Liberal-dominated committee shut down its investigation into the affair on Tuesday, with Liberal members concluding no rules or laws were broken.

Opposition parties have been demanding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau grant a blanket waiver of solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidentiality to allow Wilson-Raybould to more fully tell her story.

Wilson-Raybould says the additional information she will provide in her written submission will stay within the confines of the waiver she has already been granted, covering the period last fall when she claims to have been pressured up to Jan. 14 when she was shuffled out of her dual role as justice minister and attorney general.

Her letter comes the day after former cabinet minister Jane Philpott fanned the flames of the SNC-Lavalin fire in an interview to Maclean's magazine, saying there is "much more to the story" — a report that landed in the midst of a Conservative-orchestrated filibuster over the controversy.

The filibuster, which continued until almost 1 a.m. Friday, was intended to protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's refusal to offer a blanket waiver of privilege and confidentiality that Wilson-Raybould has claimed is necessary if she is to fully tell her side of the story.

Philpott, who resigned early this month as Treasury Board president, told Maclean's that she raised concerns with Trudeau, during a Jan. 6 discussion about an imminent cabinet shuffle, that Wilson-Raybould was being moved out of Justice because of her refusal to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case.

"I think Canadians might want to know why I would have raised that with the prime minister a month before the public knew about it. Why would I have felt that there was a reason why Minister Wilson-Raybould should not be shuffled?" she said. "My sense is that Canadians would like to know the whole story."

But Philpott actually appears to already be free to talk about that Jan. 6 conversation with Trudeau: The government has waived solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidentiality for last fall, when Wilson-Raybould alleges she was improperly pressured, until Jan. 14, when she was moved to the Veterans Affairs portfolio. The waiver applies not just to Wilson-Raybould but to "any persons who directly participated in discussions with her" relating to the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin for alleged corrupt practices in Libya.

That waiver allowed Wilson-Raybould to testify for nearly four hours before the House of Commons justice committee.

On Thursday, Trudeau rejected the opposition parties' contention, echoed by Philpott, that a broader waiver is required to cover the period between Jan. 14 and Wilson-Raybould's resignation from cabinet a month later.

"It was extremely important that the former attorney general be allowed to share completely her perspectives, her experiences on this issue, and that is what she was able to do," he said after an announcement in Mississauga, pumping up the latest budget's promise to invest $2.2 billion more in municipal infrastructure projects.

"The issue at question is the issue of pressure around the Lavalin issue while she was attorney general and she got to speak fully to that."

Trudeau also gave his version of the Jan. 6 conversation with Philpott, during which he informed her she would be moving to Treasury Board and that Wilson-Raybould would be taking her place at Indigenous Services. His version echoed the testimony of his former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, to the justice committee.

"She asked me directly if this was in link to the SNC-Lavalin decision and I told her no, it was not," Trudeau said. "She then mentioned it might be a challenge for Jody Wilson-Raybould to take on the role of Indigenous Services and I asked her for her help, which she gladly offered to give, in explaining to Jody Wilson-Raybould how exciting this job was and what a great thing it would be for her to have that role."

Wilson-Raybould ultimately turned down the move to Indigenous Services and Trudeau moved her instead to Veterans Affairs. She resigned a month later.

The Canadian Press

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/canada/wilson-raybould-to-reveal-more-details-documents-on-snc-lavalin-affair-294273/

by Tazzer Fri 22 Mar 2019, 1:52 pm

Wilson-Raybould to provide written statement on SNC-Lavalin affair

CBC News
Published on Mar 22, 2019

by Terrarium Fri 22 Mar 2019, 9:32 pm

What will happen with more evidence from Wilson-Raybould on SNC-Lavalin?

CBC News
Published on Mar 22, 2019

by Terrarium Fri 22 Mar 2019, 9:43 pm

Power Play: Did anyone benefit from marathon vote?

The Strategy Session panel discusses whether anyone benefited from the Tories forcing a 30-hour marathon voting session in the House.

by Terrarium Fri 22 Mar 2019, 9:45 pm

Power Play: 'Why are they hiding?' March 22, 2019

The View From the Hill panel discusses the 30-hour voting marathon in the House of Commons over the SNC-Lavalin affair.

by Rifleman Sat 23 Mar 2019, 12:48 am

Ok all I heard there was blah blah blah and go figure the conservatives had nothing to say about veterans when it was brought up am I wrong ?

by **Trooper** Sat 23 Mar 2019, 8:02 am

Rifleman wrote:Ok all I heard there was blah blah blah and go figure the conservatives had nothing to say about veterans when it was brought up am I wrong ?

When it comes to Veterans the Conservatives are no better, no worse then the Liberals. It's not hard to find proof of this, we just need to look back at history. Only the two parties have been in power since the elimination of the pension act. But yet we continue to see Veterans once again thinking the Conservatives, (Scheer), will do better then the Liberals on the Veterans file. No party will make the Veterans file fair against the pension act. What we are seeing now is the Conservatives playing the election card against Trudeau. Whereas Trudeau has got caught in corruption within his own government, himself at the center, witnessed, and testified by his own party members. Right now for the Conservatives nothing else matters seeing that the election is so close.

by Rifleman Sat 23 Mar 2019, 9:08 am

I truly believe it does not matter who gets in it all just of broken promises sunny ways my ass speaking of ass bendover and take another torpedo up it if we can afford one I for one voted for this blank fill it in do to all the platform promises on our file not voting this year because there all carupt sad to say they all pad there pensions and go on there sunny way

by **Oliver** Sat 23 Mar 2019, 11:08 am

I do not trust politicians regardless of what party especially when it comes to veterans.

by Dragonforce Sat 23 Mar 2019, 5:57 pm

9000 Jobs? Trudeau's Truth is Crumbling Down Around Him

CanadaPoli
Published on Mar 23, 2019

by Seawolf Sun 24 Mar 2019, 10:37 am

SNC Lavalin, Credibility and Whisper Campinas - Will It Work?

CanadaPoli
Published on Mar 24, 2019

by Mojave Sun 24 Mar 2019, 4:28 pm

CTV QP: NDP calling for inquiry on SNC-Lavalin March 24, 2019

MPs Lisa Raitt, Marco Mendicino and Peter Julian discuss the Justice Committee shutting down hearings over the ongoing SNC-Lavalin scandal.

by Mojave Sun 24 Mar 2019, 4:30 pm

CTV QP: Philpott 'not part of these discussions' March 24, 2019

Tourism Minister Melanie Joly discusses the SNC-Lavalin affair and says Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould should speak in Parliament.

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