She said the conversations were ‘clearly inappropriate’ and included the suggestion that ‘a collision with the Prime Minister on these matters should be avoided’
OTTAWA — In a stunning appearance before the House of Commons justice committee Wednesday, former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould accused the entire senior ranks of the federal government of making ‘veiled threats’ against her while attempting to interfere politically in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
A corruption conviction for SNC-Lavalin, a massive Montreal-based engineering company, would mean the company is barred from bidding on federal procurement contracts for ten years. Remediation agreements see a company admit wrongdoing, pay a fine, and obey other compliance conditions, but avoid a guilty conviction in court.
“Conversations like the one I had with the clerk of the privy council who invoked the prime minister’s name throughout the entirety of the conversation, spoke to me about the prime minister being dug-in, spoke to me about his concerns as to what would happen. In my mind those were veiled threats and I took them as such. That is entirely inappropriate.”
“He wanted to talk about SNC and what we could do, if anything, to address this,” Wilson-Raybould said. “He said to her that if they don’t get a DPA, they will leave Montreal, and it’s the Quebec election right now, so we can’t have that happen. He said that they have a big meeting coming up on Tuesday and that this bad news may go public.”
She said the discussion continued, with Wernick making the argument that the company could leave Canada if the prosecution continued. “Gerry then took over the conversation and said how we need a solution on the SNC stuff, he said I needed to find a solution,” she said. She alleges he told her that the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, which separated the prosecution service from the justice department, “was set up by Harper,” and that he “does not like the law.”
The next day, she had a phone call with Wernick. “The Clerk said that the PM is quite determined, quite firm, he wants to know why the route which Parliament provided for isn’t being used,” Wilson-Raybould said. “He said ‘I think he is gonna find a way to get it done one way or another. So, he is in that kinda mood and I wanted you to be aware of that.’”
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