The Commons finance committee was suspended abruptly Thursday after descending into taunts and accusations over questions involving political interference and the prospect of a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC-Lavalin.
The fracas was related to allegations that Jody Wilson-Raybould was fired as attorney general for not playing ball with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in deferring charges against the Québec construction company.
A multi-million dollar bribery case involving Libyan officials and SNC-Lavalin is still moving through the courts.
The deferred prosecution provision, quietly shoehorned into the government’s 582-page ominbus budget bill last year was approved by the Finance Committee.
Its inclusion was so quiet that by May 8, of 2018 and with the committee several hearings deep into evaluating the bill, Liberal member Greg Fergus seemed surprised upon discovering it.
“I do have some serious questions about this. I have to admit, I did not read this provision before coming here tonight. I got through most of it, but not all of it. Perhaps you can help me out,” Fergus asked a Department of Justice official testifying before the committee.
Of the provision itself, Fergus noted:
“It leaves a bad taste in my mouth in the sense that it seems we're going to let off people who would commit a very serious economic crime, which has very serious effects against those who are not capable of negotiating these agreements in other crimes they might be victims of or are perpetrators of. We seem to be letting off people in white-collar crimes with a little slap on the wrist … In a sense, then, if I steal $10, I'm in trouble, but if I steal $10 million, I can work this out—to be crude, sorry.”
Other members of the committee also reported being unaware of the provision until that evening’s hearing. Without obtaining a deferred prosecution agreement, if convicted of having bribed foreign officials, SNC-Lavalin faces a 10-year ban on bidding for federal government contracts.
Fast-forward to February 21, 2019 and the microphone melee heating up in the Finance committee. “Could I get a technician in here to pull his mic?” asked Liberal chair Wayne Easter as Conservative vice-chair Pierre Poilievre remained in high dudgeon.
Liberal MP and Chair Wayne Easter tries to have Pierre Poilievre's mic pulled during a finance committee meeting after bringing up #SNCLavalin
— Cosmin Dzsurdzsa (@cosminDZS) February 22, 2019
"You might have silenced Jody Wilson-Raybould, but you’re not going to silence me," said CPC @PierrePoilievre. "You look awfully afraid" pic.twitter.com/2WagKWBQHX
“You might have silenced Ms. Wilson-Raybould, but you wont’ be able to silence me,” said Poilievre, alluding to solicitor-client privilege the government has invoked on the former justice minister regarding SNC-Lavalin.
The pair’s disagreement began over Poilievre’s questions about the Québec construction firm’s specific dealings with Finance minister Bill Morneau’s office. Easter tried to rule the question out of order, but his attempts to interject only spurred on Poilievre.
“You look awfully afraid. What are you afraid of?” Poilievre asked before Easter suspended the meeting – one in which Morneau’s underling, secretary Joël Lightbound – accompanied by department officials – was to answer questions about new legislation aimed at preventing offshore tax evasion.
New Democrat MP Brian Masse was at the meeting and afterward criticized Easter for “jumping the gun”, and Poilievre for ramping up theatrics: “what’s lost in it all is the seriousness of the matter.”
“Poilievre should’ve been offered an opportunity to fully articulate his question and he deserves that level of respect,” said Masse, whose own attempt to restore some focus and order was ignored. “My intervention (at committee), was to say if you want to seriously ask this question, you had an opening on tax treaties that would actually apply to SNC-Lavalin, and that’s where I wanted to go.”
In 2016, SNC-Lavalin was among scores of businesses and individuals named in the Panama Papers, reports on documents obtained from Panamanian lawfirm Mossack Fonseca about a massive tax evasion network. SNC-Lavalin was cited for paying $22 million to offshore companies to get contracts in Algeria.
“I have serious questions about Bill C-82 (tax-avoidance legislation), SNC-Lavalin and other corporations’ responsibilities with respect to the the tax treaty,” said Masse. “Probably with SNC-Lavalin, they’d say ‘this is just the way of doing business’ so if that’s ok, where else aren’t there going to be any rules?”
On top of eroding the public’s trust in its judicial system, Masse said the Wilson-Raybould/SNC-Lavalin affair raises legitimate questions about how a company dependent on domestic government contracts now stands accused of bribing rogue regimes.
“On the one hand, these guys can’t exist without a lifeline from the federal government. On the other, who knows where the money is going?” said Masse. “It could be going to drugs, gun running and human trafficking – nefarious criminal activity that harms other human beings.”
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