SNC-Lavalin appeals to Federal Court of Appeal; seeks judicial review of the decision by Crown prosecutors not to offer a deferred prosecution agreement.
https://postmediatorontosun.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/a-140-19-doc-1.pdf
That’s… ballsy.
Yes, especially since the Supreme Court has held that the courts do not review the decisions of prosecutors on whether and how to charge someone. It’s a separation of powers issue: the executive is responsible for deciding whether and how to prosecute. The courts are responsible for judging the case the Crown brings.
CBC has summarised the basis for the appeal here: “Prosecutor cited ‘gravity’ of alleged SNC-Lavalin offences: Court documents”
Apparently the Crown gave three reasons why they decided not to consider a deferred prosecution agreement:
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The “nature and gravity” of SNC-Lavalin alleged corruption in Libya;
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The degree of involvement of senior company officials in Montreal;
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SNC-Lavalin’s failure to self-report.
SNC-Lavalin argues in its notice of Appeal that it had answers to those comments, which weren’t relayed to the Attorney General. Also seems to be arguing that a prosecution would now be politically tainted and unfair.
Ah yes, one of the friendly op-eds that Ms Telford said the PMO would start lining up to defend their decisions.
Minister of Justice under Trudeau père? Member for Saint-Henri-Westmount? Former President of the Liberal Party?
Yes, he’s clearly a neutral, disinterested public commentator.
And he says that he doesn’t know the reasons why the Crown prosecutors decided not to offer a deferred prosecution agreement. Undeterred by his admitted lack of knowledge of the case, he confidently asserts “If ever there was a case for a deferred prosecution agreement, it was here.”
That’s not how prosecution decisions, or decisions by the Attorney General should be made. Decisions should only be made on full information, not what you’ve read in the papers.
He also seems to criticise the fact that the Crown office has not disclosed their reasons for refusing the DPA. But it’s an essential part of our criminal system that the Crown doesn’t hold press conferences to gain public support for their prosecutorial decisions. Doing that inevitably politicises the prosecution service. They’ve communicated their reasons to SNC-Lavalin, who is the affected party, and to the Attorney General, the chief law officer of the Crown. That’s how the system works, to protect the target of a prosecution and the non-partisan nature of prosecutions. I would have thought that a former Attorney General would know that.
He also takes a nasty little swipe at the entire federal prosecution service, asserting that the issues around deferred prosecution agreements are beyond their understanding, poor things
Only an outside, private lawyer, hand-picked by the PMO, apparently can be trusted to deal with this type of criminal prosecution decision.
And, he also criticises the Canadian voters. If only the PM and his people had had a better media plan in place to explain how DPAs work, this wouldn’t be a story. Better media spin by the PMO would have defused this whole situation and Canadian voters would have just nodded and said, “Sure, it’s okay if a major company uses its political influence to get out of a criminal conviction. They’ll pay a little fine and the Crown comes after the company minions, but not the company? Well why didn’t you tell me?!?”
Sorry Don, but I think Canadian voters aren’t that easily “spun” and have a pretty good idea of what’s going on here.
Got anything better? Maybe someone who doesn’t have any ties to the Liberal party and la famille Trudeau?
Sure, but that was speaking about the idea of deferred prosecution agreements in general, back when the federal government was first floating the idea. It’s a general comment on the proposed law, not a comment about whether a DPA was appropriate in this particular case.
I’d be surprised if the CBA would comment on an ongoing prosecution, knowing that they don’t have the complete record. But if you can find a comment from the CBA on this particular case, I’d be interested in seeing it.
I suspect everyone is going to get away with this. SNC-Lavalin will continue to poke at this decision, and it will be quietly overturned sometime down the road when no one is paying attention. And by the time of the election, the media will dutifully take the line that this is old news, and that the other parties are desperate to keep it alive for political reasons, and the Trudeau is actually the maligned party by having an old obscure issue repeatedly brought up for partisan reasons and it’s time to move on and talk about the real issues Canadians care about, such as how great Justin Trudeau is.
After all, he did just give them a $600 million dollar gift in an election year.
Well, it will be old news. And I doubt the charges will be dropped
At the end of the day, this is a very unsexy scandal. Nothing really happened. Trudeau et al may have pushed ethical boundaries but they didn’t break a law, and the pushing of ethical bounds didn’t change anything.
Yes, the media will dutifully drop this in a couple months, because their duty is to be interesting. Everyone but partisans will be bored of this by August…
LOL
Correct, but that’s not the basis of the appeal. The basis of the appeal is the allegation that there was an “abuse of process”, which is, in fact, valid grounds for judicial review. I don’t actually think they have much of a chance, but let’s keep the facts straight.
I didn’t say he was “neutral” or “disinterested”. I said he was worth listening to. The OECD doesn’t appoint someone as their secretary-general because he’s a useless partisan hack, as someone referred to Johnson upthread. Let’s face it, everyone who votes has a position here tainted by some degree of partisanship. It doesn’t mean their arguments are wrong.
It was speaking about the damage that can be done to many innocent parties by the prosecution of a few, which seems to me to be right on point here.
I’m hardly a diehard Liberal Party partisan. I’ve also voted both Conservative and NDP at different times. Quite frankly, my concern here is both about the Canadian and Quebec economies and also the fact that throwing Trudeau under the bus for this is the proverbial throwing out of the baby with the bathwater. Trudeau has been a notable and laudable icon of progressivism in a world that lately seems to be dominated by populist regressives, bigots, and xenophobes. The last thing we need in Canada now is Harper Lite.
Hmm, the only time the word “useless” seems to appear in this thread is in your posts.
Johnston was nominated to his OECD position by Chretien. I have no idea what rigorous vetting takes place before the members vote on it, so feel free to impress me. But I’ll offer a slight change to my original statement, I haven’t seen a single non-party affiliated working lawyer say SNC was a good candidate for DPA.
Johnston’s own words:
“If there was ever a case for a DPA, it was here. Canada had an opportunity to illustrate how corporate wrongdoing can be addressed effectively without destroying globally competitive companies, leaving jobs, skills and technologies to be profitably harvested abroad.”
Acting in the national economic interest is specifically something that CANNOT be used as a reason for a DPA regarding the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. It says so in the legislation.
There are the sorts of sad excuses that often accompany a disinterest in democracy and the rule of law. “We certainly can’t prosecute this big company, that would be bad for business! Never mind the norms of governance, that might mean the right candidate won’t get elected!”
EXACTLY! (I think I made that point earlier in this thread but can’t be bothered looking for it. 
)
And, the legislation also prohibits taking into account “the identity of the organization or individual involved.” So arguments that “This is SNC-Lavalin, Jody! We can’t let it go under!” are equally irrelevant.
In other words, for whatever reason, Parliament decided that it’s harder to get a DPA for prosecutions under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act than “ordinary” corruption offences under the Criminal Code.
Again, you would think that a former Attorney General and exec sec from the OECD would appreciate that you can’t make an argument about “SNC might leave Canada and take their expertise, like Avro did!”
That sure sounds to me like an argument based on the identity of the organisation involved, which is prohibited.
That is one of the grounds of appeal now, but SNC-Lavalin did not allege abuse of process in their initial application (SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. v. Canada (Public Prosecution Service, 2019 FC 282):
(my bolding)
They are now trying to raise abuse of process on appeal, but it’s hard to introduce new issues on appeal.
Their main argument in the Federal Court was that the decision to offer a deferred prosecution agreement was not an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, and therefore could be reviewed by the courts. The Federal Court dismissed that argument, saying that just because it doesn’t lead to a conviction and sentence doesn’t take it out of prosecutorial discretion. The Crown’s decision whether or not to offer the deferred prosecution agreement is part of the prosecutorial discretion:
They seem to have argued that a remediation agreement is just that: an agreement, more like a civil settlement, and that takes it out of the scope of prosecutorial discretion. (Curiously, that argument seems to match the arguments advanced by the Clerk of the Privy Council in the taped phone call…).
The Judge firmly rejected that argument. She reviewed numerous cases which held that when the Criminal Code gives the prosecutor discretion to consider alternative measures to the classic trial guilty/not guilty, it is still an exercise of prosecutorial discretion to decide whether to offer the alternative measures (paras. 133-136).
She also highlighted the constitutional nature of prosecutorial discretion:
I just think that equating the partisan interest of a past president of the Liberal Party to that of the individual voter is a bridge too far. 
But as RickJay and I have pointed out, the Criminal Code prohibits the Crown from taking into account “the national economic interest” and " the identity of the organization or individual involved", when it’s a charge of bribing foreign public officials. See Criminal Code, s. 715.32(3).
I’ll respond to that by beginning with this quote:
I agree with this. The whole discussion of the technicalities of a DPA or the larger question of prosecutorial discretion in general, or of the alleged pure evil of SNC Lavalin, are all peripheral to the larger issue that concerns me here. One can acknowledge that what Trudeau is alleged to have done was wrong, and still legitimately ask whether it rises to the level of wrongness that should cost him the right to govern and perhaps his political career, particularly given that it was done with good intentions and not self-serving motives like self-enrichment.
Because ISTM that most of those who profess their outrage at this supposed “scandal” are of a Conservative-supporting inclination who would be happy to see Trudeau gone, just on general principle, like my Conservative buddy who can’t even mention his name without throwing in a juvenile insult. So again, I’m not saying that Trudeau wasn’t wrong, I’m commenting on the political opportunism seeking to exploit it to the maximum possible extent. They had no problem at all when SNC was distributing bribes all over the world using funds from Export Development Canada under Harper’s watch, but are suddenly scandalized when Trudeau regards a major Canadian company as too big to fail, particularly in the hypersensitive context of Quebec politics. The perception in Quebec that the federal government was torpedoing one of Quebec’s biggest companies and biggest employers would be politically explosive, particularly if they were banned from all federal contracts.
Remember that all this back-and-forth started when I simply expressed my annoyance with seeing Wilson-Raybould’s smugly grinning mug on the front pages of news sites every single day. She single-handedly escalated this tempest in a teapot to a national spectacle, often using unethical sleazy tactics, and created a largely artificial scandal out of all proportion to the actual transgression. And she did it for reasons that I personally find suspiciously self-serving. I don’t see that “democracy and the rule of law” were ever under any real threat, or that Wilson-Raybould’s sanctimonious grandstanding has done anything to save democracy or take the country in a better direction. Andrew Scheer, meanwhile – speaking of political opportunism – is worried that this may all fade away and as recently as today was handing out alleged new material to keep the “scandal” alive.
To the OP’s question:
Well, he’s going to be mocked on the Simpsons this weekend.
Bit of a come-down from a Vogue glamour shot.
Thanks for the heads-up – that looks like it’s going to be fun! 
But I don’t see any basis for the “going to be mocked” comment. From the guy who did the Trudeau voice-over: “I think if there was a clear intention to mock someone or make someone look bad, then there would be some problems. I can honestly say there’s absolutely no malice either for [Trudeau] or anybody else. It really is just about trying to be funny," he said.”
Any other time i’ve Seen a political leader on Simpsons, they’ve been mocked: Ford, Bush I, Dole and Clinton all come to mind. But maybe they ‘ll break the pattern for Trudeau.
There will be mockery, I’m sure, but it will be gentle and of the sort that even Mr. Trudeau and his family can laugh at.
Remember the Simpsons episode with Bush the First was a “Dennis the Menace” parody, with Mr. Bush playing Mr. Wilson to Bart’s Dennis; and Bob Dole was an “inaction” figure, who, when you pulled the string, said, “You are hearing me talk.” Ford invited Homer over for nachos and beer and TV football. No biting satire, like SNL might do; just gentle humour exploiting the various presidents’ (and others) petty foibles and habits.
I’m sure that it will be the same with Mr. Trudeau. There won’t be any serious issues or inappropriate mannerisms addressed, just things that Mr. Trudeau can laugh along at, and perhaps say, “Okay, you got me there.”
What? A Simpson’s Trump character will not be grabbing Trudeau by the . . . ?
SNC-Lavalin to stand trial on corruption charges, Quebec judge rules
Allegations of bribes in the order of $48 million, and defrauded a number of Libyan institutions out of $130 million.
Media asked the lead Crown prosecutor if a DPA is still possible. Me Roy simply stated: “The director of public prosecutions has made a decision in that regard.”
No comment whether the federal AG will intervene and change that decision.
If I remember right, that was actually an Al Gore doll. Though Bill Clinton and Bob Dole were also featured in a Halloween episode.