Democracy Watch seeks private prosecution against Trudeau cabinet over SNC-Lavalin
Democracy Watch is applying to task the Ontario Court of Justice to approve private prosecution against the Trudeau government on allegations of obstruction of justice and breach of trust.
Author: Quinn Patrick
Democracy Watch is applying to task the Ontario Court of Justice to approve private prosecution against the Trudeau government on allegations of obstruction of justice and breach of trust.
The decision to file the application comes in response to newly surfaced documents that former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould urged the RCMP to broaden the scope of their SNC-Lavalin investigation.
Democracy Watch obtained a transcription of the private interview between Wilson-Raybould and the RCMP in September 2019 via an access-to-information request initially filed by Blacklock’s Reporter.
“There are more people that you guys need to talk to than me,” Wilson-Raybould told RCMP at the time. “There is a lot more information out there that I wasn’t privy to.”
During the investigation, the RCMP only interviews four of 15 key witnesses.
The group’s co-founder Duff Conacher said that the position of Democracy Watch has always been that the RCMP should not have been investigating the matter in the first place.
Nor should they be investigating “any matter involving federal cabinet ministers because the RCMP commissioner, deputy commissioner and the heads of every division of the RCMP are all chosen by and serve at the pleasure of the prime minister and the cabinet.”
“As a result they lack independence and are vulnerable to political interference,” said Conacher during a press conference Wednesday.
According to Conacher, the investigation and any potential prosecutions that stemmed from it should have been led by a special prosecutor, appointed through a “fully independent process” and not by the “ruling party cabinet” or by the RCMP commissioner who serves beneath that cabinet.
“Another sign of the RCMP’s lack of independence and weak investigation in this situation is that the RCMP accepted the Trudeau cabinet’s very restricted order in terms of what cabinet documents could be disclosed to the RCMP for its investigation,” said Conacher.
He also noted Trudeau’s “pressuring” of Wilson-Raybould regarding what they could say about the investigation as well as pressure placed on her by others working at the prime minister’s behest.
Democracy Watch also alleges that the documents reveal that the RCMP changed the standard normally used to determine whether there had been an obstruction of justice, “replacing it with an incorrect legal standard.”
The RCMP has since acknowledged that they never requested an interview with Trudeau or sought a warrant for the records that were being withheld by cabinet.
Additionally, they “never considered prosecuting anyone for breach of trust,” despite an internal memo from 2021 acknowledging that political pressure had been applied to quash a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which the Mounties referred to as harmless.
“For it to be an offence under the Criminal Code there must be more than a technical violation,” reads the memo, RCMP Assessment Report: Obstruction Of Justice SNC-Lavalin Affair.
The SNC-Lavalin controversy erupted in 2019 when The Globe and Mail revealed that Trudeau and his PMO staff had pressured Wilson-Raybould to offer SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement, which would let the company skirt criminal proceedings and continue to bid on federal contracts.
Wilson-Raybould refused to intervene in the prosecution, and was later shuffled out of her cabinet position. She resigned from cabinet shortly after, followed by fellow minister Jane Philpott.
The House of Commons Justice Committee held hearings on the matter, where Wilson-Raybould testified that she faced “consistent and sustained” pressure from Trudeau and his staff to interfere in the prosecution.
Trudeau later expelled Wilson-Raybould and Philpott from the Liberal caucus. The federal ethics commissioner ruled that Trudeau had breached the Conflict of Interest Act by attempting to influence Wilson-Raybould.
The prime minister continues to deny any wrongdoing regarding his involvement in the scandal.
Have enough Liberal judges died lately? The people are lucky they had one vice-president to lay it all on. But if Trudeau actually does resign and not retreat to the safety of the Aga Khan then it may be worthwhile.