In an interview with Wendy Mesley, former Attorney General of Ontario, Michael Bryant compared the allegations of interference in the SNC-Lavalin case to corruption in Russia.
“Maybe that’s how the Kremlin works but it’s not how Ottawa’s supposed to work,” he said on the CBC’s The Weekly.
Michael J. Bryant was a Liberal MPP for 10 years from 1999 to 2009. He currently sits as the executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Bryant’s comments come as the Prime Ministers Office is in the middle of a political scandal. The PMO has been accused of attempting to pressure the former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould into interfering in a prosecution against the construction giant SNC-Lavalin.
The Prime Minister has since denied the allegations claiming that the original report was untrue.
“This is a big deal. It’s a political scandal obviously, but it might be a constitutional crisis. It might be a crime that’s taken place,” elaborated Bryant.
“Because somebody—the allegation is—with a lot of power tried to politicize a prosecution and that’s obstruction of justice under the criminal code.”
The RCMP have yet to announce whether they are currently investigating the situation but they stated that they are indeed aware of the report.
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