During a tour of the Conrad rental housing development in Vancouver, Justin Trudeau addressed the political interference allegations surrounding the Prime Minister’s Office and SNC-Lavalin.
The Prime Minister’s comments came after an announcement on funding for 3 more rental and housing projects in Vancouver.
Appearing at the BC housing development alongside Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, and Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Jonathan Wilkinson, Justin Trudeau said he welcomes an investigation.
“We welcome the ethics commissioners investigation this is an issue that has been much talked about over the past few days, and i think its extremely important that Canadians can continue to have confidence in our system,” said the Prime Minister.
Throughout the questions the Prime Minister did not answer directly, when asked whether a member of his office was involved in any political pressure.
“I have met with minister Wilson-Raybould a couple of times already since arriving in BC yesterday. She confirmed for me a conversation we had this Fall where i told her directly that any decisions on matters regarding public prosecutions were here own,” said Justin Trudeau.
“Were bound by cabinet confidentiality…. Her presence in cabinet should speak for itself.”
The issue of solicitor client privilege is not a simple one so I have asked our attorney general to provide me with advice on this matter,” said Trudeau speaking on Wilson-Raybould’s silence about the allegations after citing her “solicitor client privileges” during her time as Attorney General.
The Prime Minister continued to repeat these talking points throughout the press release.
The political scandal erupted after The Globe and Mail released an incriminating report that suggested that members from the PMO tried to pressure former Attorney General and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould into interfering in a criminal prosecution against the Montreal construction and engineering giant.
This is the first time the Prime Minister has addressed the affair since the story broke last week.
Shortly after the Globe and Mail report, the Prime Minister denied the allegations, calling the story false.
“The allegations reported in the story are false. At no time did I or my office direct the current or previous attorney-general to make any particular decision in this matter,” said the Prime Minister. ” “As I’ve said, at no time did we direct the attorney-general, current or previous, to make any decision whatsoever in this matter.”
Even though the Prime Minister has denied the allegations, pressures have mounted for an investigation into the matter.
After outcry from members of the opposition and the public, the ethics commissioner has announced that they will be conducting an independent probe into the accusations.
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Defence goes after key witness' credibility in SNC-Lavalin corruption trial
Counsel for former SNC-Lavalin vice-president Sami Bebawi, on trial for charges related to business dealings in Libya, attempted to poke holes in the Crown’s star witness’s story about events involving the now-failed North African state and its deceased dictator.
Bebawi has pleaded not guilty to eight charges including fraud, corruption, money laundering, and bribery of foreign officials, including notorious Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his playboy son Saadi.
After four days of testimony under Crown examination, Ben Aissa, who copped a related plea deal in exchange for his cooperation, told the court during day one of the defence’s cross that he tried to get the Canadian government to assist with delinquent accounts involving multi-million dollar contracts.
On Monday, Ben Aissa told the jury that Bebawi leaned on him hard to recoup cash any way possible after SNC-Lavalin was not getting paid by the Gaddafi regime for a multi-million dollar contract arranged in the early 2000s.
Wednesday, Bebawi testified that before he set up a shell company in British Virgin Islands where 50 percent of this outstanding cash was funnelled before being divvied between players, including Gaddafi, he asked the Canadian government for help.
Ben Aissa had previously testified that 50 percent of this money was funnelled to Duval Securities Inc. that he registered in the British Virgin Islands, then divvied up between the players, including Gaddafi.
The Crown said it intends to prove that SNC-Lavalin ultimately transferred more than $113 million to this offshore company.
The jury has also heard from Ben Aissa that cultivating a relationship to ensure a steady stream of contracts for the Quebec-based, global engineering firm, involved a luxury yacht shopping trip in 2007 with Saadi Gaddafi in the South of France.
According to Bebawi, SNC-Lavalin eventually contracted an American ship building to construct a custom $25 million boat Muammar’s son.
As reported by Postmedia on Wednesday, defence lawyer Alexandre Bien-Aimé disputed many of Ben Aissa’s claims, including whether a key meeting with Bebawi in Cairo where the boss allegedly pressured to recoup the cash, unconcerned about the method.
Bien-Aimé also questioned Ben Aissa’s explanation of how the circumstances surrounding his first contact with Gadhafi and how involved Bebawi was with SNC-Lavalin’s business in Libya.
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SNC-Lavalin built Gaddafi's son $25M yacht from scratch according to court testimony
After inking a multimillion-dollar contract with Libya in 2007, then-SNC-Lavalin executive Riadh Ben Aissa toured a luxury boat show in Cannes, France with North African dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saadi, a Quebec Superior Court jury heard on Monday.
Ben Aissa is the Crown’s star witness in the bribery and corruption trial of former SNC-Lavalin executive vice-president Sami Bebawi.
According to Ben Aissa, after returning to Libya he was contacted by the elder Gaddafi’s people about Saadi’s desire for a 150-foot, $25 million yacht that SNC-Lavalin eventually contracted an American company to build.
On the first day of the trial on October 31, Crown Prosecutor Anne-Marie Manoukian told jurors the trial “is a case of international fraud and corruption” and alleged that paying bribes to Libyan officials “became the business model” for SNC-Lavalin in what’s now a failed state.
The Crown’s case is built on business relationships that SNC-Lavalin allegedly cultivated with Saadi and Muammar Gaddafi involving million-dollar bribes and kickbacks to maintain a pipeline of valuable contracts for the Québec-based engineering firm.
The Crown also alleges that Bebawi orchestrated the arrangement and benefitted personally to the tune of $26 million.
On Monday, the court also heard from Ben Aissa that when SNC-Lavalin started to suffer financially on a project for the Gaddafi regime, Bebawi leaned on him to recoup the cash in any way possible.
Ben Aissa testified that 50 percent of this money was funnelled to Duval Securities Inc. that he registered in the British Virgin Islands, then divvied up between the players, including Gaddafi.
The Crown said it intends to prove that SNC-Lavalin ultimately transferred more than $113 million to this offshore company.
Bebawi has pleaded not guilty to eight charges including fraud, corruption, money laundering, and bribery of foreign officials. The trial continues in Montreal and is expected to last six weeks.
Charges against Bebawi are related, but separate from concurrent legal proceedings against the firm itself, which opted for trial by judge in June of this year in a case that has yet to see a courtroom.
SNC-Lavalin’s alleged bribery and corruption crimes and the company’s attempt to get a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) went all the way to the Prime Minister’s Office, a February Globe and Mail story revealed.
The charges and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s attempt to pressure ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould into diverting criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin to remediation, sparked the biggest scandal the PM weathered during his first government.
In 2012, the Swiss arrested Ben Aissa, who spent two years imprisoned there before pleading guilty to money laundering. This cleared the way for extradition to Canada where he cut a plea deal last summer and was sentenced to 51 months in prison for forging documents.
Back in February, the case against a second SNC-Lavalin executive Stéphane Roy, was thrown out of court on grounds it had taken too long to come to trial. The court rejected Bebawi’s attempt to have his case tossed on similar grounds.
UPDATE: During his testimony Tuesday, Ben Aissa told jurors that while incarcerated in Switzerland, he was contacted by Bebawi’s lawyers and offered $10 million to soften up and corroborate eventual testimony. Ben Aissa said he refused and reported the overture to Canadian authorities.
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SNC-Lavalin stocks surge after Liberal re-election
Stocks for the scandal-ridden Quebec-based engineering and construction company SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. surged by nearly 15 percent on the morning after Justin Trudeau’s re-election to a Liberal minority government.
Currently, SNC-Lavalin is facing corruption charges for bribing officials while conducting business in Libya, including bribes to the son of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The company was at the heart of an election interference scandal that plagued the Trudeau government and resulted in the ejection of former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and MP Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus.
Wilson-Raybould has since been re-elected as an independent candidate for Vancouver Granville.
Trudeau was eventually found to have broken the law and had attempted to politically interfere in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin by the ethics commissioner.
Prior to Trudeau’s re-election, SNC-Lavalin stocks had faced a downturn, falling more than 60 percent over the last year.
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Justin Trudeau repeats SNC-Lavalin lie in leaders' debate
During tonight’s English Leaders’ Debate, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer was asked which leader he wanted to ask a question of. He quickly pivoted toward Justin Trudeau eliciting laughter from the audience. He then asked Trudeau about the SNC-Lavalin affair: “When did you decide that the rules don’t apply to you?”
Scheer reminded Trudeau that it had been determined that he acted inappropriately in pressuring then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to pursue a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin. Scheer said, “You looked Canadians in the eye and told Canadians that the allegations in the Globe and Mail were false.”
Trudeau responded, “They were false” despite the findings of the Ethics Commissioner confirming the Globe and Mail‘s report that he and his government acted inappropriately.
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