[DrCaleb]

Tricks Tricks:

If they didn't break a canadian law, why is there a canadian criminal trial looming?

llama66 llama66:

Because clearly they did break a Canadian law.

The Canadian law was against bribery in other countries.

Tricks Tricks:

You don't have to agree with the law, but they did break it. Should we just ignore laws we don't agree with?

I am always opposed to stupid laws. First thing I do with a new mattress is rip the tags off. It's my Libertarian streak.

[llama66]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I am always opposed to stupid laws. First thing I do with a new mattress is rip the tags off. It's my Libertarian streak.

Gasp! do you want nuclear war? because that's how you get nuclear war!

[BeaverFever]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

SNC Lavalin is also a major government contractor, and reducing their stock price leaves them vulnerable to takeover. Do we really want sensitive information in foreign hands?

Never mind the Quebec pension fund has a 20% stake in SNC. And THAT is a crux of the issue. It's not about jobs.

Considering Butt's destructive policies in Ontario cost thousands of jobs and the federal Liberal policies are killing off 10's of thousands of jobs in the resource sector, I find this sudden concern over the potential loss of fewer than 9000 jobs to be entirely suspect.

Makes me wonder it if would still be "about the jobs" if SNC-L was located in Alberta.

FTR:


In Ontario, our unemployment rate is at near 20-year lows and on an annual basis it has fallen every year in the last 10 years since it spiked after the financial crisis.

[peck420]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

We're holding a Canadian company to standards that are not illegal in the country where they were performed.

Actually....we don't know this. Not yet, anyway.

We would need the investigation complete for this answer.

When it comes to finance based crimes, it is very common for the physical location of the perpetrators, the physical location of the crime, and the physical location of the crime impacted area...to all be different locations/jurisdictions.

For example. I wire funds to a person in Germany, and I get an approved permit in Russia, all from a bank in Panama, while I sit in Canada. It becomes a mess real quick.

Not that I have ever done that, in particular.

[DrCaleb]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Maybe as DrC suggests, they could both be right.

This level of pressure may be common for PMOs to exert on important cases, while JWR felt that amount of pressure was too much after she had made her decision.

I think Michael Wernick seems like a pretty imposing person, even if he were just asking for directions. To a small lady like JWR, anything he said might have been amplified as 'coercion'. He may not have meant it as such, but it would be pretty hard not to take it so.

[peck420]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think Michael Wernick seems like a pretty imposing person, even if he were just asking for directions. To a small lady like JWR, anything he said might have been amplified as 'coercion'. He may not have meant it as such, but it would be pretty hard not to take it so.

Even something as simple as body position can drastically change the tone of a conversation, even if all of the same words are spoken, at the same volumes.

[DrCaleb]

peck420 peck420:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

We're holding a Canadian company to standards that are not illegal in the country where they were performed.

Actually....we don't know this. Not yet, anyway.

We would need the investigation complete for this answer.

When it comes to finance based crimes, it is very common for the physical location of the perpetrators, the physical location of the crime, and the physical location of the crime impacted area...to all be different locations/jurisdictions.

For example. I wire funds to a person in Germany, and I get an approved permit in Russia, all from a bank in Panama, while I sit in Canada. It becomes a mess real quick.

Not that I have ever done that, in particular.

$1:

Back in 2011, after a long drive across Egypt, I and a CBC crew basically entered Libya illegally. A civil war had erupted, Moammar Gadhafi was sending his military against his own citizens, and in the country's rebellious eastern sector, the visa requirement had suddenly evaporated, as long as you were willing to slip some baksheesh into the clutching hands of Libyan officials staffing the clogged border crossing at El Salloum, near Tobruk.

I suppose I could have gotten up on my hind legs and proclaimed that I am a Canadian, and we Canadians are concerned about rule of law, and do not abet foreign corruption by paying bribes, but I didn't. I had to get to Benghazi, so I paid.

Having worked in the Middle East for several years, I regard baksheesh as the lubricant it is. Either you pay it, or you don't get anything done. It's about that simple.

. . .


When a dodgy-looking Iraqi doctor at the border crossing with Jordan informed me in 1998 I'd need to submit to an AIDS test — because, you know, Iraq and the Arab world have no homosexuals, and therefore are free of this pestilential disease, and determined to remain free of it — I paid the requisite $100 US to avoid having a needle jabbed into my arm in a flyblown desert hut. U.S. cruise missiles were pouring into Baghdad, and I just didn't consider turning back in order to make an anti-bribery statement.

. . .

The Iranians were a little more subtle. They would seize equipment at the airport (in my case, a $50,000 piece of editing equipment in 2000) and invent some customs offense. Bottom line: It would take hundreds of American dollars to get the machine back. I paid.

. . .

But it's such a Canadian scandal. Such foolishness. I can only imagine the Libyan officials who took the bribes, laughing themselves silly over shisha pipes and cardamom coffee.

I bribed the Libyans. It's how things work in hopelessly corrupt countries: Neil Macdonald

[peck420]

I am aware of how SNC is trying to bury this, but I don't believe that that is even the tip of the iceberg.

They got savvier when they caught wind of being caught...that is what I currently believe.

[DrCaleb]

peck420 peck420:

I am aware of how SNC is trying to bury this, but I don't believe that that is even the tip of the iceberg.

They got savvier when they caught wind of being caught...that is what I currently believe.

I don't disagree that they knowingly broke the law. That might have consequences.

But it's a silly law that holds everyone else up to our standards. I can see it applying in Canada. Other G7 countries have similar laws that apply in their countries. But should we limit Canadian companies from having Global reach because of those standards?

[peck420]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I don't disagree that they knowingly broke the law. That might have consequences.

But it's a silly law that holds everyone else up to our standards. I can see it applying in Canada. Other G7 countries have similar laws that apply in their countries. But should we limit Canadian companies from having Global reach because of those standards?

Sorry, my post wasn't as clear as I would have liked.

I believe that SNC has acted illegally, inside Canada. I believe that that are using previous 'grey actions' in foreign nations as the hat to hang all of their illegalities on, to absolve themselves of all of it.

But, for this specific quote, I do agree. If everything happens in one physical spot, than that jurisdictions rules should be what is applied.

[BartSimpson]

peck420 peck420:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think Michael Wernick seems like a pretty imposing person, even if he were just asking for directions. To a small lady like JWR, anything he said might have been amplified as 'coercion'. He may not have meant it as such, but it would be pretty hard not to take it so.

Even something as simple as body position can drastically change the tone of a conversation, even if all of the same words are spoken, at the same volumes.

Absolutely true.

[BeaverFever]

bootlegga bootlegga:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

They may both be correct. Everyone takes things said to them in different ways

Tricks Tricks:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

I don’t think JWR was inappropriately pressured

Well she disagrees with you on that one. Quite heavily.

Maybe as DrC suggests, they could both be right.

This level of pressure may be common for PMOs to exert on important cases, while JWR felt that amount of pressure was too much after she had made her decision.

Yeah I don’t buy that 21 “points of contact” over about as many weeks is “inappropriate pressure” that’s only once a week

And let’s remember that “points of contact “ doesn’t mean contact with JWR directly ot “high pressure”confrontations, but also contacts with her subordinate staff, brief email or text messages, as well meetings JWR office initiated or scheduled meetings that were primarily about other topics but where this issue was raised in some form. So it’s a very generous number to begin with.

So being an Ottawa newbie JWR perhaps just doesn’t have the same sense of what appropriate amount of contact is for a high-profile file, which is what retired Liberal Party Old Guard Sheila Copps has been suggesting. Copps said when she was in office working on the Copyright Act she was contacted over 150 times by various parties attempting to influence the outcome.

Ironically, this means that Trudeau is kind of a victim of his own success because he purposely brought in all these party outsiders especially including JWR and Philpott in a bid to shake up Ottawa power-base and put and end to party insider backroom deals and that’s exactly what they’re doing at Justins expense when he tried to make what seems like a party insider backroom deal.

Not only that but he purposely sought these individuals fo his cabinet because they were strong independent, accomplished women and in the case of JWR also a proud FN woman and these have also been factored into the women’s respective criticisms on this matter

[DrCaleb]

llama66 llama66:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I am always opposed to stupid laws. First thing I do with a new mattress is rip the tags off. It's my Libertarian streak.

Gasp! do you want nuclear war? because that's how you get nuclear war!

"The beautiful glow!"

You ae the one who wants it much, much warmer.

[llama66]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

peck420 peck420:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think Michael Wernick seems like a pretty imposing person, even if he were just asking for directions. To a small lady like JWR, anything he said might have been amplified as 'coercion'. He may not have meant it as such, but it would be pretty hard not to take it so.

Even something as simple as body position can drastically change the tone of a conversation, even if all of the same words are spoken, at the same volumes.

Absolutely true.

I suffer from this. I'm 6'2" and about 400lbs, I'm intimidating even when I not trying to be.

[llama66]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

llama66 llama66:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I am always opposed to stupid laws. First thing I do with a new mattress is rip the tags off. It's my Libertarian streak.

Gasp! do you want nuclear war? because that's how you get nuclear war!

"The beautiful glow!"

You ae the one who wants it much, much warmer.

hmmmm...... Nuclear hellfire is pretty warm.... carry on.