It was crystal clear that this pressure campaign continued long after the former attorney general told the prime minister (and his officials) it was improper, and should stop
In the broad strokes, the report of the federal ethics commissioner, Mario Dion, into the SNC-Lavalin affair tells us nothing new.
And it was crystal clear that this pressure campaign continued long after the former attorney general told the prime minister it was improper, and should stop. So no, the news in his report is not the finding that, indeed, the prime minister “used his position of authority over Ms. Wilson-Raybould” to seek to influence her decision, on behalf of both his own political interests and the company’s private financial interests, in violation of section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act. The news, rather, comes in the details of how this was attempted, which make the matter even more disturbing than it first appeared.
In the weeks and months after the DPP’s decision, various government officials were in close contact with SNC-Lavalin’s lawyers, including former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, trying to find a way around it: canvassing options, sharing opinions and so forth. The talks began before the company had been officially informed of the decision, and continued, outrageously, even after it had applied for a federal court to review it.
More often her name was invoked as someone who could provide external advice to the presumably ill-informed AG and her equally hapless team of top legal advisers. The possibility was always carefully put to Wilson-Raybould as involving “someone like” McLachlin. As Dion writes, “she did not know until I mentioned it to her … that preliminary discussions between the former chief justice and SNC-Lavalin’s legal counsel and a senior advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office had already taken place.
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