00:00:00.000A bombshell report suggests corruption may have seeped into the highest levels of Canada's government, the Prime Minister's office.
00:00:10.000The Globe and Mail published an exclusive report with very damning allegations about the relationship that former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould had with key players in the Prime Minister's office, including Gerald Butts, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister himself.
00:00:26.000According to the Globe and Mail report, Jody Wilson-Raybould was being pressured by the PMO to flex her muscle as Attorney General into getting the prosecution to abandon its case and to settle.
00:00:41.000But doing so would intervene from a political body into an independent or what's supposed to be an independent prosecution.
00:00:51.000The ongoing case is about an allegation made by prosecutors in 2015 that SNC-Lavalin paid millions of dollars in bribes to Libyan officials over a period of 10 years in order to secure government contracts.
00:01:05.000Now, what SNC-Lavalin says is that executives who were involved in that have left the company, which has since reformed its ethics and compliance rules.
00:01:15.000And they've been looking for what's called a deferred prosecution, which is basically the opportunity to make a big trial go away in exchange for them paying a fine, saying they're going to clean up their house and moving on.
00:01:28.000Jody Wilson-Raybould, of course, said that she thought prosecution was necessary.
00:01:33.000She trusted the independent prosecutor's judgment.
00:01:36.000Unfortunately, the report alleges that she was up against a wall in the Prime Minister's office.
00:01:42.000So, why on earth would the PMO be going to bat for SNC-Lavalin?
00:01:47.000Well, to answer that question, we have to look at other news stories.
00:01:51.000In particular, one going back to May of 2018, when a former senior executive, former vice president of the company, was charged with soliciting illegal campaign donations from employees and reimbursing those employees from company coffers.
00:02:06.000The allegations made by prosecutors involve more than $100,000 in donations to the Liberal Party of Canada and to Liberal Riding Associations and to Liberal leadership contenders,
00:02:17.000as well as about $8,000 to the Conservative Party, money that was illegally covered up because it actually came from a corporate account.
00:02:26.000According to the Federal Lobbyist Registry, SNC-Lavalin officials have had 14 visits to the Prime Minister's office since 2017, including to Gerald Butts and also to Matthew Bouchard, who's the senior advisor on Quebec issues.
00:02:41.000And Elder Marquez, a senior policy advisor for Trudeau, also met with SNC officials.
00:02:47.000So we have a few different connections here that are important to explore.
00:02:51.000Number one, tens of thousands of dollars that's flown from SNC-Lavalin coffers into the Liberal Party.
00:02:57.000What looks like huge and potentially unprecedented access between the company's lobbyists and the Prime Minister's office while there is an ongoing criminal investigation.
00:03:08.000And then Jody Wilson-Raybould, remember, was turfed from the Attorney General position.
00:03:14.000And it sounds from the Globe and Mail report like this dismissal happened one month after her standoff with the PMO about the SNC-Lavalin case.
00:03:22.000And it brings into clearer focus the statement that Jody Wilson-Raybould issued upon her move to Veterans Affairs.
00:03:31.000It is a pillar of our democracy that our system of justice be free from even the perception of political interference and uphold the highest levels of public confidence.
00:03:41.000As such, it has always been my view that the Attorney General of Canada must be nonpartisan, more transparent in the principles that are the basis of decisions, and in this respect always willing to speak truth to power.
00:03:53.000This is how I served throughout my tenure in that role.
00:03:57.000In a very brief statement, the Prime Minister's office denied there was any such directive given to Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:04:03.000Wilson-Raybould, now the Veterans Affairs Minister, similarly had no comment to offer.
00:04:07.000And the new Attorney General was not willing to say anything as to whether there would be a change in the investigation or proceedings against SNC-Lavalin.
00:04:16.000Now that this story is out and we see what is evidence of, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict, which can be just as powerful as a conflict of interest.
00:04:27.000But this goes beyond the ethics scandal on which Justin Trudeau was already found guilty regarding the Bahamas vacation.
00:04:34.000There's a big difference here because now we are talking about genuine subversion of the rule of law and of a transparent justice system that's being alleged.
00:04:44.000And if true, there needs to be resignations en masse.
00:04:48.000It's paramount that we hold governments to account, all governments, and in particular this one.
00:04:54.000And that's exactly what we're doing at True North.
00:04:56.000We can't do it alone. If you can support our work and our coverage with an ongoing monthly contribution through the Heritage Club,
00:05:02.000it would go a very long way to standing up for the values on which Canada was founded and continues to thrive.