{"id":208866,"date":"2019-04-07T23:54:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T03:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=208866"},"modified":"2019-04-08T07:09:57","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T11:09:57","slug":"scheer-urges-pm-to-follow-through-on-libel-threat-over-snc-testify-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/07\/scheer-urges-pm-to-follow-through-on-libel-threat-over-snc-testify-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Scheer urges PM to follow through on libel threat over SNC, testify in court"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><script async=\"1\" defer=\"1\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v3.2\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-video\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/120693171297777\/videos\/1234817516675945\/\" data-width=\"1170\">\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AndrewScheerMP\/videos\/1234817516675945\/\" class=\"fb-xfbml-parse-ignore\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AndrewScheerMP\/videos\/1234817516675945\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Justin Trudeau is threatening to sue me for talking about his corruption scandal.But I won\u2019t back down. If Trudeau thinks he has a case against me, he should follow through on his threat immediately. Canadians want this scandal to be investigated where Liberals can\u2019t pull the strings and shut things down, like they did at the Justice and Ethics committees.And I welcome the opportunity to question Trudeau directly at the earliest possible date. I look forward to him testifying under oath in front of Canadians in open court.But in reality, I think Justin Trudeau is just trying to intimidate me. This is what Trudeau does when you stand up to him. He threatens you. He did it to Jody Wilson-Raybould and now he\u2019s doing it to us. Like her, we will not back down.We will continue to do our jobs, hold him to account, and get to the bottom of this. Canadians deserve answers.&#8211;Justin Trudeau menace de me poursuivre parce que je parle de son scandale de corruption.Mais je ne reculerai pas. Si Trudeau pense qu\u2019il peut m\u2019accuser de quoi que ce soit, il devrait donner suite \u00e0 sa menace imm\u00e9diatement. Les Canadiens veulent qu\u2019une enqu\u00eate soit men\u00e9e sur ce scandale sans que les lib\u00e9raux tirent les ficelles et bloquent tout, comme ils l\u2019ont fait avec les Comit\u00e9s de la justice et de l\u2019\u00e9thique.Je suis pr\u00eat \u00e0 interroger Trudeau directement le plus t\u00f4t possible. J\u2019attends qu\u2019il t\u00e9moigne sous serment devant les Canadiens \u00e0 une audience publique.Mais en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, je crois que Justin Trudeau ne cherche qu\u2019\u00e0 m\u2019intimider. C\u2019est ce qu\u2019il fait quand on le confronte. Il vous menace. Il l\u2019a fait avec Jody Wilson-Raybould et maintenant il le fait avec nous. Tout comme elle, nous ne reculerons pas.Nous allons continuer \u00e0 faire notre travail, \u00e0 lui demander des comptes et \u00e0 faire toute la lumi\u00e8re sur cette affaire. Les Canadiens m\u00e9ritent des r\u00e9ponses.<\/p>\n<p>Posted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AndrewScheerMP\/\">Andrew Scheer<\/a> on Sunday, April 7, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>OTTAWA \u2014 Andrew Scheer is challenging Justin\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0to follow through on a threat to sue him over his assertion that the prime minister politically interfered with the criminal prosecution of Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavlin.<\/p>\n<p>The Conservative leader revealed Sunday that he received a letter on March 31 from\u00a0Trudeau&#8217;s lawyer, Julian Porter, threatening a libel suit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stand by every single criticism I have made of Mr.\u00a0Trudeau&#8217;s conduct in regards to this scandal, including those Mr.\u00a0Trudeau&#8217;s lawyer cites in his letter,\u201d Scheer told a news conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Mr.\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0intends to pursue this course of legal action, if he believes he has a case against me, I urge him to do so immediately. This is an urgent matter of public interest and it deserves to be heard in a legal setting where Liberals do not control the proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scheer said he looks forward to\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0testifying \u201cfor hours\u201d under oath in open court.<\/p>\n<p>That said, Scheer made it clear he believes\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0is bluffing. He called the threatened lawsuit \u201ca bullying attempt\u201d to prevent the official Opposition from doing its constitutional duty to hold the government to account and a continuation of\u00a0Trudeau&#8217;s attempts to \u201csilence those who stand up to Justin\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0and who seek the truth\u201d \u2014 just as he tried to silence former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, Scheer said.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Prime Minister&#8217;s Office said Scheer and his party \u201chave repeatedly made false and defamatory statements. We put him on notice that there are consequences for making completely false and libellous statements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilson-Raybould maintains she was inappropriately pressured last fall by the Prime Minister&#8217;s Office to stop criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin on bribery charges related to contracts in Libya. She believes she was moved to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle as punishment for refusing to override the director of public prosecutions, who had decided not to negotiate a remediation agreement, a type of plea bargain, with the company. She resigned from cabinet a month later.<\/p>\n<p>Last week,\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0expelled both Wilson-Raybould and fellow former cabinet minister Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus. Philpott had resigned from cabinet in early March, citing a loss of confidence in the government&#8217;s handling of the SNC-Lavalin case.<\/p>\n<p>At issue in the threatened libel suit is a statement Scheer issued on March 29 in which he said documentation provided by Wilson-Raybould to the House of Commons justice committee \u2014 including a surreptitiously recorded phone conversation with the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick \u2014 is \u201cconcrete evidence that proves Justin\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0led a campaign to politically interfere with SNC-Lavalin&#8217;s criminal prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Porter called the statement \u201chighly defamatory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe prime minister supports wide-ranging and vigorous political debate on matters of public policy,\u201d he said in his letter to Scheer. \u201cHowever, your statement, in its entirety, is beyond the pale of fair debate and is libellous of my client personally and in the way of his occupation as prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Porter said it&#8217;s \u201centirely false\u201d to say\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0interfered in the SNC prosecution, which has not been halted, or that he personally directed Wilson-Raybould to \u201cbreak the law\u201d and \u201cfired\u201d her when she refused. It&#8217;s also entirely false to suggest\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0was aware of Wilson-Raybould&#8217;s concern that he was politically interfering in the SNC case but lied to Canadians about it, Porter said.<\/p>\n<p>Scheer&#8217;s statement that the affair amounts to \u201ccorruption on top of corruption on top of corruption\u201d was meant to suggest that\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0\u201dhad engaged in dishonest and corrupt conduct that would contravene the Criminal Code,\u201d a crime deserving of up to 14 years in prison, Porter said. That too was \u201centirely false.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Undeterred, Scheer repeated that phrase twice during his news conference Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>While Conservatives have embraced every other aspect of Wilson-Raybould&#8217;s testimony as the absolute truth, they have not accepted her conclusion that nothing illegal occurred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was her opinion on that,\u201d said Scheer, noting that he&#8217;s asked the RCMP to investigate whether any laws were broken. He said he&#8217;s not heard anything from the RCMP other than an acknowledgment of his Feb. 28 request for an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Scheer&#8217;s lawyer, Peter Downard, wrote back to Porter on Sunday, saying that Scheer \u201cwill not be intimidated.\u201d If\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0is serious about suing, Downard said he must immediately take steps to preserve all relevant documents and to notify all members of his government, past and present, who&#8217;ve been involved in the SNC-Lavalin matter that they can expect to be called to testify.<\/p>\n<p>If\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0does not proceed with the threatened lawsuit, Downard said Scheer will conclude that\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0\u201dhas properly acknowledged that Mr. Scheer&#8217;s statements were appropriate and grounded in evidence before the Canadian people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Justin Trudeau is threatening to sue me for talking about his corruption scandal.But I won\u2019t back down. If Trudeau thinks &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":208868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,54365,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-instagram","category-news","mauthors-joan-bryden","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208869,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208866\/revisions\/208869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}