Jody Wilson-Raybould

LawNewsPolitics

The past few weeks have been insanely eventful on the political scene. In the US, the Americans are dealing with a president who is a white supremacist, a misogynist, and a fraudster seeking to keep the poor fighting each other so he and his fellow billionaires can enrich themselves with the very institutions established to protect the people. We Canadians would love to point and laugh, but unfortunately, we have a scandal of our own to deal with.

The buzzword up here is actually a name: SNC Lavalin. This article will give a crash course on what is going on and what it means.

Founded in 1911, SNC Lavalin is one of the leading engineering and construction firms in Canada, handling everything from infrastructure to clean energy projects. Though they operate internationally, their head office is in Montreal and they are a major employer in Quebec and thus highly regarded in the province.

Since 2015 SNC Lavalin has been in hot water with prosecutors and the RCMP. This is due, in part, to their dealings in Libya from 2001 to 2011, where they are alleged to have paid out $48 million in bribes to public officials in the country in an attempt to influence the government. The RCMP’s investigation also alleges that the company defrauded Libyan businesses of $130 million, actions in violation of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act which criminalizes giving loans or bribes to a foreign public official “in order to obtain or retain an advantage in the course of business.”

In addition to the charges related to the SNC Lavalin’s activities in Libya, the company is also facing charges for a bribery scheme involving a $127 million contract to fix the Jacques Cartier bridge. In 2017, the former head of Canada’s Federal Bridge Corporation pleaded guilty to accepting $2.3 million in bribes from SNC Lavalin in relation to the contract.

The company is thus facing charges of corruption and fraud which, if convicted, could result in SNC Lavalin being barred from bidding on federal contracts for ten years. SNC Lavalin has maintained that they will cooperate with authorities but claim that the people involved are third parties or are no longer with the company.
In February 2019, prosecutors were ready to start bringing charges against SNC Lavalin.

SNC Lavalin in turn was seeking to avoid criminal charges via the new Deferred Prosecution Law passed in June 2018. Under this law, corporations can avoid criminal prosecution with a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) in which they must cooperate with the Crown and the courts including paying penalties and reparations, giving up any benefits acquired because of their crimes, stop their wrongdoing (obviously), and adopt any compliance measures.

Agreements are allegedly to protect employees from layoffs, as well as shield shareholders who knew nothing of the crimes while holding corporations to account for them. In order to be eligible for such an agreement, the crimes must be economic in nature, did not cause serious bodily harm, and there must be a reasonable likelihood of conviction for the offenses.

Unsurprisingly, SNC Lavalin was the first company to seek such an agreement under the new law. There was, however, a hitch. Under the law, the Attorney General of Canada must consent to the negotiation of the agreement.

This is where Jody Wilson-Raybould comes in.

Until she was switched to be the Minister of Veterans affairs in January 2019, she was the Attorney General of Canada. According to her testimony before the House of Commons at the end of February 2019, she experienced a:

“Consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney general of Canada, in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin.”

Jody Wilson-Raybould in the House of Commons

The accusation is that the Prime Minister’s office repeatedly pressured Wilson-Raybould to offer SNC Lavalin a Deferred Prosecution Agreement and that if such an agreement were not offered, there would be serious political consequences. As Attorney General, Wilson-Raybould had oversight and discretion over whether to intervene in cases that might be prosecuted by the Crown.

The director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Russel, informed Wilson-Raybould in September 2018 that her office had decided not to invite SNC Lavalin to negotiate a Deferred Prosecution Agreement. By September 17th, having reviewed the materials, the then Attorney General decided not to interfere, despite the pressure from cabinet members and their staff about what this would mean with regards to Quebec and the upcoming election.

In January 2019, Wilson-Raybould was informed by the Prime Minister that she would be moved or shuffled out of the position of Attorney General to that of Minister of Veterans Affairs. Shortly thereafter, in February, she resigned from the Trudeau cabinet. Shortly thereafter, Gerald Butts, Prime Minister Trudeau’s principal secretary resigned over the SNC Lavalin affair. On March 4, 2019, Treasury Board president Jane Philpott also resigned from the Trudeau cabinet.

Why is the Prime Minister so bent on protecting SNC Lavalin?

Simple: it’s an election year and SNC Lavalin plays an important role in the Quebec economy. If SNC Lavalin falls, there is a concern about the economic consequences for the province. Trudeau needs Quebec to win the and is clearly concerned that acting against its prized engineering firm will affect his chances victory in November.

Given all the scandal this has caused, protecting the SNC Lavalin may not have been worth the trouble after all. Only time will tell.

Featured image via TechCharts.net

CultureLawNewsPolitics

On March 7, 2017 Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould announced plans to clean up the Canadian Criminal Code and rid it of “zombie laws”. If you think of zombie laws, you probably think of the rules one would have to follow during a zombie apocalypse. Sadly, zombie laws aren’t related to the undead, but they ARE interesting, and like the zombies in fiction, can be rather annoying.

Zombie laws are laws that are no longer in force but still technically, physically, on the books.

The issue of zombie criminal laws recently came up due to the case of Travis Vader, the man convicted of murdering two elderly people in Alberta. The judge sentenced him for culpable homicide aka second degree murder.

Unfortunately, culpable homicide no longer exists in Canadian criminal law, it’s a zombie concept. If you kill someone, you can only be convicted of murder or manslaughter.

The provision the judge used to convict him – section 230 of the Criminal Code – had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1990. Vader’s lawyers argued for a mistrial, but fortunately for the safety of everyone, they did not get one. The judge in question instead sentenced Vader to life for two counts manslaughter.

This is not the first time zombie laws have caused problems. Though the law prohibiting anal sex for people under the age of eighteen has been ruled unconstitutional by appeals’ courts, there are claims that sixty-nine people have been charged with the offense between 2014 and 2015.

Stephen Coughlan, Professor at Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax came up with a list of zombie criminal laws. These laws include:

  • Spreading false news: This provision of the Criminal Code was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1992 for violating constitutional protections of freedom of expression.
  • Vagrancy: This was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1994 in R v. Heywood for violating the constitutional rights to life, liberty, and security of the person, and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
  • Procuring a miscarriage aka abortion: Struck down by the Supreme Court in 1988 in R v. Morgentaler

Restrictions also still on the books include those against dueling, fraudulently pretending to practice witchcraft, and crime comic books – yes, crime comics used to be illegal.

The Canadian Criminal Code is over eight hundred forty nine provisions long.

Law enforcement, prosecutors and judges rely on it to determine who to arrest, who to charge, how to convict, and how to sentence a person for a crime. Though people in the legal and law enforcement professions are expected to stay up to date in their field, it’s impossible to keep track of every law and many will still look it up when in doubt.

If a law in a text they rely on to inform them has been declared unconstitutional but was never actually removed from that text, mistakes like the one in the Travis Vader case are inevitable, because the source material they rely on – and should rely on – is full of mistakes.

So why haven’t federal governments worked to remove these laws sooner?

The most likely reason is because governments are busy and removing something from a body of law as vast as the Canadian Criminal Code takes a lot of work they don’t have the time for.

In order to amend the Criminal Code, the government will have to present a bill calling for the changes. That bill will have to outline every single zombie provision and when it was struck down, declared unconstitutional, or why it’s not used anymore. That means that someone or a group of someones will have to go through the Criminal Code and the Canadian judicial system’s vast body of case law to determine which ones are zombie provisions. The extensive work of Professor Stephen Coughlan on the subject will undoubtedly be a useful starting point.

Once the bill is drafted, it will have to go through the same grueling process every other federal law has to go through. That means that it will have to be formally presented to Parliament, debated, debated again, and voted on. If it passes, it will have to go to the Senate for its own round of debate and votes. Either house can kill the bill.

If the law proposing to update the Criminal Code is passed, the next step is arduous process of actually doing it. That means not only removing the zombie provisions but also going over the Code in its entirety to make sure the text is clear and consistent through and through. There’s also the issue of where the current Criminal Code will stand while the updates are in the works.

Though the process is going to be a long and annoying one, removing zombie laws is a necessary job that’s long overdue. The difficulties will come not only in drafting and passing a law to actually do it, but in figuring out an efficient way to do it without leaving dangerous voids in our legal system.

Will the Federal government’s plan work? Only time will tell.

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I’m a progressive who is generally skeptical of the prospect of real, positive change coming from the Liberals, Canada’s so-called “natural governing party.” So far, Justin Trudeau has made it hard for me to maintain that skepticism. With Wednesday’s announcement of who would be the first people to sit in his Cabinet as our federal ministers, he’s made it damn near impossible to object and criticise.

Let’s have a look:

No Bill Blair

It’s not just about who Trudeau picked – it’s about who he didn’t. In particular, former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair was left out of the mix in the first round. The man who was responsible for reprehensible police tactics against protestors at the G20 summit won’t sit at the Cabinet table.

I was so sure he would have been included and be tasked with a portfolio like Defense or Public Safety that I had written a rant condemning this hypothetical choice. Fortunately I won’t have to publish it.

For Public Safety, Trudeau tapped longtime MP and former Cabinet Minister Ralph Goodale. For defense we have Harjit Sajjan, the new “badass” fave of many online. He’s a former soldier in the Canadian Forces, a former Vancouver Police detective, and a Sikh who proudly wears a turban.

Logical and Representative

Sajjan exemplifies the choices Trudeau made with his Cabinet. They are both logical and representative of Canada’s diversity.

We’ve got a soldier for Defense and a doctor, Jane Philpott, for Health. We also have a First Nations woman and former prosecutor Jody Wilson-Raybould heading up Justice. If Trudeau is serious about an inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, she will be the person running it.

Catherine McKenna is the new Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Yes, you read that right; climate change is part of her title. She is a former lawyer who focused on international trade and competition. While I would have preferred an environmental activist, her experience may help at the UN Conference on Climate Change taking place very soon in Paris.

We also now have a Minister for Sport and Persons with a Disability. Carla Qualtrough, who got this portfolio, is a three-time Paralympic Games medalist.

Trudeau’s Cabinet is ethnically diverse and regionally representative. Also, as everyone knows by now, it has gender parity:

Montreal Represent!

My fellow Montrealers can rejoice. For the first time in a long time, Canada’s second-largest city is represented at the Cabinet table.

New Heritage Minister Melanie Joly during her campaign for Mayor of Montreal (photo Valeria Bismar)
New Heritage Minister Melanie Joly during her campaign for Mayor of Montreal (photo Valeria Bismar)

Melanie Joly who was elected in Ahuntsic-Cartierville is our new Heritage Minister. Trudeau recruited her and helped her win the nomination, so it was clear she would get something.

Judging by her campaign for Mayor of Montreal, her main areas of interest were culture and transport. Since Bus Rapid Transit lanes on the Trans-Canada just aren’t going to happen, a portfolio which includes Canada’s culture industries makes sense.

Transport went to Marc Garneau. The one-time astronaut and Liberal leadership contender returns to Parliament representing the newly created riding of NDG-Westmount.

Garneau won’t even have to leave his riding to find a transport issue that needs fixing. Bus service in NDG has been a bit of a nightmare lately.

Stephane Dion is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs, now known as Global Affairs Canada. As Canada’s face to the world, Dion is responsible for a huge portfolio.

It makes sense that he would get such an important role. Not only was he just a Harper proroguement away from being Prime Minister, he also managed to hold onto his seat in Saint-Laurent when his party was routed in Montreal, and Quebec overall, during the 2011 Orange Wave.

The new Minister of Youth and Intergovernmental Affairs was also elected in a Montreal riding, Papineau. Though I’m pretty sure he’ll be focused on his larger portfolio, being Prime Minister of Canada.

The Downside

Looking at this Cabinet, there is only one glaringly problematic choice for progressives and it’s in a pretty crucial area: finance. Trudeau picked Bay Street multi-millionaire Bill Morneau to head the department.

It’s not really that surprising. The Liberals are generally progressive on social issues and downright neo-con when it comes to money.

So what does this choice mean, given Trudeau’s play to the left with his election promise to run deficits and raise taxes on the 1%? To his credit, Morneau has expressed interest in income equality and said the tax code needs to be fixed, but, really, only time will tell.

The only other eyebrow-raising choice was Chrystia Freeland as Minister of International Trade. She oversaw two dozen layoffs at Reuters and helped ship those jobs to India, but it is possible to chalk that up to just following orders.

Grasping at Straws

There really isn’t much else to criticize. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though.

First, there was a story about how five of Trudeau’s female ministers were considered Ministers of State, meaning less pay, while none of his male ministers were in that boat. Now, it seems like that situation will be rectified.

Now there is an issue raised by Kim Campbell, of all people, but shared by some on the left, about the fact that Defense Minister Sajjan is still technically in the Canadian Forces, as a reservist. The problem being that, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he is part of the chain of command which he, as the Minister of Defense, is supposed to be above. The thing is, Sajjan is already in the process of getting his release from the military, the paperwork just takes time.

As someone who didn’t vote Liberal and are generally skeptical of the party, I’ve been looking for fault as much as anyone. There really is none to be found in his cabinet choices. Trudeau is starting off on the right foot, or rather, the left foot.

Yes, the other shoe will drop. His continued support for the Keystone XL pipeline and his “disappointment” expressed to President Obama when the US rejected the plan is an indication of where progressives will find fault with the Trudeau regime.

For now, though, it is all smiles and roses. I think we should make the most of this moment and get the most out of our new government. If Trudeau is playing to the left, we should support him. The moment he switches, we should call him on it.

The C-51 debate is coming up and there are plenty of issues Trudeau has promised change on and could well deliver. This is the time to get practical, and that means accepting the line that there is hope for change with the new government and encourage it to happen.

There will be plenty of reasons to criticize the Trudeau regime in the next four years. His Cabinet choices, at this point, aren’t among them.