Justin Trudeau can still clean it up, by addressing the real issues: whatever is the right thing for prosecutors to do can still be done, but the government has foolishly straddled a serrated polit…
As the SNC-Lavalin controversy is inexplicably fumbled, a few facts should be revisited. The apparently unanimous mindset in this country, that enabling an alleged corporate offender to pay a fine rather than have its officers charged criminally is in itself sleazy and a failure of judicial administration, is mistaken. Criminal trials are expensive to the country and prosecutors frequently overestimate the probative value of their evidence.
This theory that Canadian corporations must go out into the world like eagle scouts and operate in environments that by our standards are profoundly corrupt, and conduct themselves as if they were operating a lemonade stand at the summer fair of a Canadian parish church, is nonsense. Of all the recent episodes that have been raised in the SNC-Lavalin affair, the only one that raises concerns on its face is the question about the Jacques Cartier Bridge renovation in Montreal.
There is nothing wrong with the prime minister or his office requiring the attorney general and senior officials to reveal the evidence to them and to determine whether the request for a fine rather than prosecution is reasonable. If the case is ambiguous, a prosecution would not be appropriate.
The government’s second serious mistake was that the prime minister himself or a designated senior official should have advised the minister of their concerns and stressed that they were not political but legal and were about whether the national interest could be accommodated without compromising the integrity of the legal enforcement system.
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