QUESTION PERIOD — Prime Minister’s Office
SNC-Lavalin
March 18, 2019
My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. On February 7, The Globe and Mail reported that Prime Minister Trudeau’s entourage put undue pressure on the former Attorney General to give SNC-Lavalin preferential treatment involving an agreement and a criminal trial. The Prime Minister immediately said that the report were totally false. Since then, however, two ministers have resigned. His best friend and principal secretary, Gerald Butts, has left his job, and the Prime Minister has admitted that everything reported by The Globe and Mail was actually true. The government is no longer disputing the facts in this scandal. Everyone involved in this affair, even the Prime Minister, has hired private-sector lawyers specializing in criminal law. In a fresh twist, the Clerk of the Privy Council also stepped down today.
Leader, could you confirm that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has launched an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair and that this criminal investigation is the reason the Clerk of the Privy Council decided to retire?
I cannot confirm that. I can only confirm the basis on which the secretary to the Cabinet submitted his retirement. I would refer to the fact that Mr. Wernick has some 37, 38 years of public service, but he did cite in his letter:
It is now apparent that there is no path for me to have a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the Opposition parties. Furthermore, it is essential that during the writ period the Clerk is seen by all political parties as an impartial arbiter of whether serious foreign interference has occurred.
Therefore, I wish to relinquish these roles before the election.
This is a clerk of high integrity, making a judgment as to how the interests of Canada can be served.
As everyone knows, a good criminal lawyer will advise his or her client not to speak. Counsel will tell clients that they have the right to remain silent. Can the government leader confirm that if the individuals identified in this matter, the twelve or so individuals from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Office of the Minister of Finance, are called to testify before the House or Senate committees, they will not invoke their right to remain silent or to avoid self-incrimination and they will provide the absolute full truth?
All I can confirm are the actions of those who have appeared before the House of Commons committee have stated: They have replied to questions honestly, directly and forthrightly and appropriately.
My question is also for the government leader. Mr. Drago Kos, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, told the CBC last week that the former Attorney General’s claim of political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin “immediately raised all alarms.” In response to the serious concerns raised by the OECD, Minister Freeland issued a statement which pointed to the House of Commons Justice Committee as a robust and independent process currently under way. However, Liberal MPs shut down that committee last week before it could even debate inviting Ms. Wilson-Raybould to appear.
Leader, how can the government tell the OECD the committee’s work is robust and independent given what happened at committee just two days after the OECD issued its warning?
First of all, what the honourable senator’s question fails to recall is that the former minister spent more than four hours before the committee, so it’s not, as the question would suggest, that the former minister didn’t have an opportunity.
Second, with respect to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and her statement with regard to the rule of law in Canada, it is certainly my view and the Minister of Justice’s view, and I hope the view of all senators, that the rule of law is strong in Canada and is respected throughout our administration.
Honourable senator, I know that we’ve all been following what happened at the Justice Committee quite carefully, and we know that Ms. Wilson-Raybould was not able to speak as fully as you said she had. There was, I think, agreement among many of the committee members to at least debate whether or not she should be called back, as others were called back. So I was wondering whether the committee did its due diligence in allowing even debate to occur. I feel there are more questions as a result of what has happened. There is more information that we need.
Again, the committee is, as I understand it, meeting tomorrow. It will make whatever decisions the committee makes as an independent committee of the other chamber.
I can only report that the Prime Minister in his order-in-council providing the waiver to the former minister for her testimony ensures that she is able to speak on matters which otherwise would be covered by cabinet confidences that are in respect of these issues and her time as the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General. That is an unusual, but it was felt necessary, step to ensure that the former minister spoke freely and fully.
