OTTAWA – Jody Wilson-Raybould has accepted the House Justice Committee's invitation to testify on the ongoing SNC-Lavalin affair on Wednesday, now that the government has waived solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidence.
Her appearance will be the first time she speaks publicly and in detail in the 20 days since the allegations of political pressure being placed on her by members of the PMO in regards to an ongoing criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, were reported in The Globe and Mail.
Wilson-Raybould sent a letter to the committee Tuesday afternoon confirming she’d testify at 3:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, which was the time the committee had requested.
Leaving the building where her lawyer has an office, CTV News asked Wilson-Raybould whether she felt satisfied with the terms under which she’s been permitted to speak, and she did not respond.
In requesting she attend imminently, the committee cited the Order in Council that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued Monday evening. The committee said it now has the clarity on confidence, privilege, and a parliamentary convention known as "sub judice" which deals with speaking about cases currently before the courts. These were issues that both Wilson-Raybould and the MPs who are conducting the probe were looking for more legal assurances on before having her appear.
The committee has agreed to a request Wilson-Raybould made in writing on Monday: that she be granted an "extended opening statement" lasting 30 minutes during which she would be able to go through everything she recalls about communications she was involved in regarding SNC-Lavalin. Most opening statements at committees are limited to 10 minutes.
The meeting is currently scheduled to span two hours, most of which will be Wilson-Raybould taking questions from MPs, and will take place inside one of the new committee meeting rooms in West Block. Wilson-Raybould is the only witness scheduled for the meeting.
"We're pleased to hear her take on things," said committee chair Anthony Housefather. "I think it's important to the members of the committee to do our work, and to Canadians to hear from Ms. Wilson-Raybould, and I'm happy she’s agreed to come tomorrow," he said.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen said her testimony is "pivotal," but expressed frustration that she was appearing in the afternoon, and not before the final prime minister's question period for a few weeks. On Wednesdays when he is in town, Trudeau takes every question asked during question period. Cullen said this could mean that the opposition won't have the ability to put to Trudeau what Wilson-Raybould has to say, until mid-March when the House of Commons reconvenes after a two-week hiatus where MPs are in their ridings.
Conservative MP Lisa Raitt said she'll be asking Wilson-Raybould whether in her view the pressure was appropriate and for more detail about many aspects of the entire affair from her perspective.
"The unanswered question I have is why did she resign? What was it either in what Mr. Lametti said or in what the prime minister said that caused her to realize she didn't have the confidence of the cabinet any longer?" Raitt said.
In her Monday letter Wilson-Raybould said that she is "anxious" to appear and wrote that she'd be happy to stay for as long as the committee wishes to answer questions. Last week in the House of Commons she rose to say that she hopes she would be granted the ability to “speak my truth,” in relation to the allegations.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on his way to Tuesday morning's cabinet meeting that he is "pleased" that Wilson-Raybould will be able to "share her perspective."
"It's important that people get an opportunity to testify or share their point of view at committee. As we said, waving the privilege, waiving cabinet confidentiality is something that we had to take very seriously,” Trudeau said.
"It's just important that she speak and that all of the mystery goes. This is important for all of us to get on with our work," said Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett on her way out of cabinet on Tuesday. "There is a view that in terms of the story, we need to hear her side of it," she said.
Over the last few weeks the opposition parties have focused in on this scandal, with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer calling it a "textbook case of government corruption with those at the very top of the prime minister's office implicated in what could very well be the obstruction of justice." The opposition Conservatives and New Democrats have sought to have Trudeau and several senior PMO staff believed to be central to the story testify, and a public inquiry called, with no success.
Tuesday, Government House Leader Bardish Chagger criticized the opposition and its messaging throughout this ongoing controversy.
"Once upon a time it was a message that 'oh the committee will never meet on this issue.' They're meeting on this issue. Then we started talking about 'oh, witnesses will never be allowed to appear.' Witnesses are appearing. They’re being asked tough questions. 'Oh, the former Attorney General will not be allowed to appear.' Guess what? She is appearing. 'Oh the Prime Minister is not going to let her speak.' The Prime Minister has done whatever he can to work with the current Attorney General to ensure that the opportunity is there," Chagger said.
'There were contacts between lawyers'
On his way into cabinet Tuesday morning, Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti said that, before waiving attorney-client privilege and cabinet confidence, federal lawyers were in touch with Wilson-Raybould's counsel.
"It is fair to say that there were contacts between lawyers but I won't go any further than that," Lametti told reporters Tuesday morning.
In her letter of resignation as Veterans Affairs Minister Wilson-Raybould said she retained former Supreme Court judge Thomas Cromwell to provide advice on speaking publicly about the scandal. Up until now she has maintained solicitor-client privilege as the reason she’s been unable to speak to the allegations.
This specific waiver only permits Wilson-Raybould to speak about the matter to the House Justice Committee, however, as part of its study into the SNC-Lavalin affair, and to the federal ethics commissioner who has also launched an investigation.
"We have, I believe as a government, worked to demonstrate transparency as well as balancing the fact that there is ongoing litigation we do not want to compromise, so we feel we’ve done that with this agreement," Lametti said.
The government made the directive in an Order in Council posted Monday evening. The order authorizes her, as well as "any person who directly participated in discussions with her," to speak to the committee and ethics commissioner, about the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
The order relates to any information or communications that have to do with Wilson-Raybould's time as the attorney general and exercising her authority under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, and only in regards to the two ongoing probes of the matter, and not a blanket permission for Wilson-Raybould to speak.
As well, the order states that Director of Public Prosecutions Kathleen Roussel is exempted from this waiving of privilege and any information or conversations between Wilson-Raybould and Roussel cannot be disclosed, "in order to uphold the integrity of any criminal or civil proceedings," the prime minister's office states in the Order in Council.
Recap on the story so far
On Feb. 7, citing unnamed sources, The Globe and Mail reported that Trudeau's office pressed Wilson-Raybould to drop a criminal prosecution against SNC-Lavalin when she was attorney general. It was alleged that the PMO wanted Wilson-Raybould to instruct federal prosecutors to change course and pursue a remediation agreement rather than criminal prosecution in the corruption and fraud case against the Quebec engineering and construction giant. CTV News has not independently verified the story.
Remediation agreements — or Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) — can include having the company accept responsibility, denounce the wrongdoing, vow to implement corrective measures, and pay financial penalties.
In contrast, if the company was criminally convicted it would be banned from securing Canadian government contracts for a decade, potentially putting jobs on the line.
When she was attorney general, Wilson-Raybould had the ability to direct the Director of Public Prosecutions to take a different route with the charges against SNC-Lavalin but she did not, despite several meetings and conversations before and after federal prosecutors decided to carry on with the criminal case in the fall.
In January, Wilson-Raybould was shuffled into the veterans affairs portfolio, and was replaced as attorney general and justice minister by David Lametti, a Quebec MP. Wilson-Raybould accepted her new position, but then resigned from cabinet days after the Globe story broke amid the opposition framing this as her being demoted for not changing her position on a deferred prosecution.
The House Justice Committee began probing the matter last week. As part of the study the committee has already heard from Lametti, his deputy minister, and top bureaucrat Michael Wernick, who gave blunt and detailed testimony in which he sought to reframe the Globe report, saying that while it's likely Wilson-Raybould could have felt pressured, it's a question of whether that constitutes as "inappropriate pressure," or pressure that comes with being part of the inner circle that makes key decisions with national implications.
Then on Monday the committee heard from a slate of academic witnesses on the underlying legal aspects at the heart of the affair. These include the legal provision known as remediation or deferred prosecution agreements, which were tucked into a recent omnibus bill following heavy SNC-Lavalin lobbying, and the Shawcross doctrine; which has to do with the independence of the attorney general in making decisions.
These witnesses offered their hypothetical perspectives about the propriety of attorney generals making prosecutorial decisions, when the various principles are activated, and the balance of seeking advice from cabinet colleagues without succumbing to or factoring in politics.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a legal counsel with Woodward and Company LLP, and law professor at the University of British Columbia, told the committee that what needs to be understood is how the situation unfolded.
"If the purpose was to persuade the attorney general as chief prosecutor to take a different position on a prosecution, it triggers a serious rule-of-law concern, and how will we know whether that’s serious or not? Well, obviously you need to hear from those who may have been involved," Turpel-Lafond told the committee on Monday.
To date, the government maintains that nothing improper occurred, though Trudeau's principal secretary resigned over the matter on Feb. 18, denying any wrongdoing.
Since the scandal hit Parliament Hill, federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion has launched an investigation, which Liberals continue to point to as the best avenue for examining the case, though such probes can often take months to complete.
