SNC-Lavalin, the large Canadian engineering firm at the centre of the present Liberal government crisis engendered by the treatment of former Attorney General/Minister of Justice and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Jody Wilson-Raybould, is merely the tip of an enormous iceberg.
The gyrations of SNC-Lavalin to have a law passed (obscurely in a Liberal “Omnibus” Bill in 2018) that permits it (and giant firms like it) to write “deferred prosecution agreements” (in what is called a “remediation regime”) may be seen as nothing more than another private/corporate attack on the Rule of Law … supported by the present Canadian (Liberal) government in power.
That government, I suggest, is acknowledging the growing reality of A Regime For The Very Rich Outside The Law … and a law for us, the unimportant others. The move should be seen, I suggest, as a full-scale attack on The Rule of Law in Canada.
In briefest words: the kinds of agreement (already at work in some other Western nations) permit wrong-doers to escape criminal conviction by paying large sums of money and “repenting” their sins!!! (Remember that Fraud Charges may normally occur in such matters, pointing to fairly long jail sentences for individuals, real people involved in the criminal charges normally set in motion.) The Remediation Regime works to erase that possibility completely … so that individuals are never guilty of criminal acts!
Might the process be seen as the bribery of governments by ‘wink-wink-nudge-nudge’‘friends’ who – anyway (as with SNC-Lavalin) give large sums to the Party that has become the government in power? Might the process be seen as the actual codification of the separation of powerful (Deep State) organizations from the Rule of Law in national jurisdictions? The answer is, probably, “YES”.
Canadians should observe the huge consideration that was given to SNC-Lavalin through the whole process. The Corporation sought and received dozens and dozens of meetings [“more than 50 times”, Globe and Mail, A-11, Mar.1, 2019] with MP’s, cabinet ministers … over months and months to – in effect – move huge Private Corporations outside The Rule of Law while claiming they are merely assisting in a change in the application of The Rule of Law.
And then … And then … SNC–Lavalin appears to have used more lobbyist meetings in order to have Liberal ‘sympathizers’ (including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) pressure the Attorney General of Canada to impose a deferred prosecution agreement against the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office.
In that regard, the highest Civil Servant in Canada – supposedly clean of political colouring – Michael Wernick, the Clerk of the Privy Council, entered the fray on behalf of SNC-Lavalin in attempts to force the hand of Jody Wilson-Raybould. As an important member of a council much misunderstood – the Canadian Privy Council to the Queen of Canada (not to the Queen of the United Kingdom), and as highest Civil Servant (the actively non-political arm of government servants) Michael Wernick debased the position of Clerk of the Privy Council and of all Canadian Civil Servants, many will say, and should resign immediately to restore the confidence Canadians have in their historically admirable body of Civil Servants.
If huge bribes are necessary to get contracts in some foreign countries which act outside The Rule of Law, then … SNC-Lavalin and the Liberal Party of Canada seem to be saying … ‘don’t work to bring those countries under The Rule of Law. Instead, degrade Canada to their level of criminal behaviour as the normal state of “doing business”’.
That is a fact of present government (and Deep State criminal influence) in the Western World that must be stopped in its tracks. That is the nine-tenths of the SNC-Lavalin Iceberg out-of-sight. That is, quite simply, the smoke-and-mirrors effort to con Canadians into thinking the removal of large corporations in Canada from the Rule of Law is, in fact, bringing them through special recognition into full relation to the Rule of Law! !
The tendency across the Western World (notably in Europe) is towards the creation of apparently democratic neo-liberal governments … which not long ago in history were called “proto-fascist” governments. Whatever their apparent focus – national or international – their basic loyalty was and is to big Capital; their basic intention is to release great wealth from the restriction of the Rule of Law, their basic goal is to create a New World Order characterized by domination of a Deep State over all of the rest of life: human, ecological, spatial….
Canadians are indebted to Jody Wilson-Raybould and her integrity … bringing to the attention of the population not only the shabby values of the PM and PMO and of the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick … but also the destructive actions of large corporations in league with a Canadian government to pervert and/or by-pass The Rule of Law in Canada.
The “deferred prosecution” legislation for large corporations must be erased from Canadian legislation. Which Party will promise that in the coming election??
Author’s Note: [Thirty Liberal MPs registered their opinions of the treatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould in the March 2 Globe and Mail. None saw her as being unfairly pressured by the PM or PMO or others to impose a deferred prosecution regime upon the Prosecutions Office. None mentioned that she was dumped from the position of Justice Minister and Attorney General when she refused to buckle to the pressure which, they are all confident, was never applied.]
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