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Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick resigns after controversy over SNC-Lavalin testimony
Wernick said he can't remain in the position if the opposition parties don't trust him


https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ ... -testimony

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https://lfpress.com/news/politics/pm-st ... f3c555cea2

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OTTAWA — Liberal MPs have blocked the latest attempt to provide a venue for former cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott to testify on the SNC-Lavalin affair.

On Tuesday, the battleground moved to the Commons ethics committee, which considered a Conservative motion to launch a study after the Liberal-dominated justice committee voted to conclude its investigation without calling more witnesses.

But the six Liberals on the ethics committee out-voted the Conservatives, who had two votes, and the NDP, who had one, and the motion failed.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre called the result especially ironic given recent comments from some Liberal MPs that it was time for Wilson-Raybould to just say her piece, rather than dribbling out news day-by-day. In the most prominent example, Liberal MP Judy Sgro said in a radio interview over the weekend that Wilson-Raybould needed to “either put up or shut up.”

“Today, the Liberals got together and voted against giving her the chance to say it,” Poilievre told reporters. “You know, this is a cavalcade of contradictions and cover-up.”


Parliament has been seized by the SNC-Lavalin affair for nearly two months now, after The Globe and Mail published an allegation on Feb. 7 that Wilson-Raybould had been politically pressured while attorney general to intervene and defer the corruption prosecution of the construction company.

Toronto MP Nate Erskine-Smith was the only Liberal who spoke during the ethics committee meeting. Although Erskine-Smith has a track record of challenging the party line, and had even previously cast a vote in favour of holding a public inquiry on the matter, he told the committee he felt launching the study was premature.

He noted Wilson-Raybould planned to provide a written submission to the justice committee that included further evidence, including text messages and emails.

“To me, it makes far more sense to see what is said in that public statement, to see how justice (committee) reacts to that, frankly, and whether they think any of that new information is something worth reconsidering their previous decision to close off their study,” Erskine-Smith said.

The NDP’s Tracey Ramsey rejected that, saying the Liberals blocked multiple attempts to keep the investigation going. “No one in Canada believes that the justice committee is going to revisit that,” she said. “There is absolutely no indication that they will entertain any further conversation.”



The Conservatives offered an amendment to call Wilson-Raybould only after her submission to the justice committee, but Erskine-Smith said it was too early to make decisions before seeing what she provided. It is not known when Wilson-Raybould will make her submission, but justice committee chair Anthony Housefather has said it will be made public.

Erskine-Smith also pointed out that Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion is already studying the matter, and said the committee should support Dion’s study rather than launch a parallel process.

Finally, Erskine-Smith argued that the waiver provided by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Wilson-Raybould on cabinet confidence privilege and solicitor-client privilege only covered testimony to the justice committee, not the ethics committee.

That waiver has become its own source of conflict, however. Wilson-Raybould has pointed out it does not apply to events after she was removed as justice minister, and opposition parties have demanded Trudeau provide an expanded waiver to cover that time period. Philpott also said in an interview in Maclean’s magazine last week that there was “much more to the story that should be told.”

This breach of the confidentiality of what is supposed to be a highly confidential judicial appointment process is serious enough to require an investigation on its own
After the meeting, while other Liberal MPs left without making their position clear, Erskine-Smith stayed and said he believed an expanded waiver may be necessary — depending what Wilson-Raybould’s evidence to the justice committee showed.

“If still, to get at the truth, there is additional information that Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Ms. Philpott need to provide that they are unable to provide because of the confines of the existing waiver, then yes, to get at the truth there should be a broadening of that waiver,” he said.

He said he believed that was only a fair position, given the comments from some of his colleagues that “we should get all of this information out in the open as quickly as possible and deal with it and move on.”

Both the Conservatives and NDP — and even Erskine-Smith — condemned two stories that came out Monday that contained leaks about the Supreme Court of Canada appointment process. The stories cited confidential sources to allege that tension had arisen between Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould when she recommended the appointment of Glenn Joyal, a Manitoba judge who Trudeau felt to be too conservative.

“This breach of the confidentiality of what is supposed to be a highly confidential judicial appointment process is serious enough to require an investigation on its own,” said Conservative MP Peter Kent during the meeting.

Speaking earlier in the day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not respond directly when asked by a reporter whether his office leaked the story.

“Canadians can have confidence in our government’s respect for the institutions, for the Supreme Court,” he said. “Canadians have confidence in the strength of our judiciary in this country. And I have no further comment to make on this issue.”

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More evidence of SNC shenanigans...

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The country's top bureaucrat warned Jody Wilson-Raybould that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was "quite determined" to prevent SNC-Lavalin's criminal trial from leading to job losses and wanted to know why the then-justice minister hadn't used a new legal tool to allow the company to avoid a criminal trial.

A recording made by Wilson-Raybould of a 17-minute Dec. 19 call between herself and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick was released today, along with 43 pages of emails, texts and a written statement from Wilson-Raybould tabled to the Commons justice committee.

Wernick — who was not aware he was being recorded — told the minister there was "rising anxiety" over the fate of a major employer.

"He's quite determined, quite firm," Wernick said of the prime minister's position on getting a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for the Quebec-based engineering company. "And he wants to know why the DPA route, which Parliament provided for, isn't being used. And I think he's going to find a way to get it done, one way or another."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilson ... -1.5076563

[DrCaleb]

Names of SNC employees, executives behind thousands of dollars in illegal Liberal Party donations revealed

[Strutz]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Names of SNC employees, executives behind thousands of dollars in illegal Liberal Party donations revealed

No way! What a shocker.

Too hilarious really.

[DrCaleb]

You get the government you pay for.

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Crooked Liberals in Quebec, well I'm shocked....Shocked I say.

[Thanos]

Here in Canada's Bizarro-land reverse-Trump fantasy world it's seen as ok by the liberals because it "owns the cons". Ah, ethics & respect for the law, we hardly knew ye.

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https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ ... ments-area

The Libs blinked...

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The federal government is expected to pull the plug on its prosecution of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman for alleged breach of trust, the National Post has learned.

The case is back in court on Wednesday for what was to have been a brief scheduled update on the progress of the government’s efforts at disclosing documents to Norman’s defence team.

Sources have confirmed that the prosecution will withdraw the charge instead.

The tip-off was an unusual alert from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada sent late Tuesday to reporters who have been following the case.

“The Public Prosecution of Canada would like to advise you that there is a scheduled appearance May 8, 2019 at 10:00 am in courtroom # 11 in the Mark Norman prosecution. You may wish to attend,” said the prosecution’s media advisory released at 6:52 p.m. ET.

A spokeswoman for the prosecution service could not be reached for further comment.


Norman, who is charged with a single count of breach of trust for allegedly leaking cabinet secrets about the government’s $700-million shipbuilding deal, was the No. 2 in the Canadian Forces until his temporary suspension in January of 2017.

He wasn’t charged by the RCMP until March of 2018.

Now more than a year later it is unclear why exactly the government appears ready to end the case.

One of the prosecution’s biggest hurdles was in proving one of what are called the “essential elements” of the offence of breach of trust, in particular that Norman had the intent of using his office “for a purpose other than the public good.”

That usually translates to having had a corrupt or dishonest intention.

And yet the government has never even alleged that Norman personally benefited in any way from his alleged leaking.

His lawyers, Marie Henein and Christine Mainville, have always maintained that, as they put it in a third-party records application last fall, “Vice-Admiral Norman is not the right person standing trial.”

The charge alleges that Norman leaked the secret information to a former CBC journalist and a Quebec shipbuilding firm.

That firm, Chantier Davie, had been selected by the former Stephen Harper government to provide a badly needed supply ship – basically a floating gas station – in a sole-source contract in the fall of 2015.

The Harper Conservatives lost that election, and in November, one of the new Trudeau government’s first acts of business was to discuss that contract — with former Treasury Board president Scott Brison arriving at an ad hoc cabinet meeting with a letter of complaint from Davie competitor Irving asking that the new government take a second look at the deal.

The committee decided to request a 60-day delay before signing off on the Davie deal — that’s the information Norman is accused of leaking to the reporter and to Davie.

The decision, and the $89-million penalty taxpayers would incur if the deal was cancelled, made headlines across the country.

The new government was embarrassed into signing off on the deal, but immediately the Privy Council Office launched an internal probe into the leaks, which it referred to the RCMP.

(The ship itself was a stunning success in the world of military procurement — delivered on time and on budget.)

The problem for prosecutors is that as early as last fall, the government had identified at least six leaks linked to the ad hoc meeting alone.

In fact, only this March, RCMP charged Matthew Matchett, a public servant, with breach of trust in connection with the same alleged leak.

As Norman’s lawyers said in court documents, “The prosecution, like procurement, is immersed in politics. It pits Liberals against Conservatives, with an apolitical Vice- Admiral as its casualty.”

Henein and Mainville have made ferocious arguments in court that the government was dragging its feet even in disclosing basic documents to them.

As well, they were poised to bring an abuse of process motion later this month or early in June. That motion was expected to level allegations of political interference and obstruction of subpoena requests for documents as reasons for the case to be dismissed before it gets to trial.

The trial was set for early August.

Liberal MP and former army commander Andrew Leslie offered to be a witness for Norman at his trial, according to a CTV News report last week.

Citing sources, the broadcaster reported that Leslie informed the Prime Minister’s Office more than a year ago that he would testify on behalf of Norman. It was unclear in what capacity he would take the stand.

The case has been rife with suspicions of political interference.

Henein has argued the government has lagged on providing records the defence requires to make its case. In March she said she had not seen “a single document,” she said, after her request in October for communications between the Privy Council Office and Prime Minister’s Office on the topic of Norman, and notes relied upon during witness interviews in the RCMP investigation of Norman.

Some of the documentation that was offered was “completely and utterly useless,” she said, detailing PCO lawyer Paul Shuttle’s submission of an inch-thick pile of records that are already public, such as the government’s access-to-information manual. “How is that possibly responsive to the request?” Ontario Court Judge Heather Perkins-McVey quipped.

Among the documents the defence was seeking was a 60-page memo from then Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick to Trudeau that had been entirely blacked out.

[llama66]

Another loss for the bozo's on office.