Ms Wilson-Raybold is.my MP, and my office used ro be teo blocks from hers. I will tell you, there is an amazing Thai food truck that parks near her office, so you don’t need to pack a lunch when protesting. There is also signage saying where you can protest and what is private property
Seriously though this shuffle doesn’t really make sense.
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I’m all for a good Pad Thai and exercising my democratic rights but the commute from home is going to be hellish. 
Fuck. Gilles Duceppe’s mother froze to death outside a Montreal nursing home.
I don’t like the BQ, but I did appreciate Gilles as a politician. I believe he is good man, and no one deserves this.
Jesus N. Christ, what a horror.
Happy New Year to all.
What, no thoughts about Good Hair Justin and SNC Lavalin? What does Jody Wilson-Leboult know and isn’t telling? Who will be called in front of the Committee?
Trudeau admits that the Attorney General asked him if he was planning on giving her a specific direction with regard to SNC Lavalin :
I do notice liberal friends voicing support for Wilson-Raybould. Based on, as far as I can tell, nothing whatsoever. She’s coming across well, but I prefer to base opinions on information rather than feelings. I like her and I hope she’s in the right here, but I’m withholding judgement until I have something to base it on.
I’m afraid I’m not quite understanding the matter. I’ve been trying to follow the news, but not making sense of it. So far, what I’m understanding is that SNC Lavalin did something, that consequently, Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned, and that her inability to speak French might figure into all this somehow.
Could someone post a quick-and-dirty summary of the matter, and how Ms. Wilson-Raybould figures into it?
My understanding is that there are allegations that Trudeau’s government pressured Wilson-Raybould to settle the case or somehow intervene to make it less bad, because the Liberals are all about keeping Big Business happy, which would be undue influence. She, supposedly, refused, and was demoted in a cabinet shuffle, allegedly in punishment for refusal to play that game.
So it mostly seems to be an allegation against Trudeau, whose track record as pro-Business is pretty clear to me (see: Kinder-Morgan bailout). Wilson-Raybould is collateral damage here: if she was just standing up to the party as a matter of ethics, we could see her as the new party leader in a while, I think. But she’s not saying anything (wisely) and it remains to be seen whether this is what brings down the Trudeau government, or is just 2019’s Elbowgate.
This.
Personally, I don’t think anyone is clean in this and that includes Wilson-Raybould.
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It’s one of these news stories that you read about after the fact, and the media assumes you’re familiar with the backstory; I’m not.
I believe that SNC-Lavalin used government funding as bribe money to possibly get a contract somewhere? And that the Attorney General was asked to not investigate. She disagreed and was demoted and then resigned?
I may be totally off base and please correct me if I’m mistaken.
By the way, bribe money is very commonplace in a lot of countries. If you want to be awarded a contract, it’s assumed that you’ll be greasing some palms.
Rewinding a bit past Dr. Drake’s summary: SNC-Lavalin is a large engineering firm, based in Montréal, with customers worldwide. The firm is accused of bribing Libyan officials to get contracts between 2001 and 2011, and of corruption during construction of the CUSM/MUHC in the early 2010s, and some other stuff. The company’s president and management team have been changed as a result of this (and the former president, Pierre Duhaime, was recently sentenced to a deferred prison sentence for the CUSM scandal), but the trial against the company itself started a few months ago.
Since last fall, a company accused of criminal offenses can get a deferred prosecution agreement, essentially a settlement where the trial is stopped and the company pays fines. The minister of Justice can decide to use a DPA or not in a given case. It’s known that SNC-Lavalin asked federal prosecutors for a DPA and was denied.
It’s alleged that, last fall, Mr. Trudeau’s office pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould, then minister of Justice, to allow a DPA for SNC-Lavalin. It’s also alleged that her subsequent transfer from Justice to the less-glamorous Veterans’ Affairs, as part of a cabinet shuffle, was a consequence of her refusal to use a DPA.
A few days ago, she resigned as minister of Veterans’ Affairs. The tone of her published letter implied that she might have something to say but isn’t sure if she can.
Oh, and there are other dimensions:
She has retained retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell as her lawyer to advise on what she can and can’t say. She is a lawyer and is bound by solicitor-client privilege, so she’s being very cautious not to make a misstep.
Heracles and Dr. Drake, thanks for the explanations. I think I get it now. Again, thanks!
Yes, but there are strict laws that Canadian companies must abide by. U.S. seeks $34M from Calgary oil company for bribing Chad diplomat | Globalnews.ca
The difference with the company linked to in the article is it made the mistake of being a western Canadian based oil company that didn’t grease enough liberal palms to help it out.
Is anybody else just plain fed up with the weather?
We have had minus double-digit temps since the beginning of February. Wind chills have taken it below that. Just going out to the corner store means that I have to dress like an astronaut: toque, gloves, parka, undervest, and so on. I’m tired of shovelling every day, and clearing the car off, and so on.
Can we all commiserate?
Nah, I’m a skier. No sympathy here.
That being said, I will concede that this is the first winter where I have had to put on snowshoes to dispose of kitty litter. Ullr, blessed be his name, just keeps on keeping on with the snowfall.