Vincent J. Curtis
28 Feb 2019
I wonder if the Canadian politicians and
media really understand the Canadian constitution, or if they aren’t exploiting
for their own purposes a gullible public.
In Canada, the Minister of Justice and
Attorney-General of Canada is a political figure. The permanent bureaucracy reports to a
political figure, a member of the Cabinet.
For decades, the minister of Justice was a Quebec MP, to calm fears of
the political intentions of the Justice Department.
The prosecution of the Vice-Admiral Mark
Norman is entirely political.
(Those from southern Ontario who recall "Caledonia" and the set-to with the Mohawks understand that the prosecutions and especially the non-prosecutions were all politically motivated, and directed by the Ontario A-G.)
It ought to come as no surprise that
political control is sometimes exerted on the activities of the Department of
Justice and the Attorney-General.
Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures, and the
case of SNC-Lavalin is one of those.
SNC-Lavalin is one of Canada’s most
important engineering firms, employing over 50,000 people. It is based in Quebec. It has a vast reservoir of intellectual
capital. Its existence is in peril as a result
of a charge being brought by some overly earnest bureaucrats of the Justice
Department who lack political sense.
The charge is of bribing the son of Libyan
dictator Moammar Gadhafi in order to obtain a contract. Bribery to get something done is so common in
that part of the world it has a word, baksheesh.
The Gadhafi regime is long gone.
Tawdry, yes, and perhaps certain people should be punished. This happened a decade ago and should be
water under the bridge.
But no.
Somebody in Justice wanted to punish Lavalin and Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould
lacked the sense to intervene and control the process. When Justin Trudeau tried to explain the
facts of life gently to the Minister, she thought she was being pressured. When she didn’t get it, he moved her to
another portfolio so that someone with more sense could take charge of the
file.
There is nothing to be shocked about here,
except at how gently it was all handled.
It would be political malpractice for the Prime Minister to countenance
the destruction of SNC-Lavalin. What is
surprising is the political naiveté of Jody Wilson-Raybould and that no one
suspected there was a political operator behind the mask of “Sunny Ways.”
You just don’t let a major reservoir of
intellectual capital in Canada – and based in Quebec to boot - to be destroyed
by bureaucratic mindlessness. That’s why
prosecutions are ultimately subject to political control.
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