So, yesterday was a bit of a day, wasn’t it? To recap – the Globe and Mail published a piece that cited unnamed sources that the PMO had leaned on then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to direct the Director of Public Prosecutions to abandon the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin as part of an ongoing corruption trial (related to Libyan contracts) so that they could take a deferred prosecution agreement instead – basically a plea deal administered by the courts, which the Director had thus far refused to do. (Note: For the Attorney General to make such a direction to Public Prosecutions, it must be done publicly and published in theCanada Gazette. This is not something that can happen on a whim). The story goes that Wilson-Raybould refused, and coincidentally she was shuffled from the post weeks later. Justin Trudeau refuted this, but because he strictly said that he and his office didn’t direct Wilson-Raybould or now David Lametti on this file, everyone parsed that as not saying he didn’t apply pressure, only for Lametti and every other Liberal put out on the file later in the day to add that he didn’t direct or put pressure on them. For what it’s worth.

https://twitter.com/btaplatt/status/1093545282858614785

Now, I have questions. If the PMO applied this pressure, it would be a Very Bad Thing. And we don’t know if they did or didn’t. However. The Globe story gets out the red ball of yarn and starts pinning lines between different items on the conspiracy map, and some of those items I have a problem with being there. One of those items is that the government passed amendments to the Criminal Code that enabled there to be deferred prosecution agreements back in the spring, and one of the “sources” that the Globe taps insists that this was done solely to benefit SNC-Lavalin. And I have a problem with that. Why? Because I wrote about those provisions back when they were being debated, and I spoke to a number of lawyers who specialise in white collar crime. If this had been solely for the benefit of SNC-Lavalin, I would have expected them to say that this makes no sense in the bigger picture, but they didn’t. Instead, they said that these changes barely had Canada keeping up with other comparable jurisdictions (and in fact, some said that they still kept us behind). The consensus was that these kinds of changes were long overdue. And there is a record of government consultations about this issue that produced a report. For this to be a “direct line” doesn’t hold any water. “Oh, but they lobbied!” Of course, SNC-Lavalin lobbied. It was in their interest to do so. That’s not a revelation, nor is it any indication that the government actually listened to them. They’re also trying to get judicial review of Public Prosecutions’ decision not to offer them a deferred prosecution, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get it either. We also need to remember the size of SNC-Lavalin, and how many thousands of jobs and billions of dollars they have on the line, particularly in Quebec, and if any party thinks that they’d “get tough” on them with that on the line, they’re deluding themselves. (This is part of the problem with oligopolies in Canada).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1093504225944965122

There is also the point about Wilson-Raybould in this. Many people, pundits included, are suddenly treating this story as some kind of exoneration for her demotion, and ignoring the fact that there were very real reasons for why she was replaced, many of which had to do with the fact that she wasn’t managing her office competently, and she was making questionable staffing choices in her own office. I have my own unnamed sources in the legal community who can point to her incompetence, and this is now being swept under because she’s suddenly being hailed as a hero – which is another reason why I have some suspicions about the source of this story (and why she hasn’t been in a hurry to offer any denials, only a “no comment”). The Globe story and its reporters are also trying to draw a line in her post-shuffle release about the justice system being free from political interference, but again, this was also taking place in the backdrop of the Meng Wanzhou extradition affair, and questions about the rule of law clanging around, so again, I have doubts that there is a direct connection.

So what next? Well, we can expect another few days of communications incompetence from Trudeau and the government because that’s what they do every single time something blows up on them, and eventually they’ll be forced to be more candid, but by then, everyone will have parsed everything to death and filled in the gaps with their own wild theories. Because this is a government that can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, and they make things worse for themselves every single time. There are demands for a police inquiry or a full public inquiry, but I have my doubts that Trudeau would call one so close to an election – but stranger things have happened.

Meanwhile, Chris Selley points to the shocking levels of cynicism that this whole story displays, while Susan Delacourt notes that the silence around Wilson-Raybould is allowing the “ring of truth” to overshadow a more complicated actual truth (and also hints to possible morale problems in the Liberal caucus). Paul Wells offers some withering analysis of what’s gone on with this, and the way this is reflecting on certain senior PMO staff, which could be a growing problem.

But all they have is image, optics, tone. That's their only statistically significant advantage over the Tories when it comes to wooing centrist voters. And they're TERRIBLE AT IT.

STILL!!!

— Chris Selley (@cselley) February 8, 2019

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau said that the government is looking for answers around allegations of money laundering in BC casinos, but it’s promising a public inquiry.
• Here is a sit-down interview with new justice minister David Lametti, with much discussion about the Meng Wanzhou case and extradition.
• Here’s a look at how the next “charm offensive” to convince American lawmakers to ratify the New NAFTA will be different than the previous “Maple charm.”
• The government will be making more changes to the right whale protections, after there were no deaths in Canadian waters last year.
• Seven months after the government pledged up to 20 police officers as part of the Mali peacekeeping mission, they have two RCMP officers headed over.
• Elections Canada will be holding mock elections in five ridings around the country to test new IT infrastructure before the actual election.
• The final designs for the new surface combatants will be announced today.
• Here is a joint Star/BuzzFeed investigation into home-grown social media “fake news” and associated phenomena.
• A recent report looked at the state of childcare costs across the country.
• A question of parliamentary privilege has been raised after an alleged racial profiling incident by Parliamentary security.
• One Conservative senator on the committee studying Bill C-69 is on the board of a mining company – but says the Senate Ethics Officer hasn’t warned him off the bill.
• Conservative MP Rob Nicholson has been named as one of the replacement members of NSICOP. The Conservatives are still short a seat on that committee.
• The Quebec government has tabled a bill that would throw out their 18,000 immigrant backlog, and prioritize French-speakers willing to go to rural regions.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at just what Elections Canada can do in the event of a “fake news” attack on a candidate in an election campaign.
• Stephen Maher goes through the amateurish job the Ontario NDP did with the leak of the healthcare bill, and how to properly leak documents to journalists.

Odds and ends:

As mentioned in my QP recap, the Speaker is warning MPs that their rhetoric is starting to cross the line.

An elm tree that predates the Centre Block on Parliament Hill looks likely to be cut down as part of renovations.

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