Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he and his wife Sophie are separating

 

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he and his wife

Sophie are separating

By Reuters

August 2, 2023 12:33pm  Updated

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie are separating and have signed a legal agreement, his office said in a statement on Wednesday that appeared to mark the end of the couple’s 18-year marriage.

“They have worked to ensure that all legal and ethical steps with regards to their decision to separate have been taken, and will continue to do so moving forward,” it said.

Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced that he and his wife are separating.

WireImage

Trudeau, 51, and Sophie, 48, were married in late May 2005. They have three children.

“They remain a close family and Sophie and the Prime Minister are focused on raising their kids in a safe, loving and collaborative environment,” said the statement. “The family will be together on vacation, beginning next week.”

Reporting by David Ljunggren and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa Editing by Marguerita Choy

Rumours have been circulating for several months about a possible affair between Trudeau and the rather attractive Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly. They have traveled together quite recently on a few business trips. We will have to watch to see if Joly and her husband separate any time soon.

Will Trudeau be the first Prime Minister to separate from his wife while in office? Or, was his father?

Bits and Bites > The Semi-Tragic Story of the Black Watch

 

Hopefully, those Scottish soldiers of legendary courage 
will not accuse me of cultural appropriation.

The story goes: 

I once had a watch with a black face, but I had to get rid of it as it kept reminding me of our Prime Minister.

Forgive me a little silliness as it seems necessary sometimes to maintain my sanity. That's assuming I have some sanity to begin with - a large assumption, not necessarily supported in reality.

GWM

Arguably Canada's Best Prime Minister Gently Criticizes Trudeau

..

Jean Cretien, one of Canada's best Prime Ministers, discusses Trudeau's failures in the Huawei / 2 Michaels affair. Cretien rose in stature in my mind when he stood up to President Bush and refused to get involved in the Iraq War.

Chrétien says government should have moved more quickly

on release of two Michaels

Former prime minister says Trudeau should have reached out to

old-guard Liberals for advice

Christian Paas-Lang · 

CBC News · 

Posted: Oct 24, 2021 12:00 PM ET

Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien speaks to CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton about the approach to the detainment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. (Mathieu Theriault/CBC)

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien says the government should have moved earlier to resolve the issue of the detainment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

"We lost three years. That is a problem, they stayed in jail for three years. So, I thought at the beginning that they should have moved earlier," Chrétien said in an interview airing on Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.

The former Liberal prime minister, who led Canada from 1993 to 2003, told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton he'd always had a "special relationship" with China. He noted that he had been called by contacts in China about the issue and spoken publicly about it before.

But he wasn't called by the Canadian Government for advice. The arrogance in the PMO would never allow for the opinions of those more experienced or smarter than they.

Chrétien said during his tenure, he was able to balance a working relationship with China, especially on economic issues, while being "very candid" on human rights.

"They don't always agree with you, and most of the time we have to say, 'We agree to disagree,'" he said.

WATCH | Former PM Chrétien discusses Canada-China relations, cabinet considerations

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien spoke to CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton about his years in government, Canada's relationship with China and his personal style of politics. 11:19

He spends less than a minute discussing forming a cabinet and several minutes discussing how he would have handled the three-year tiff with China differently. CBC, as always, does what it can to protect Justin Trudeau from criticism, even from his own party.

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney suggested in mid-2019 that Chrétien be sent to China to help resolve the crisis sparked by the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada in late 2018. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were arrested in China a few hours later.

Chrétien said at the time he was willing to go, and was reported in June 2019 to have floated the idea of Trudeau intervening to cancel Meng's case — his former chief of staff Eddie Goldenberg later made the case plainly The Globe and Mail, calling for "a prisoner exchange."

In a book being released Tuesday, My Stories, My Times, Vol. 2, Chrétien discusses how he came to that idea and his own contention that the Meng case was always a political problem, not a legal one.

I have said from the start that Canada should never have arrested Huawei's Meng. Throwing away Canada's relationship with a country as big and powerful as China to support America's economic sanctions was a stupid and cowardly thing to do. I don't believe Cretien would have ever gone along with that.

'Now they have become a power'

Chrétien acknowledged that China had changed since his time leading Canada and that played a role in the government's behaviour.

"It's a different time today, I have to recognize that," he said. "We had disagreements, but now they have become a power, and they're playing as a power. I'm not surprised."

Chrétien said it should always be expected that other countries would act in their own self-interest and that needed to be considered when determining strategy.

"For us, you have to roll with the punches and take the avenues that are beneficial for your country, and slow down when the obstacle is too big," he said.

During his interview with Barton, Chrétien also said Trudeau would have been "better served" in several cases if he and his government reached out to old-guard Liberals for advice, though noting he wasn't passing judgment on them.

On China, he said, "Everyone does it his own way. I had my own way and I survived with it."

Trudeau's Astonishing Cover-up of the WE Scandal Mocks Parliament

Commons law clerk says government went too far in redacting WE Charity documents

..

Public servants pre-redacted documents; top Tory says Trudeau is engaged in a 'cover up'

Remarkable story in that it comes from CBC, which is Justin Trudeau's biggest fan club.

Don't be surprised if Tasker is looking for a new job next week.

John Paul Tasker · CBC News 

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre holds up redacted documents during a press conference on

Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020. The documents were tabled by the

government at the House of Commons finance committee. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

The House of Commons law clerk says public servants went too far in redacting the WE Charity documents released to MPs last week — and warns the cuts may have violated a production order from the finance committee to hand over all internal correspondence related to the summer student grants program.

The government released thousands of pages of documents related to the WE matter, as the committee requested last month. But rather than have the independent law clerk redact certain information, such as cabinet confidences and personal information, the various departments responsible for this aborted program did the blackouts themselves — an apparent contravention of the committee's request.

The end result was hundreds of blank pages and blacked-out content — information only known to the public servants who red-penciled the material.

They deliberately ignored the committee's will in order to cover up the truth

and protect Justin Trudeau's reputation.

- Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre

The finance committee requested all memos related to the WE Charity contribution agreement and clearly stipulated that any redactions should be "made by the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons" — not government censors.

Last week, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office told CBC News that the redactions were done by the parliamentary law clerk, who was following the committee's direction to remove documents covered by cabinet confidentiality and personal information about Canadian citizens.

But that law clerk, Philippe Dufresne, said in a confidential August 18 letter to the clerk of the finance committee that the vast majority of the blackouts had been done by government bureaucrats — and some relevant information relating to the $912 million deal with WE may have been withheld, something which could constitute a breach of parliamentary privilege.

Ottawa-based news outlet iPolitics first reported on Dufresne's letter.

Dufresne raised red flags about the redaction process, saying his office did not have a chance to review the written material in its original form as the committee had intended. He also said the redactions his office did were limited to the personal information of public servants working on this file.

"The documents had already been redacted by the departments to protect personal information and on other grounds. As my office has not been given the opportunity to see the unredacted documents, we are not able to confirm whether those redactions are consistent with the order of the Committee," Dufresne said in his correspondence with David Gagnon, the finance committee clerk.

"The departments made certain redactions to the documents on grounds that were not contemplated in the order of the committee. We note that the House's and its committees' power to order the production of records is absolute and unfettered as it constitutes a constitutional parliamentary privilege that supersedes statutory obligations, such as the exemptions found in the Access to Information Act."

(Provisions of the Access to Information Act are commonly used to justify releasing censored material to journalists and the general public.)

"The House and its committees are the appropriate authority to determine whether any reasons for withholding the documents should be accepted or not," Dufresne added.

The opposition parties have said that the documents that have been released so far call into question Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that he first learned that public servants were recommending that WE Charity administer the grants program ahead of a cabinet meeting on May 8.

Emails released show that senior members of his office — including Rick Theis, the director of policy and cabinet affairs — had meetings with the charity about its proposal to administer the program before that date.

An April 20 email from Michelle Kovacevic, a senior Finance official, said the "PMO was weighing in" on WE's pitch to dole out student support.

That same official called senior members of former finance minister Bill Morneau's staff "besties" with WE Charity administrators in a May 7 email. Members of Morneau's team were working with WE in April on how best to craft the grants program.

Craig Kielburger, the co-founder of WE, later thanked Ben Chin, one of Trudeau's senior advisers, in a June LinkedIn message for his "kindness in helping shape our latest program with the government."

WE Charity co-founders Craig (left) and Marc Kielburger introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife

Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as they appear at the WE Day celebrations in Ottawa, Tuesday November 10, 2015.

(Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative finance critic, said today he believes the government directed bureaucrats to hide key information related to this scandal to shield the prime minister from further scrutiny.

"They deliberately ignored the committee's will in order to cover up the truth and protect Justin Trudeau's reputation," Poilievre said in an interview with CBC. "The law clerk was tasked with combing through all the material and redacting any cabinet confidence or other information that needed to be kept from public view. Instead, the Trudeau government did its own redacting.

"I think the plan, Trudeau's plan, is to try and cover up the facts in this scandal until the fall when he will force an early election, in the hopes that none of this, none of the truth comes to light before Canadians go to the polls. This government, under his direction, is going to such lengths to bury it all until after Canadians vote."

After Morneau's abrupt resignation on August 17, Trudeau prorogued Parliament until the end of September, shutting down the Commons committees studying the WE matter. The prorogation means the committees are powerless to challenge redactions to the WE documents.

The opposition parties will have a chance to vote down the government — and force an election — after a Sept. 23 speech from the throne by Gov. Gen. Julie Payette.

Poilievre said the government should immediately hand over the original documents in question to the law clerk so he can decide what can or cannot be released to parliamentarians.

A senior government official, speaking on background Thursday, conceded both bureaucrats and the law clerk made amendments to the documents delivered to MPs.

But the official said the government released a number of memos to cabinet related to the WE matter — even though the committee explicitly called for the exclusion of such documents — as a show of good faith.

Good faith! Right! Hilarious!

The PMO referred all questions on the matter to the Privy Council Office (PCO), the arm of government that serves the prime minister and cabinet and coordinates the work of the various federal departments.

Pierre-Alain Bujold, spokesperson for the PCO, side-stepped a question about whether the government would hand over the documents — in their original state — for review by the law clerk.

He did not say why bureaucrats assumed responsibility for the redactions, despite the committee's order.

"Every effort was made to release as much information as possible to the committee, and indeed cabinet confidences pertaining to the Canadian Summer Student Grant program were disclosed," Bujold said in a statement. A limited amount of information was protected."

In fact, more than a quarter of all the documents provided to the finance committee were redacted in whole or in part.

And considering they provided many memos that the committee asked to be excluded, it's a good bet that if the committee had received only the documents they asked for, close to half would have been redacted.

Trudeau, like his father before him, has utterly no respect for Parliament and hence, democracy.

Trudeau's Third Corruption Case Could Cost Him His Finance Minister

A timeline of the WE Charity controversy

The Canadian Press ·

Co-founders Craig, left, and Marc Kielburger, right, introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau as they appear at WE Day celebrations in Ottawa in 2015. The Liberal government's

decision to have the WE Charity administer a $912-million student volunteering program has come

under fire due to the Trudeau family's ties to the organization. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

A timeline of events regarding the $912-million Canada Student Service Grant program, based on public events and statements from cabinet ministers, government officials, and WE Charity:

April 5: Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk over the phone about how to help students whose summer job and volunteer opportunities were vanishing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Department officials are tasked with considering options the next morning.

April 7: Morneau's office contacts the WE organization, among other groups, to get their input on potential programs.

So, it was Morneau's office that initiated contact with WE.

April 9: WE Charity sends an unsolicited proposal for a youth entrepreneurship program to Morneau, Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, Small Business Minister Mary Ng and Trudeau's office. The price tag is between $6 million and $14 million, and the proposal is to provide digital programming and $500 grants, plus "incentive funds," for 8,000 students.

In early April, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed help for students looking for summer work opportunities during the pandemic. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

April 16: Employment and Social Development Canada officials mention WE in the context of the student program in an email discussion with Finance Department officials.

April 18: Morneau's officials raise the idea of partnering with a non-profit or for-profit group to administer the program. (ESDC officials suggest the same day that WE might be an option.) Morneau said it was the first time he was involved in any talk about WE and the grant program.

April 19: A senior official at Employment and Social Development Canada, Rachel Wernick, contacts WE co-founder Craig Kielburger. She learns of the April 9 proposal.

April 20: Morneau's office contacts WE to ask about its ability to deliver a volunteer program. An official's record of the call notes "WE Charity will re-work their 10-week summer program proposal to fully meet the policy objective of national service and increase their current placements of 8,000 to double."

Seems to me there was a Colonel in the military who went through hell for doing something similar to do with shipbuilding contracts.

April 21: Morneau approves going with an outside organization to run the volunteer program, but no specific group is chosen.

April 22: Trudeau announces a $9-billion package of student aid which includes the outline of a volunteer program paying students up to $5,000 toward education costs, based on the number of hours they volunteer. WE sends Wernick an updated proposal to reflect the announcement.

April 26: Morneau speaks with WE co-founder Craig Kielburger — but later told the finance committee neither of them talked about the Canada Student Service Grant program.

And, so, what did they talk about? Were they such good friends as to just pick up the phone and call each other out of the blue? It's amazing with all that's going on that they could avoid talking about it. But wait, read on...

Craig and Marc Kielburger address the audience during the WE Day event in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018. (Christopher Katsarov/Canadian Press)

April 27: Volunteer Canada, a charity that promotes volunteering and helps organizations use volunteers, meets Chagger and raises concerns about paying students hourly rates below minimum wage and calling it volunteering.

May 4: WE sends a third proposal to Employment and Social Development Canada, this time with more details specific to the grant program. Finance Department official Michelle Kovacevic, who was working on the program, told the finance committee she received it May 7.

May 5: Chagger goes to a special COVID-19 cabinet committee with the recommendation to go with WE for the program. Morneau isn't at the meeting.

Diversity and Inclusion and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger rises during question period in the House of Commons

on July 20, 2020, to defend the Liberal government's decision to hand control over the $900-million Canada Student

Services Grant program to the WE Charity organization. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

May 22: Cabinet, including Trudeau and Morneau, approves handing the reins of the program to WE.

May 23: The public service officially begins negotiating a contribution agreement with WE, which would have paid up to $43.5 million in fees to the group.

May 25 to June 3: In a series of meetings with Volunteer Canada, WE suggests the target for placements through the program had gone from 20,000 to 100,000.

And did they not expect remuneration to increase 5-fold as well?

June 12: WE co-founder Marc Kielburger says in a video chat with youth leaders that he heard from Trudeau's office about getting involved in the volunteer program the day after it was announced by the prime minister. He later backtracks, saying the contact came the week of April 26 from Wernick, and not the PMO.

That first date would be April 23rd. The second date, the 26th, is the day Morneau called Keilburger, but didn't mention the program at all. That's astonishing! The day he says he found out, and the day Morneau called him are one and the same, and yet they never talked about the program!!!

June 23: WE is informed the contribution agreement has been approved.

June 25: Trudeau unveils more details about student aid. A government release notes that WE will administer the student-volunteer program.

June 26: Facing questions about WE, Trudeau says the non-partisan public service made the recommendation and the government accepted it: "As the public service dug into it, they came back with only one organization that was capable of networking and organizing and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it, and that was the WE program."

July 3: Citing the ongoing controversy, WE and the Liberals announce a parting of ways and the federal government takes control of the program. Ethics commissioner Mario Dion tells Conservative and NDP ethics critics in separate letters he will examine Trudeau's role in the awarding of the agreement because of the prime minister's close ties to the group.

The withdrawal of WE from the program was stunningly fast. Makes one wonder if maybe there was something someone was hiding? Something like:

July 9: WE says it has paid Trudeau's mother Margaret about $250,000 for 28 speaking appearances at WE-related events between 2016 and 2020. His brother Alexandre was paid $32,000 for eight events, and Trudeau's wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau received $1,400 in 2012 for a single appearance. The organization says Trudeau himself has never been paid by the charity or its for-profit arm.

Margaret Trudeau, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's mother, greets fans at the We Day event in Toronto on Sept. 20, 2018. Margaret Trudeau has spoken at approximately 28 WE Charity events and received honoraria amounting to $250,000. 

The prime minister's brother, Alexandre, has spoken at eight events and received approximately $32,000.

(Christopher Katsarov/Canadian Press)

July 13: Trudeau apologizes for not recusing himself from discussions about WE due to his family's longtime involvement with the organization. Morneau also issues an apology; his daughter actually works for WE.

July 16: Dion says he will investigate Morneau's actions in the affair. Chagger testifies at the finance committee, saying Trudeau's office didn't direct her to go with WE.

Of course not, that would have been Morneau's office.

July 21: Ian Shugart, clerk of the Privy Council, tells the Commons finance committee there is no evidence to suggest Trudeau spoke with WE before the organization was awarded the deal to run the student-volunteer program.

Notice, no-one actually said Trudeau never spoke with WE, only that there was no evidence. Will Trudeau back that up?

Clerk of the Privy Council, (top Civil Servant in Canada), Ian Shugart told MPs on the finance committee that the prime minister and finance minister had to be involved in discussions over whether WE Charity should administer the program because of its size and importance. But he stressed that he was not making a judgment on whether they should have recused themselves from the final decision. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

July 22: Morneau tells the finance committee he just repaid over $41,000 to WE for travel expenses the organization covered for the minister and his family. (For family trips to Central America and Africa). The Opposition Conservatives call for Morneau to resign. 

The announcement came on the day Morneau was to testify before the Finance Committee. He literally wrote the check a few hours before the committee meeting. He had forgotten about a $41,000 dollar debt for years before suddenly remembering the day of the meeting!!!

Trudeau's office says he and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, have agreed to testify before the committee with a date and time to be set.

He apparently said he wanted to get this over with. Once again, remarkable haste to try and bury this scandal. Does it mean that there is still more to hide? It seems like something new and dreadful comes out every day. See below.

The House of Commons ethics committee also calls on Trudeau to testify, and votes to seek copies of records for Trudeau and his family's speaking appearances dating back years. Six opposition members outvote five Liberals to have that committee start its own investigation.

July 23: Conservatives and New Democrats ask Dion to launch a new probe of Morneau over his travel expenses.

What CBC/CP failed to mention over the past two days was:

1)  It was not actually WE Charity that was commissioned by the government but, according to Global News, it was WE Charity Foundation. The difference seems small, and they do operate out of the same offices, however, according to their own words, they are completely separate charities. Which means, in all probability, that you cannot hold one accountable for the other.

Trudeau gov. contract for $912M student program was with WE Charity’s real estate holding foundation

Who is WE Charity Foundation? They have nothing to do with charity work at all, but are a charity set up to run WE Charity's several real estate holdings, which, it appears, are in some considerable financial stress. WE Charity Foundations have no experience in doing anything like what they were commissioned to do, and have only been in existence for less than two years, lying dormant for some, if not most of that time. The word 'Foundation' has not been mentioned before today, that I know of. 

WE Charity Foundation — a shell corporation with no assets,

no history, no record of charitable work.

Charity lawyer Mark Blumberg said it was “shocking” the Trudeau government provided the $912-million student service grant to the WE Charity Foundation and not WE Charity.

“This appears to completely different than what was said by a number of government officials in different forums,” said Blumberg, a partner at Blumberg Segal LLP.

“It is absolutely shocking that the government would say that they provided a grant to WE Charity when in fact they provided the grant or funds to WE Charity Foundation — a shell corporation with no assets, no history, no record of charitable work.”

“WE Charity Foundation does not hold WE Charity real estate assets,” WE Charity said in a statement Wednesday. “This is incorrect. In its initial application to the CRA, holding real estate was initially considered and proposed, but this never took place.”

“WE Charity Foundation never held any funds for any purpose, and was created in part to manage legal liability. The CSSG program was one which had significant potential liability.”

So, there you have it. Trudeau and Morneau were attempting to slide nearly a billion dollars into the hands of a shell company and thought they could finesse it through parliament. Between this revelation and all the money that flew back and forth between the Trudeaus, Morneau and WE, we have what looks an awful lot like a money-laundering operation.

The RCMP needs to get involved here and follow the money trail. I expect Morneau will end up taking the fall for this, which he fully deserves, but all the corruption-forgiving Liberals in Ottawa will not have a problem with Justin Trudeau, Canada's acting Prime Minister.

The Two Michaels - Trudeau's Hypocritical Stand Comes From the SNC-Lavalin Disgrace

Trudeau's rigid stand against China is not what it appears, not at all

Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been languishing in a Chinese prison for a year and a half. Yesterday, Prime Minister Trudeau told them they are likely to be there for several more years, if not the rest of their lives.

The two Michaels have done nothing to deserve their incarceration; they are pawns in a political nightmare orchestrated by the USA, Canada, and China. The nightmare began when the USA requested Canada arrest Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei, and the daughter of its founder. The USA has accused Meng of violating its sanctions against Iran.

Whether that is the real reason for wanting Meng is a good question. The world is moving frantically toward installing 5G systems that are slightly terrifying in their reach. The value of this system probably counts in the trillions of dollars. Having watched the way America does business these days, one has to wonder if the arrest of Meng is more about 5G than about Iran. 

At any rate, America’s request for the arrest of Meng, should probably have been rejected immediately by Canada since it had to do with American sanctions. Or does Canada have sanctions against Iran? Do American sanctions effectively mean that Canada has sanctions.  I was never so proud of a Canadian Prime Minister as I was of Jean Cretien when he told George Bush that we would not be part of Desert Storm. Desert Storm was launched on fake intel and was a completely unjustified war. 

Trudeau should have told President Trump that Canada would not assist him in using sanctions to bully other countries. I believe Chretien would have. It’s unfortunate there has never been any discussion in the Trudeau-friendly Canadian media regarding this. Trudeau owns most of the media in this country by promising them $600m if they write friendly stuff about him.

Who was the highest-level official to approve the arrest of Meng? Did it go to the AG or the PM?

Yesterday, Trudeau said he would not give in to Chinese coercion. But, it appears he gave in to American coercion in the arrest and detention of Meng. This is good policy if you are talking about a terrorist group like ISIS or the Islamic Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. These are gangs that kidnap people for money. Giving in to them is certainly going to endanger Canadians. Though, I’m fairly certain some ransom was paid to  Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, for the return of Canadian Robert Fowler, UN envoy to Niger.

However, China is one of the largest countries in the world, not a band of Muslim radicals. They feel totally justified in their actions for two reasons – the don’t believe Meng’s arrest was justified in the first place, and, in the second, they believe political interference in the judicial system is normal. It is in China, and they believe it is in Canada as well. And why wouldn’t they?

Canada’s extradition laws allow the Minister of Justice to intervene in the process of extradition at any time, and there is history of him doing so, though it is sparce. There is also history of the Prime Minister’s Office interfering with the judicial process, as per the SNC Lavalin affair. This was blatant interference with the Attorney General who refused to give in to the PM and got fired. 

What did she refuse to give in to? To the use of an obscure law slipped into the back pages of a huge omnibus bill that was specifically designed to give SNC Lavalin the option of buying their way out of prosecution for their extraordinary corruption. SNC Lavalin headquarters lie next to Trudeau’s riding in Montreal, and many of their top executives live in his riding. Political interference? – a complete end-around the law! New laws written to ease the burden of justice, should never be applicable to cases already before the courts; the temptation toward corruption is just too great.

So, now, why is Trudeau being so rigid with the two Michaels? It is fall-out from the SNC Lavalin affair! It gives him the opportunity to stand in front of his cottage (remember when we had a Parliament?), and pronounce every day that Canada is a nation of laws and the government will not interfere with the judicial process. As unbelievably hypocritical as that is, he seems to think that if he says it every day that eventually Canadians will believe he actually means it. This would require forgetting about one of the most disgraceful moments in Canadian politics. 

After Year of Political Turmoil, SNC-Lavalin Gets Off Easy in Plea Deal

Corruption is Everywhere - Everywhere SNC-Lavalin works

'The rest of the company will be able to continue to have access to public contracts,' says François Legault

Peter Zimonjic · CBC News 

The bust-up between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada

Jody Wilson-Raybould came close to ending Trudeau's government - and it may have accomplished nothing.

(Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's failed efforts to see SNC-Lavalin avoid prosecution led to him losing two key ministers, his edge in the polls and (almost) his party's hold on government, the Quebec engineering firm at the centre of the controversy walked away today with a plea deal that looks a lot like what it asked the government for in the first place.

A judge on Thursday accepted the plea deal that a division of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. struck with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Under the agreement, the company pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud over $5,000 in relation to the company's activities in Libya.

All other charges have been dropped.

"We are happy. The company is happy," said SNC-Lavalin lawyer François Fontaine. "The fact that the charges are no longer pending over the head of the company is good. The uncertainty around that kind of proceeding is bad for business, is bad for the company.

"So we're very happy that it's now over. We are free to bid as normal. This guilty plea does not prevent construction, or any other entity of the group, to bid on public contracts."

After SNC-Lavalin was hit with fraud and corruption charges over its actions in Libya between 2001 and 2011, officials from the Prime Minister's Office spoke with then justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, asking her to reconsider offering the firm a deferred prosecution agreement.

Under newly passed legislation, a deferred prosecution agreement would allow the company to avoid trial providing it paid hefty fines and continued to adhere to a number of conditions for a period of time.

CBC, ever in Trudeau's court, neglect to mention here that SNC-Lavalin lobbied Trudeau furiously to pass that law, specifically for them. Trudeau snuck the law into the back pages of a very long and complex omnibus budget bill, without the opposition noticing. A bill passed by the previous government required companies guilty of corruption to be suspended from bidding on federal government contracts for a period of years. Many of the high level managers at SNC live in Trudeau's riding in Montreal.

Had the company been convicted in court of bribing Libyan officials — including Saadi Gadhafi, son of the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi — to get lucrative government contracts, it could have been blocked from competing for federal government contracts in Canada for a decade.

"I have long believed in the essential necessity of our judicial system operating as it should — based on the rule of law and prosecutorial independence, and without political interference or pressure," Wilson-Raybould said today on Twitter. 

"Ultimately, that system was able to do its work — as democracy and good governance requires — and an outcome was reached today. Accountability was achieved. The justice system did its work."

Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act

Former health minister Jane Philpott and former attorney general of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould

both resigned from cabinet over the SNC-Lavalin affair. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

In early 2019, media reports said that Wilson-Raybould felt she was being improperly pressured by Trudeau's senior adviser and the clerk of the Privy Council to ask the DPP to consider offering SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement.

Wilson-Raybould refused, saying she believed the prosecution service should be free from political influence in its decisions. Trudeau later said he did not direct the attorney general to reverse a decision — that he just wanted her to reconsider the deferred prosecution agreement option.

Months of political controversy followed, resulting in Wilson-Raybould resigning from cabinet before being tossed out of the Liberal caucus along with her ally in the public debate that ensued: former health and Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott.

Mario Dion, the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, released a report in August that found Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act.

'You don't get do-overs in politics'

The allegation that Trudeau improperly tried to influence the attorney general significantly depressed the prime minister's voter support.

Trudeau defended his actions by saying that he was trying to prevent the loss of jobs in Quebec, but the damage to the prime minister's reputation had been done — just as federal political parties were readying themselves for a fall election.

Primarily, he was trying to prevent the loss of his own job.

In its year-end interview with the prime minister, the Canadian Press asked Trudeau if his actions on the SNC-Lavalin file were worth the political cost.

"As we look back over the past year on this issue, there are things that we could have, should have, would have done differently had we known," he said.

"You don't get do-overs in politics. You only do the best you can to protect jobs, to respect the independence of the judiciary, and that's exactly what we did every step of the way."

No, that's not what you did! You did not respect the independence of the Judiciary or you wouldn't have lost two of your most capable ministers, nor would you have been found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. Or did you forget your Principal Secretary and top Public Servant were both forced to resign for their excessive pressure on JWR.

The deal SNC-Lavalin struck to avoid trial may not have been a deferred prosecution agreement, but it resulted in almost the same outcome for the company.

All other charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea on one charge of fraud over $5,000, plus an agreement to pay $280 million in fines and comply with a probation order for three years.

"So far I'm happy, because that's what we were asking for," said Quebec Premier François Legault. "SNC-Lavalin's paying $280 million, but it's only for a part of the company. The rest of the company will be able to continue to have access to public contracts."

Wilson-Raybould's successor, Justice Minister David Lametti, said he had no part in the deal.

"Yesterday, I became aware that the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and counsel for SNC-Lavalin had reached an agreement to resolve the ongoing criminal proceedings against the company and its affiliates," a statement from Lametti's office said.

"This decision was made independently by the PPSC, as part of their responsibility to continually assess and determine the appropriate path for cases under their jurisdiction. Canadians can have confidence that our judicial and legal systems are working as they should."

Right, it's our political system that is thoroughly screwed up! When you cause the two ministers with the most integrity to resign from cabinet and from the party, that says all you need to know about Justin Trudeau.

Yesterday, Jodie Wilson-Raybould was named Canada's Newsmaker of the Year. She and Jane Philpott have both left the very Liberal Party; JWR was re-elected in October as an independent MP; Jane Philpott failed in her attempt to do the same.

Hospital Manager Who Took $10 Million Bribe to Favour SNC Lavalin Bid Sentenced to 39 Months in Prison

SNC-Lavalin, of course, has not been convicted of anything in Canada. And if Justin has his way, they will never be convicted of anything. Corruption is Everywhere.

Yanai Elbaz, front, and his brother Yohann Elbaz, left, arrive for their fraud trial at the courthouse in relation to the MUHC hospital in Montreal on Nov. 26, 2018.Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — A former hospital manager who pocketed a $10-million bribe in return for helping SNC-Lavalin win a Montreal hospital-building contract has been sentenced to 39 months in prison.

Quebec court Judge Claude Leblond sentenced Yanai Elbaz today in Montreal in a case that has been described as the greatest corruption fraud in Canadian history.

The judge rejected an argument from the McGill University Health Centre, which claimed it was entitled to compensation as a victim of the fraud. He ruled the question should be dealt with through civil proceedings.

In an agreed statement of facts tied to Elbaz’s plea, the former MUHC manager admitted to giving privileged information to engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to help its submission for the contract to build a massive hospital complex in west-end Montreal.

Elbaz, who has been detained since his Nov. 26 guilty plea, also admitted to denigrating SNC’s competitors in front of the hospital’s selection committee.

Elbaz and Arthur Porter, the ex-CEO of the MUHC who died a fugitive in Panamanian custody in 2015, received a total of $22.5 million to rig the bidding process to favour SNC-Lavalin, the statement of facts said.

PMO Denies 'Hostility' in Trudeau's Interactions with Female Liberal MP

Celina Caesar-Chavannes told the Globe and Mail

Trudeau yelled at her

CBC News

Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes is not running in October's election. (Idil Mussa/CBC)

The Prime Minister's Office says there was "absolutely no hostility" from Justin Trudeau towards Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes, despite allegations she's made against him. 

It was just a month ago Trudeau declared, “The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false.” Denial seems to be the automatic response.

The Whitby, Ont., MP says she was met with anger and hostility from the prime minister after she informed him she would not be seeking re-election in October. 

Caesar-Chavannes made the announcement last weekend, but informed Trudeau weeks earlier on Feb. 12. 

It was around that time the negative encounters happened, the MP first told the Globe and Mail. 

Because of Jody Wilson-Raybould's fresh resignation from cabinet, she told the Globe that Trudeau had asked her to wait for her own announcement and that he was worried about the optics of having two women of colour leave at the same time (Wilson-Reybould is indigenous).

"He was yelling. He was yelling that I didn't appreciate him, that he'd given me so much," Caesar-Chavannes told that newspaper.

A real feminist is concerned for the well-being and happiness of women. 

A pseudo-feminist is worried about optics.

A narcissist thinks it is all about him.

She alleges the hostility continued in interactions after that conversation.

Since she informed the PM that she was not running again, another very high profile, female, cabinet minister, Jane Philpott, Treasury Board president and minister of digital government, stepped down in disagreement with the PMO's position on the SNC-Lavalin affair. That's 3 women abandoning Trudeau the world's most self-declared male feminist.

Matt Pascuzzo, a spokesman for the PMO, says while there was no question the conversations in February were "frank," there was "absolutely no hostility."

Women, often being victims of hostility, are certainly more sensitive to a man, especially a powerful man, raising his voice. That man might perceive it as just expressing a little emotion. The woman might perceive it as a threat, and for good reason.

Caesar-Chavannes declined to comment for this story.

'Remember your reactions?'

Earlier on Thursday while responding to allegations surrounding the SNC-Lavalin controversy, Trudeau said he hoped members of his caucus felt comfortable coming to him with issues. 

"I did come to you recently. Twice. Remember your reactions?" Caesar-Chavannes tweeted after his comment. 

The prime minister doubled down on his messaging at an event in Ottawa on Saturday morning, saying the SNC-Lavalin affair is giving him pause to think about the way things have been dealt with.

That might be the closest we ever get to an admission of moral failure, or an apology.

Trudeau's office denies the conversations with her turned sour to the point of animosity. 

"The prime minister has deep respect for Celina Caesar-Chavannes," Pascuzzo said in the email to CBC News. 

"As the prime minister said on Thursday, he is committed to fostering an environment where ministers, caucus, and staff feel comfortable approaching him when they have concerns or disagreements – that happened here."

Right!

Caesar-Chavannes worked closely with the prime minister, including a stint as his parliamentary secretary until early 2017.

A Quick Sketch to Outline the Scandal in Canada That is Casting Dark Shadows Across the Face of Justin Trudeau

Corruption is Everywhere

- Even in the Office of Canada's Far-Left Mr. Sunshine

National Observer

For 16 years the global engineering and construction giant SNC-Lavalin cultivated a close relationship with the Muammar Gaddafi family, particularly his son Saadi.

According to criminal charges, for almost a decade of that period, up until the fall of the regime, SNC paid Saadi Gaadafi almost $50 million in exchange for billions of dollars in airport, pipeline, and water infrastructure projects.

Saadi Gadaffi

Oh, and prisons.

Let's go over that again.

A Canadian company is charged with bribing a family infamous around the world for murder, torture, rape, abductions, and widespread human rights abuses, and doing it for its own profit. They didn't stop until the regime collapsed in 2011 and Swiss authorities came knocking. Charges were laid in April 2015.

A corruption prosecution of this gravity is unprecedented in Canada.

Moreover, had the Libyan regime not collapsed and the bribery discovered, would this company still be in the game, still arranging prostitute parties and funnelling money to the Gaddafis?

It's highly significant that SNC is no stranger to disciplinary action over its conduct. During the 2001-2011 period of the alleged Libyan bribery, the company has:

been barred from bidding on Asian Development Bank projects for fabricating qualifications and documents (2004);

settled corruption allegations with the African Development Bank over bribes in Mozambique (2008) and Uganda (2010);

bribed Canadian officials with $22.5 million in relation to a McGill hospital contract (2009);

been credibly found by the World Bank as participating in high-level corruption in Bangladesh in 2009-2010, and entered into a voluntary debarment from World Bank-financed projects. (SNC-Lavalin has since been acquitted of criminal charges, but the voluntary debarment remains in place);

entered into a voluntary agreement to compensate seven Quebec municipalities for obtaining contracts through questionable means (1996-2011);

made illegal federal election campaign donations (2004-2011), entering into a voluntary compliance agreement with the federal elections commissioner

SNC knowingly enabled and overlooked monstrous tyranny and abuse.

The company cannot pretend it was unaware of Gaddafi's vicious cruelty while expensing his son Saadi Gaddafi's prostitutes, lavish lifestyle, and showering him with millions of dollars a year.

The company financed his soccer aspirations and sponsored his team despite widespread reports that, just a few years earlier, his bodyguards had opened fire on soccer fans for booing a referee favouring him. Between 20 and 50 were killed in the ensuing chaos.

Then there was Bashir al-Rayani, a professional soccer coach who challenged Saadi Gaddafi in 2005, only to disappear shortly before his bludgeoned body was dumped near his home.

A brief search and one can find more horror stories associated with SNC-Lavalin. But that should be sufficient to indicate that this company has little or no regard for the law or for any of the myriad people adversely affected by their relentless bribery.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper put in place a law that forbids companies convicted of corruption from bidding on federal infrastructure contracts for 10 years. But as soon as Justin Trudeau and his very Liberal Party won the election in 2015, SNC began intense lobbying of the government to find a solution that didn't involve going to trial.

SNC and the very Liberals cam up with a law that is used in a few countries, including Britain, called Deferred Prosecution Agreement. It is basically a plea deal. The very Liberals snuck the new law into the bowels of a large omnibus federal budget, and it passed without scrutiny in the Spring budget of 2018.

However, Canada's senior Public Prosecutor decided it wasn't in the best interests of Canadians, or probably anyone else in the world, to offer SNC a DPA. Two weeks later, Canada's Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Reybould, agreed with her and informed SNC that they would not be getting a DPA offer.

Well, __it hit the fan! SNC began frantic lobbying of the Trudeau government, which, in turn, began pressuring the Attorney General to reconsider. For months, everyone from the Prime Minister, his senior staff, the Clerk of the Privy Council, pressed Wilson-Reybould to reconsider.

SNC-Lavalin threatened the government with thousands of lost jobs and even moving its headquarters from Montreal to London. Trudeau panicked. One of the very first things he mentioned to the AG when he next met her was to remind her of the job losses and that he was the MP for Papineau, a riding in Montreal where many of those workers lived.

The AG asked the PM if he was interfering with her decision and he backed off. Meanwhile the PM's Chief of Staff, Gerald Butts informed the AG's Chief of Staff that there was no solution that did not involve interference.

From here the sort gets even less believable. In January, a Halifax MP and cabinet minister, Scott Brison. suddenly decided he had to retire. He hadn't talked about it to anyone. People were amazed that no-one had any idea he was thinking of retiring. I strongly suspect that he had no idea himself until just before it happened. 

This resulted in a mini cabinet shuffle, and guess who go shuffled? The Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. She was replaced with a new AG, an MP, would you believe, from Montreal, who seems a lot more amenable to offering SNC-Lavalin a DPA. Except, __it hit the fan again.

Someone leaked the story to Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper and all hell breaks loose. Trudeau flatly denies the story saying it is completely untrue, that no pressure was applied to the AG, she was not threatened, they just had to have a cabinet shuffle because Scott Brison resigned. 

A few days later, Jody Wilson-Reybould resigned from her new cabinet position stating that she has lots confidence in the Prime Minister. 

The parliamentary justice committee, dominated by very Liberals was pressured into holding investigations into the affair. At first they didn't want to allow anyone of any importance to speak to the committee. A brilliant, young CBC digital reporter suggested the inquiry into the fox and the henhouse was restricting evidence to the mouse and the rusty lawnmower. I think she nailed it.

Finally they agreed to call the clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's top bureaucrat, and, supposedly, non-political. His testimony was anything but non-political. Eventually, JWR, herself, got to testify, although limited somewhat by Cabinet Privilege. 

With documentation, she contradicted some of the Clerk's testimony and exposed the pressure, the political angle, and the fact that she told the PM she had made up her mind way back in September and that all the pressure was tantamount to political interference, and it had to stop. It stopped over Christmas holidays and immediately after she was moved from the portfolio.

Whether she was threatened with removal she will not say because of cabinet privilege. The Clerk was invited back to Committee to rebut JWR's testimony but before he could do that another high profile female cabinet minister resigned. Jane Philpott was a former health minister and Indigenous-services minister, and was president of the federal Treasury Board when she quit the cabinet. Philpott was widely seen as one of Trudeau's most capable ministers.

Philpott quit in solidarity with JWR stating that she cannot support the government line on the whole affair. The government accused her of being JWR's friend!!! Like it just a couple of emotional women, not two of the most respected and capable ministers in the very Liberal government. The rest of his cabinet, like trained monkeys, chanted the mantra - "the PM has my full confidence!"

Trudeau refuses to accept responsibility for the affair and, in all probability, will find a way out of the situation for SNC-Lavalin to avoid justice. He has followers who believe so emphatically in his righteousness that they cannot see what is so plainly visible. He's a politician. A very ambitious politician. Canadian PM is nowhere near the pinnacle of his political ambitions. He, I believe, is determined to be the saviour of the world.

More on Trudeau later... meanwhile -

SNC Lavalin had gone to court seeking a review of the decision by the federal director of public prosecutions last fall to not enter negotiations so desperately sought by the firm’s executives. Today, the Federal Court has struck down SNC-Lavalin‘s appeal.

The new Attorney General has a hard decision to make, and while he may get lots of encouragement to make it, chances are, if he decides to offer SNC a plea deal, his encouragers will be nowhere to be found come October and federal election time.