[PluggyRug]

It gets more interesting.....

https://jwilson-raybould.liberal.ca/new ... granville/

[DrCaleb]

Yea, ^^ that move doesn't make sense.

[Thanos]

Unless she's ready to flip and talk in order to save her own skin, or just out of disgust at what the PMO tried to coerce her to do for SNC.

[llama66]

Thanos wrote:

Unless she's ready to flip and talk in order to save her own skin, or just out of disgust at what the PMO tried to coerce her to do for SNC.

Me thinks its a little of column "a" and a little of column "b"...

[DrCaleb]

Thanos wrote:

Unless she's ready to flip and talk in order to save her own skin, or just out of disgust at what the PMO tried to coerce her to do for SNC.

Personally, I don't see a problem with what SNC did. It's against our laws, yes. But if you want to get anything done in many corrupt countries, you need spread around the dead Prime Ministers.

[llama66]

Ethics is my problem... whats to stop them from the practicing the same approach here? By the government's reaction and attitude to this scandal; whats to say they didn't spread some MacKenzies around?

[DrCaleb]

llama66 wrote:

Ethics is my problem... whats to stop them from the practicing the same approach here? By the government's reaction and attitude to this scandal; whats to say they didn't spread some MacKenzies around?

I quite agree, they don't and shouldn't do it here because it's illegal and illegal for good reason. But in Libya the rules are different. And I very much dislike lobbyists in general.

[llama66]

Same.

[PluggyRug]

Quebec premier wants federal government to settle with SNC-Lavalin 'as soon as possible' so firm avoids trial

The Canadian Press
February 14, 2019
6:23 PM EST
Last Updated
February 15, 2019
1:07 AM EST

Quote:

Quebec Premier Francois Legault says he wants the federal government to settle with engineering firm SNC-Lavalin “as soon as possible” in order to protect jobs and the company’s corporate headquarters in Montreal.

The embattled firm is vulnerable to a foreign takeover, Legault told reporters Thursday in Quebec City. And the longer its legal troubles drag on, the greater the chance it could fall prey to another company, he said.

“I want to do all we can do to protect this headquarters and protect the thousands of good, well-paying jobs we have at SNC-Lavalin.”
The company has been lobbying the federal government for a remediation agreement to avoid a criminal trial on charges of bribery and fraud related to its efforts to secure government contracts in Libya.

Under a remediation agreement the prosecution would be dropped in exchange for SNC-Lavalin admitting its wrongdoing and paying a financial penalty. The Globe and Mail newspaper reported last week that the Prime Minister’s Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to agree to such an agreement.

Legault said SNC should pay for its alleged crimes, but its employees and the province’s economy shouldn’t suffer as a result.
“We know that SNC-Lavalin, that they didn’t follow legal rules — in Libya especially — and they have to pay for that, especially the people that were involved,” he said. “SNC-Lavalin, I met the president, they are ready to put on the table very large amounts of penalty.”

Without a settlement, he added, the case could drag on for years and SNC-Lavalin’s business would suffer.
SNC-Lavalin had its debt rating downgraded Wednesday by Standard & Poor’s. The agency cited the criminal charges against the engineering and construction giant and the 10-year ban from bidding on federal contracts that would accompany a conviction among its reasons for the downgrade.

Legault said the firm’s legal woes are bad for the province. “Right now there is no controlling shareholder, so there’s a real risk that this company could be bought by somebody, for example from the U.K. For me, it would be bad news for Quebec,” he said.
He said that in discussions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he has asked, “Can you settle as soon as possible in order that we keep those jobs? We need those jobs.”

Added to the company’s troubles is news this week that Quebec prosecutors are working with the RCMP on the possibility of new criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin, in connection with a contract to refurbish Montreal’s Jacques Cartier Bridge.

While Legault had plenty to say about the federal charges, he stayed away from commenting on the provincial allegations. “I have no intention of doing (anything) with what’s happening in Quebec jurisdiction,” he said.

************************************************** *************************************

The federal government employee in charge of the Champlain Bridge refurbishment has already pled guilty in court in Quebec to accepting $2.3 million in bribes from SNC in relation to SNC's contracts for work on the bridge.

So the police had enough evidence to charge and convict the bribe recipient and enough time has passed for his charges to work their way through the entire court system and somehow SNC has yet to be charged for paying the bribe. Double standard much? Nice work Quebec politics.

[PluggyRug]

Gerald Butts resigns.

Trudeau's running out of options.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gerald ... -1.5023675

[PluggyRug]

[JaredMilne]

Every time you think the Liberals hit rock bottom, they pull out another shovel.

On the one hand, the Liberals were pretty damn hypocritical to pass the law authorizing a deferred prosecution agreement in an omnibus bill after they were always ripping the Harper Conservatives for doing so. Not to mention that leaning on Jody Wilson-Raybould was really problematic.

According to journalist Paul Wells, a lot of senior Liberals also spent a lot of time allegedly working behind the scenes to pull this off.

Then the Liberals dominating the justice committee blocks an attempt to have Wilson-Raybould and Gerald Butts, among others, testify.

But then Trudeau shuffles Wilson-Raybould into Veterans' Affairs, pissing off the Native community. Then there were rumours that she was shuffled out of Justice because she couldn't speak French, which was hardly a good message to send to the vets, especially when she then resigned from Cabinet, further infuriating the veterans themselves.

Not to mention that many Quebecers are also not thrilled at what might happen to SNC Lavalin, especially when all the executives involved in the previous bribery attempts are no longer with the company and it's tried to clean up its operations. Even noted Anglo-Quebecois rights activist Phillip Berlach points this out, and he's no fan of Quebec nationalist separatism.

TL;DR: Trudeau has bungled this so spectacularly that he's pissed off Quebecers, Natives, and veterans all at once. John Ivison pretty much nails it that Trudeau and Butts have no one but themselves to blame for this.

[JaredMilne]

There's a funny story I find myself telling more and more these days...

When Justin Trudeau was elected leader of the Liberal party, my mother asked me what I thought of him. I replied that I thought he inherited Pierre's charisma and Margaret's intelligence, based on boners like his admiration of China's dictatorship and his getting into hot water with Acadians when he implied that French and English shouldn't have prominent status over other languages.

I said all this back in 2013.

Sometimes I hate being right.

[Tricks]

Testimony doesn't seem to be going well for the Liberals.... as an understatement.

[DrCaleb]

Good! Serves them right.