OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government has gone to unprecedented lengths to ensure Jody Wilson-Raybould is able to speak freely about the pressure put on her to drop the criminal prosecution of Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.
But opposition parties maintain Trudeau is still muzzling his former attorney general to ensure she won’t be able to tell the full story when she testifies later today before the House of Commons justice committee, finally breaking her three-week silence.
“We took the unprecedented step as a government of waiving cabinet confidentiality and solicitor-client privilege so that the former attorney general could share her perspective on the Lavalin matter in a free manner because we know that people need to understand her perspective on this,” Trudeau said on his way into a Liberal caucus meeting.
However, in a letter to the committee Tuesday, Wilson-Raybould warned that the waiver “falls short of what is required” for her to fully tell her side of the story.
The waiver covers Wilson-Raybould’s time as justice minister and attorney general – the post she held when Trudeau’s office is alleged to have exerted improper pressure on her last fall to halt the criminal prosecution SNC-Lavalin on corruption and bribery charges related to government contracts in Libya.
Wilson-Raybould says the waiver does not apply to anything said or done after she was shuffled on Jan. 14 to the veterans-affairs post – including her resignation from cabinet a month later and her presentation to cabinet last week about her reasons for resigning.
Opposition parties pounced on Wilson-Raybould’s letter to accuse Trudeau of gagging his former minister.
During question period, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer suggested something was said to Wilson-Raybould during that period “that proved she lost her job because she stood up to” Trudeau on SNC-Lavalin.
“She lost her job because she wouldn’t let his friends off the hook,” Scheer charged.
Trudeau said the waiver addresses the matter that is under study by the justice committee and the federal ethics commissioner: whether Wilson-Raybould, as attorney general, was improperly pressured to instruct the director of public prosecutions to negotiate a remediation agreement with SNC-Lavalin. Remediation agreements are a kind of plea bargain that would require the company to pay restitution but avoid the potentially crippling impact of a criminal conviction.
“We have waived privilege and we have waived cabinet confidentiality so that the former attorney general can speak fully and expansively to the matter under study,” he told the Commons.
Wilson-Raybould also complained to the committee Tuesday that the 30-minute opening statement she has been granted – at her request – won’t be sufficient time to provide a “full, complete version of events.”
Nevertheless, her appearance at committee is hotly anticipated, the first time Wilson-Raybould will break her silence on the anonymously sourced allegation of improper pressure since it first surfaced three weeks ago.
Last week, Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick told the committee that, in his view, everyone in the Prime Minister’s Office behaved with “the highest standards of integrity,” that no inappropriate pressure was put on Wilson-Raybould and that Trudeau repeatedly assured her the decision on the SNC-Lavalin prosecution was hers alone.
He acknowledged, however, that the former minister might have a different interpretation of events and predicted she will zero in on three in particular:
– A Sept. 17 meeting with Trudeau and Wernick, which the clerk said was primarily focused on the stalled Indigenous-rights agenda, over which he said Wilson-Raybould had “a very serious policy difference” with Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and other ministers. During that meeting, held two weeks after the director of public prosecutions had ruled out a remediation agreement for SNC-Lavalin, Wernick said Wilson-Raybould informed the prime minister that she had “no intention of intervening” in the matter, although as attorney general she was legally entitled to give direction to the public prosecutor.
– A Dec. 18 meeting of Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, and principal secretary, Gerald Butts, with Wilson-Raybould’s chief of staff, Jessica Prince. Wernick was not present at that meeting and offered no details.
– A Dec. 19 conversation Wernick had with Wilson-Raybould in which he told her Trudeau and other ministers were “quite anxious” about the potential impact of a criminal conviction on the financial viability of SNC-Lavalin and on innocent employees, shareholders, pensioners and third-party suppliers who would suffer as a result. Wernick said he was informing the minister of “context” surrounding her decision on the company but insisted it was not inappropriate pressure.
Wilson-Raybould is also likely to provide her version of a Dec. 5 dinner with Butts, who resigned last week. Butts has confirmed Wilson-Raybould raised the SNC-Lavalin matter briefly and he advised her to speak to Wernick. Butts has insisted that at no time did he apply improper pressure on the former minister.
The waiver given to Wilson-Raybould to speak about her time as attorney general also applies to others in government with whom she spoke about the SNC-Lavalin prosecution. That would allow Butts and other Trudeau staffers to testify freely if called upon.
So far, the Liberal majority on the justice committee has balked at calling staffers as witnesses, but it could reconsider after hearing from Wilson-Raybould.