The woman at the centre of #LavScam, the former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, will testify at Justice committee tomorrow afternoon at 3:15pm.
The committee went in camera this morning to deliberate terms of her appearance and nobody was saying much afterward.
“The chair is going to brief people on the specifices of the meeting,” said New Democrat committee member Murray Rankin as he left. Committee chair, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said he could not release details, until a letter had been delivered to Wilson-Raybould.
Yesterday, Former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould declined to appear before the Justice committee in a letter delivered to members’ inboxes at 2:15pm, when most are commencing question period.
“The government can waive solicitor-client privilege and Cabinet confidence. I cannot,” wrote Wilson-Raybould in her letter to Housefather and the committee members, where she also cites “sub judice” convention regarding public discussion of matters before the court.
A Globe and Mail story earlier this month alleged Wilson-Raybould was replaced after she failed to defer SNC-Lavalin’s charges to remediation, a new criminal code provision shoehorned into 2018 omnibus budget bill.
The Québec construction firm and two of its subsidiaries are accused of paying $48 million in bribes to Libyan officials to win contracts there between 2001 and 2011. If convicted, without a deferred prosecution agreement the company faces a 10-year bidding ban on federal contracts.
During question period Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House he would waive-solicitor client privilege. Later that day, an Order-in-Council issued by the Governor General “on the recommendation from the Prime Minister authorizes the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former Attorney General, and any persons who directly participated in discussions with her relating to the exercise of her authority under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act respecting the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.”
In an ironic twist, the Order-In-Council restricts Wilson-Raybould’s testimony but at the same time allows for what she had asked at beginning, “the chance to speak my truth.”
At the risk of prejudicing the integrity of SNC-Lavalin proceedings, the order stipulates “this authorization and waiver does not extend to any information or communications between the former Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions concerning SNC-Lavalin.”
There is also a civil matter involving the government and SNC-Lavalin, what committee vice-chair and Conservative MP Michael Cooper calls a “Hail Mary”, which challenges the Public Proscution Service’s decision not to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with the firm.
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