EDITORIAL: Canadians deserve answers on PMO legal interference
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The Canadian political establishment has been rocked by reports that the Prime Minister’s Office pressed a former Attorney General into dropping a case against SNC-Lavalin executives.
It’s damning information, if true. The news, first reported by The Globe & Mail, was shot down by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a strange non-denial denial.
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“Neither the current nor the previous attorney general was ever directed by me, or by anyone in my office, to take a decision in this matter,” Trudeau said on Thursday.
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But reporters on the scene were quick to remind the PM that the concern is not that the PMO “directed” anyone to drop the case but that they pressured or intervened in anyway.
This is the greatest scandal Trudeau has faced to date, with potential consequences far more serious than the mere embarrassments that emerged from his India trip fiasco.
A week ago, former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime pleaded guilty to what the Canadian Press described as “a charge of helping a public servant commit breach of trust for his role in a bribery scandal around the construction of a $1.3-billion Montreal hospital.”
A couple of months after former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould was reportedly pressured into intervening in this case, she was removed from her post in a cabinet shuffle and replaced by Liberal MP David Lametti.
Both the Conservative and NDP opposition parties want to see a committee investigation into these allegations.
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Meanwhile, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is calling for a police investigation into the affair.
“Messing with the administration of justice is not just bad politics. It may be a crime,” Michael Bryant, the CCLA’s executive director, said in a statement.
Wilson-Raybould has offered a “no comment” and other remarks that do not deny the substance of the allegations and have only left observers asking more questions.
Canadians are right to have more questions. They are also owed more answers than the Prime Minister has so far offered.
The public need to feel assured that our justice system is not politicized. And if that line has in fact been crossed, then serious consequences will be in order.
The oppositions is right. A committee investigation is definitely in order.
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