Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould broke her silence on the SNC-Lavalin affair in testimony to the House of Commons justice committee. She delivered an extended, 36-minute opening statement. These are those remarks in full.
For most of these conversations, I made contemporaneous and detailed notes – notes, in addition to my clear memory, which I am relying on today among other documentation. It is well-established that when the AG exercises prosecutorial discretion, she or he does so individually and independently. These are not cabinet decisions. I will say that it is appropriate for Cabinet colleagues to draw to the AG’s attention what they see as important public policy considerations that are relevant to decisions about how a prosecution will proceed.
Two days later, on September 6, one of the first communications about a DPA was received from outside our department. Ben Chin, Minister Morneau’s Chief of Staff, emailed my Chief of Staff and they arranged to talk. He wanted to talk about SNC and what we could do, if anything, to address this. He said to her that if they don’t get a DPA, they will leave Montreal, and it’s the Quebec election right now, so we can’t have that happen.
Same day, Francois G. and Emma met with my Deputy Minister. Some excerpts of the s. 13 note were read to the DM, but the DM did not want to be provided with a copy of the s. 13 note. This changes on September 16. My Chief of Staff had a phone call with Mathieu Bouchard and Elder Marques from the PMO. They wanted to discuss SNC. They told her that SNC have made further submissions to the Crown, and ‘there is some softening, but not much’. They said that they understand that the individual Crown prosecutor wants to negotiate an agreement, but the Director does not.
On September 17: The DM said that Finance had told her that they want to make sure that Kathleen understands the impact if we do nothing in this case. Given the many potential concerns raised by this conversation, I discussed it with her later that day. At that point the PM jumped in stressing that there is an election in Quebec and that “and I am an MP in Quebec – the member for Papineau”.
As a result of this discussion, I agreed to and undertook to the PM that I would have a further conversation with my Deputy and the Clerk – but that these conversations would not change my mind. I also said that my staff and my officials are not authorized to speak to the PPSC.I left meeting and immediately debriefed my staff as to what was said re: SNC/DPAs
Perhaps DPA's are good public policy. We'll never know. No government will touch one after the SNC debacle.
Events have overtaken the need to know how DPA's work .. or don't in other jurisdictions.
The more I hear & the more I read from JWR the more I think that there was nothing more to this than a Cabinet Minister who closed their mind to any suggestions because they already knew all the answers-sounds a lot like the God complex!
Notice how the liberal funded media is hardly using Trudeau's name in its headlines Not a coincidence. Payment in kind for all of the financial support.
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