Juno News - August 15, 2019


Justin Trudeau blocked access to key information on SNC-Lavalin affair


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

157.22557

Word count

878

Sentence count

40


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A new report from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner casts new light on a key part of the SNC-Lavalin bribery scandal, and casts new doubt on the Prime Minister's initial denial that the allegations were false.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Canada's Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has issued a formal report
00:00:13.600 really cementing what most Canadians concluded months ago about Justin Trudeau,
00:00:18.300 that he erred and violated federal law when he tried to force and coerce, through himself and his office,
00:00:26.680 Jody Wilson-Raybould, at the time Canada's Attorney General, to interfere in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin
00:00:33.160 to try to give the company a sweetheart deal rather than holding it accountable on the allegations of bribery
00:00:39.040 for which the prosecution is still ongoing.
00:00:42.040 Now this report, however, does cast new light on the story.
00:00:46.780 It's not just about this misunderstanding that Justin Trudeau was claiming before,
00:00:50.960 and remember when that initial Globe and Mail report came out, he said that the allegations were false.
00:00:55.600 He categorically denied them.
00:00:57.820 I and my staff always acted appropriately and professionally.
00:01:03.800 I therefore completely disagree with the former Attorney General's characterization of events.
00:01:11.480 Well now the report says that there were numerous avenues, numerous attempts to interfere,
00:01:17.140 and more importantly, undue, improper, and yes, illegal pressure put on Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:01:23.520 But even after this 63-page report was tabled, the Trudeau 2 report, because again, this isn't the first time he's been down this road,
00:01:32.500 Justin Trudeau is still not taking accountability for his actions, though he says he is.
00:01:38.000 Take a listen.
00:01:38.640 I fully accept this report and take responsibility for everything that happened.
00:01:45.280 Where I disagree with the commissioner, amongst others, is where he says and takes a strong perspective
00:01:52.480 that any contact with the AG, the Attorney General on this issue, was improper.
00:01:58.780 What we did over the past year wasn't good enough.
00:02:03.800 But at the same time, I can't apologize for standing up for Canadian jobs.
00:02:09.760 Yeah, so he says that he is taking responsibility and the buck stops with the Prime Minister,
00:02:14.900 but is also disputing that anything improper happened.
00:02:18.280 Well, if you're disputing the most central part of the report, what is it you're actually admitting to?
00:02:22.700 What is it you're fessing up to?
00:02:24.680 And moreover, if you were actually contrite and interested in finding the truth and actually righting wrongs,
00:02:31.320 wouldn't you be supporting the investigation?
00:02:34.340 No, Justin Trudeau did the opposite.
00:02:36.540 Take a look at this section from the report.
00:02:38.680 During this examination, nine witnesses informed our office that they had information they believed to be relevant,
00:02:46.880 but that could not be disclosed because, according to them,
00:02:50.100 this information would reveal a confidence of the Queen's Privy Council
00:02:53.380 and would fall outside the scope of Order in Council 2019-0105.
00:02:59.320 In order to gain access to as much relevant information as possible,
00:03:02.720 on March 29th, 2019, I instructed legal counsel in our office to engage with counterparts in the Privy Council office
00:03:10.360 to request that witnesses be enabled to provide all of their evidence to our office.
00:03:15.420 Despite several weeks of discussions, the offices remained at an impasse over access to cabinet confidences.
00:03:23.600 Dion continues to say that he raised the matter directly with Trudeau,
00:03:27.500 who lawyered up and said through legal counsel that he would have to talk to the Privy Council office
00:03:32.140 to see whether this Order in Council could be amended,
00:03:35.340 and at a certain point, the office just declined the request altogether.
00:03:40.380 Now, the Order in Council he's referring to is the directive that Justin Trudeau gave
00:03:44.860 allowing Jody Wilson-Raybould to testify before the Justice Committee
00:03:48.800 about a limited window of time where she did something that was covered under cabinet confidence
00:03:54.840 and she was allowed to speak out about it.
00:03:56.960 But as Jody Wilson-Raybould has said herself, that was a very narrow window
00:04:01.800 and it wasn't the totality of what it is that she had to say.
00:04:06.000 And in the course of Mario Dion's investigation, there were nine witnesses that had information
00:04:10.940 that fell outside of that order and Justin Trudeau would not expand it.
00:04:15.440 But beyond that, he pretended that he didn't know if he could.
00:04:18.540 Well, if he issued the initial order, he could just as easily issue a second one.
00:04:23.360 But he chose not to.
00:04:24.620 Now, I'm not suggesting there is criminal wrongdoing here.
00:04:28.540 I'll let the RCMP investigate that.
00:04:30.760 But what I am suggesting is that Justin Trudeau and his office obstructed this investigation
00:04:36.420 when there was very clearly evidence that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
00:04:41.320 thought was relevant and could not access.
00:04:44.820 Justin Trudeau blocked access to key documents and witnesses
00:04:50.100 for something that he says he did nothing wrong during.
00:04:54.520 That is not a decision made by a Prime Minister who has nothing to hide.
00:04:59.280 Canadians have allowed Trudeau and his government to violate Conflict of Interest and Ethics Law
00:05:03.560 now several times in just a four-year term in office.
00:05:08.060 Will he get another chance to do it?
00:05:10.180 Who knows?
00:05:10.800 But this is a lot bigger than the Bahamas' vacation.
00:05:14.240 True North is standing up for truth and honesty and fairness in reporting.
00:05:18.200 We can't do this alone, especially with the election nearing.
00:05:21.600 We've launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover our election coverage costs.
00:05:26.120 Please do chip in with a few dollars or even a few hundred dollars if you can.
00:05:29.800 There's a link in the description box or you can head on over to tnc.news.
00:05:33.620 For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.