Whoopsies…again…The RCMP admitted Wednesday that it was wrong for the force to deny an access-to-information request to a democracy-watchdog group in May by claiming police were investigating the interference of senior Liberals in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, since the investigation had been dropped months earlier.
On Monday, Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher
went public with a letter from the national police force denying a requested release of records concerning the SNC-Lavalin scandal. The reason the RCMP gave for refusing to release records to Democracy Watch was because it said there was a police investigation underway.
The RCMP decided in January 2023 to not launch an investigation
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After the Public Prosecution Service of Canada denied requests by SNC-Lavalin to enter into a remediation agreement, senior Liberals, including the Prime Minister’s Office, pressured then attorney general and justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to make a deal with the firm to help it avoid prosecution. She refused, and was shuffled out of her role, and later evicted from caucus… because it was 2015-ish.
While Canada’s ethics commissioner deemed in 2019 that Trudeau had broken federal ethics laws by improperly pressuring his former attorney general, questions swirled as to if the Mounties would conduct a criminal investigation into the matter.
When Conacher went public Monday with the information RCMP had given his group that an investigation was underway, the RCMP proceeded to ignore further media requests, including from National Post. In the early evening, the RCMP posted on social media that an investigation was not underway. Then late that night, it issued an official statement that there had been an investigation underway, but it had been dropped due to lack of evidence by January, months before Conacher made his request.
Two days after being asked to explain the discrepancy, RCMP spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton told the National Post that statement was made in “error.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to pursue a criminal investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s actions during
the SNC-Lavalin affair in part because the federal police force was thwarted in a bid to get confidential cabinet materials, newly released documents show.
Absent those, the records show, the RCMP reviewed all publicly available materials, and conducted a handful of interviews before it ultimately came to the conclusion there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue a criminal probe. Among the reasons: the fact the former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould — who was at the heart of the incident — never alleged that what had happened was a crime.
“Given the current legislative framework, the overall assessment of the evidence, and the evidence threshold required for criminal conviction, it is believed there is insufficient evidence to support further investigative actions or a criminal prosecution,” reads the RCMP’s investigation report, obtained under Access to Information by the group Democracy Watch and shared with the Star.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to pursue a criminal investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s actions during the SNC-Lavalin affair in part because the federal police force was thwarted in a bid to get confidential cabinet materials, newly released documents show.
www.thestar.com
The RCMP was assessing whether Trudeau broke the law in 2018 by pressuring Wilson-Raybould to permit SNC-Lavalin to negotiate a special settlement in a fraud and corruption case, which would allow the construction company to avoid a criminal prosecution. At issue at the time was a fear that there would be political fallout if the company ended up having to go to court.
After Wilson-Raybould refused, she was replaced as justice minister and attorney general in a subsequent cabinet shuffle, and eventually ejected from the Liberal caucus entirely.
The ethics commissioner at the time, Mario Dion, concluded in a 2019 report that Trudeau broke ethics laws in how the pressure was applied. Dion was also stymied by a refusal by the government to grant a broad waiver to cabinet confidences, although limited exemptions were given at the time.
It's the first time the national police force has officially confirmed that it's no longer probing the political scandal that rocked Parliament four years ago.
"The RCMP is not investigating allegations of political interference in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to secure a remediation agreement for SNC-Lavalin," said RCMP spokesperson Christy Veenstra in a media statement Monday night.
The RCMP did not say who the original complainant was, although it was reported at the time of the scandal that then Conservative leader Andrew Scheer had written to the RCMP asking it to investigate any potential criminality on the part of the prime minister.
Back in 2019, the RCMP said it was reviewing the facts of the SNC-Lavalin affair "carefully."
That same year, the Globe and Mail reported that investigators' efforts were being hindered by the federal government's refusal to lift cabinet confidentiality.
The question of a criminal investigation re-emerged when Wilson-Raybould published a book in 2021 that said the RCMP was still considering whether to investigate Trudeau's government in the matter.
Conacher said the RCMP's story doesn't add up.
"They are contradicting themselves about when the allegations were being investigated, and when decisions were made to end the investigation," he told CBC.
"If the investigation is actually over, then why did the RCMP refuse to disclose 86 pages of their investigation documents just a few weeks ago because, they said, the allegations were under investigation?"
In 2019, then-ethics commissioner Mario Dion reported that the prime minister had "directly and through his senior officials used various means to exert influence" over Wilson-Raybould.
Dion found Trudeau contravened Section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act through a series of "flagrant attempts to influence" Wilson‑Raybould to reach an agreement with SNC-Lavalin to avoid criminal prosecution.
