Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Wilson-Raybould’s recorded call

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Because we couldn’t go another weekend in the interminable Double-Hyphen Affair without another bombshell, we got one in the revelation that among the materials that Jody Wilson-Raybould turned over to the justice committee was a recording she made of a conversation she had with outgoing Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, which was quickly pointed out was in violation of the ethical obligations of lawyers (and no, this isn’t a situation of whether you’re wearing your Attorney General or Minister of Justice hat – it’s whether you’re a lawyer, and if you are, you are forbidden from surreptitiously recording a conversation). ETA:  This may have been overstating it, but there is an argument that Wernick could have been a client receiving advice, which is where it would violate the rules.

I did listen to the recording, and I had a few observations, but there are a few things I noticed that weren’t being talked about in any of the rush to find a smoking gun. For starter, there is a very performative element to the recording – she’s asking very leading questions, and fishing for quotes. I know this because I make my living having conversations with people on tape in order to get quotes for stories. And some of the formality of the language with which she speaks – there is a lot of spelling out of acronyms and relationships that read like a literary device we call an “As you know, Bob,” where you explain things in dialogue to someone who should know what you’re talking about. This conversation was rife with this kind of phrasing, so it looked very much like she wanted this for a purpose. She stated that, while she knows it was unethical, she did it because she was afraid the conversation would “inappropriate” and she didn’t have staff around to take notes. But there is an intent here that I’m curious about.

As for the content of the conversation, a few things stood out for me, which I haven’t seen being written about in the media, because they are focusing on the quotes that she specifically set up for them. First of all, Wernick’s tone seemed to me to be more of a friendly warning – the PM was looking for answers, but I didn’t get the sense that there were threats, thinly veiled or otherwise. Wernick made the point several times in the conversation that “He wants to understand more why the DPA route isn’t being used.” Repeatedly, Wernick is trying to get information about why the Director of Public Prosecution has rejected it, and each time, Wilson-Raybould tried to bring it back to “I’m uncomfortable with this, but I’m happy to talk to you,” and threats that these conversations were bordering on inappropriate. Wernick keeps insisting that they are trying to keep these conversations above-board, and that they’re not actually asking her to do anything, but they’re looking for information because they want to ensure that they’ve done their due diligence with regard to those jobs.

Regarding outside legal advice, Wernick said that he was concerned the PM would seek it himself, or if Wilson-Raybould felt it more appropriate, have it go through her, and former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin’s name is bandied about several times, which should make everyone feel a little gross, but we developed a political culture of “Mother, May I?” in this country when it comes to getting the blessing of the Supreme Court of Canada, either with its current or former members. Wilson-Raybould went on about public perceptions of interference if she overrode the DPP’s decision about granting the remediation agreement, which is fair (and she warned him that she was keeping receipts), and there was even an exchange where she’s talking about the prime minister and prosecutorial independence, and Wernick said “I don’t think he sees it like that,” to which Wilson-Raybould snapped back, “Then nobody’s explaining that to him, Michael.” (As an aside, one wonders if that was not her job). But again, Wernick kept circling back for an explanation – not direction – asking when the DPP related her decision to Wilson-Raybould, and specifically asking “Can they get her to explain?” Wilson-Raybould insisted that the Prime Minister’s office had the report since September, to which Wernick replied “That’s news to me.” And what I find fascinating is that Wernick keeps asking for explanations, and the media picked out the quotes about pressure. They were very much talking past one another,

There were the other documents she turned over, which included her reasons for resigning from Cabinet, and a couple of things leapt out at me from there – one being that with this release, she doesn’t think she has anything left to contribute to a formal process in looking into this. The other is that in her personal observations at the end, she goes on about looking forward “to a future where we truly do politics differently,” which could be hints about future political ambitions. (John Geddes has some more good parsing about parts of the Cabinet conversation around DPAs here).

In fallout from this, Justin Trudeau put out a statement saying that he hadn’t been briefed on this conversation, and that he wished that Wilson-Raybould had come to him directly, but he’s taken responsibility for the loss of trust, announced next steps, and he wants to move forward (as a team). This while more Liberals in the caucus are getting restive and want Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott to be ousted, and they’re signing their names to it rather than whispering anonymously. With Wernick already on his way out, and Wilson-Raybould saying that there’s no more for her to tell, one supposes that Trudeau hopes this will finally put an end to things and he can move forward without showing any further contrition that his taking responsibility for the breakdown in trust, and that he can leave it up to his pabulum talking points going forward. I guess we’ll see how much is left to litigate in Question Period, but I guess we’ll see if there are any additional rabbits to be pulled out of hats now.

And then come the hot takes, and hottest of all is Andrew Coyne, who takes this as a complete vindication for Wilson-Raybould. Susan Delacourt sees some poetic parallels between Trudeau fighting for his political life right now, with that boxing match with Senator Brazeau some seven years ago this weekend. Chris Selley notes that the tape really won’t change anyone’s mind, but does give Wilson-Raybould props for not bowing to the status quo.

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Roundup: Competing leaks

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And now we’re into competing leaks. In the Globe and Mail, we got another leak from a “mysterious” source that posited that Jody Wilson-Raybould was trying to elevate Justice Glenn Joyal to the Supreme Court of Canada because she apparently felt the LGBT community wouldn’t be receptive to presumptive heir Justice Richard Wagner (now the Chief Justice) for what I assume was a trumped up reading of his not inviting LGBT groups to present at the Supreme Court in the Trinity Western case (which is pretty absurd), and because she wanted Joyal’s successor at the Court of Queen’s Bench to be a Métis judge. In other words, it was trying to burnish Wilson-Raybould’s progressive credentials in light of the prior leaks attempting to make her look more of a social conservative (as though one didn’t need to look too hard at her record to see signs of it). Because hey, why not keep up leaks that damage the perceptions around Supreme Court of Canada appointments? Way to go, team! (And before anyone gets too self-righteous, don’t forget that in 2014, Stephen Harper leaked the six names he was considering when he named Justice Marc Nadon to the bench, and putting words in the mouths of the MPs who served on the “selection” committee at the time, knowing full well that they couldn’t respond).

And then come the denials. Wilson-Raybould and PMO each denied that they were the source of any of the leaks, and Wilson-Raybould (who submitted her additional materials to the justice committee on Tuesday afternoon) said there should be an investigation into who was leaking these Supreme Court deliberations. Lisa Raitt tried to insist that it should be the Federal Judicial Affairs Commissioner who should investigate, and he quickly wrote back with a giant nope, citing that he has no mandate to do any such investigations. Which leaves us with who for an investigation? The RCMP? Yet another demand for a public inquiry? Our very own Goolding Inquiry? Won’t that be fun?

And with all of this going on, in swoops Neil Macdonald to remind us that everyone in the media gets “used” by leakers all the time, and hey, the preponderance of leaks is a sign that journalists are doing their jobs because they are competing to do the best job. There is certainly a mercenary aspect to it all, not to mention some status-seeking, but I’m not sure he’s entirely wrong.

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Roundup: All about Erskine-Smith

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As was not a surprise, the Ethics committee met on the matter of hearing from Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, and the Liberals on the committee voted it down. The lead for the Liberals was Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who is a more maverick Liberal in the ranks, and yet he said this motion was premature, said it was better to wait for Wilson-Raybould’s submissions to the justice committee, and stated bluntly that they weren’t the best committee to deal with legal issues. Oh, and he also stated that he got zero input from PMO, and he’s one of the more believable Liberals on that front, so it muffles some of the inevitable cries of “Cover up!” – especially as he says he’s of the opinion that the PM should give the blanket waiver of confidences so that the two resigned ministers can say their piece, because this whole affair is damaging the Liberal brand. So, frank speaking, but that won’t change the narrative any, unfortunately.

In the fallout from Monday’s leaks, the Canadian and Manitoba Bar Associations have put out statements condemning them, as did several MPs including Erskine-Smith. (It also emerged that Justice Joyal withdrew his name after Trudeau rejected it, for what it’s worth). Trudeau himself wouldn’t answer any questions on the leak, even to say that he would investigate where it came from (which should be a bare minimum considering the seriousness of it).

Meanwhile, the Star decided to host competing op-eds about whether dissident Liberals should be allowed to remain in caucus, with Sheila Copps saying no, and Erskine-Smith saying yes. Copps did raise a few interesting points about things that Wilson-Raybould has omitted from her repeated statements, but Erskine-Smith did have the better articulation of what it means to be an MP. Neil Macdonald also has little time or sympathy for the drip-drip-drip approach and wonders why journalists are going along with it, but does offer some historical perspective on MPs who work against their leaders and walk-outs. Susan Delacourt praises Erskine-Smith for his handling of the situation, and the frankness that PMO should be employing. Chris Selley rightly points out that the attempt to drag Justice Joyal into this Affair as a new low, while John Ibbitson says it’s a sign that those inhabiting the PMO have little regard for the rule of law. Paul Wells brings some more righteous fire to this whole debate, torching the cries to purge the party, the leaks of confidential information, and the underlying accusations of system-rigging.

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Roundup: More documents, more drips

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Another day, another drip in the ongoing Double-Hyphen Affair fallout. This time, it was a letter from Jody Wilson-Raybould to the chair of the Commons justice committee saying that she plans to forward new evidence to him in the form of emails and text messages – evidence which will be translated, checked over by committee members, and then made public once that’s done. But she also stipulated it was the period within the waiver, so I’m sure this will lead to another round of accusations that she’s not being allowed to tell “her full truth,” and people will believe it. Justin Trudeau, for his part, insisted yet again that he gave her the ability to give a full airing of the issue, reiterated later in a town hall meeting in Thunder Bay, where he also talked about needing to do a better job in how he manages “those conversations” with people with strong ideas in the future. Trudeau also appointed a new caucus-PMO liaison, which may go a ways to soothing caucus tensions, given that there is a lot of grumbling that part of the problem has been that he hasn’t been listening to them and their concerns – but it’s just another staffer and not him personally, inside the caucus room, so we’ll see if it helps.

In related news, the past secretary general of the OECD wrote a piece in the Financial Post to explain the whole language around “national economic interest” that so many people (many reporters included) are getting hung up on. The intent of the phrase – and he was at the OECD at the time – was to prevent countries from using the excuse that bribery was necessary to protect their export markets – and it wasn’t about protecting jobs. And hey, he’s even got context about the state of international trade in 1995 when this was an issue. Imagine if we’d had some better reporting about this history weeks ago! (Also, here’s a thread from a former OECD public sector integrity official who also gives context to the rules and why a DPA was not only a valid tool, but so is seeking outside counsel on the suitability of offering one).

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert is coming to the conclusion that if Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott keep stoking the controversy without adding new facts that their target is the prime minister. Philippe Lagassé gives a more complete recounting of the issue of parliamentary privilege and what Wilson-Raybould and Philpott can avail themselves of in this situation, and the broader moral obligation of the fact that the privilege exists to hold government to account without fear of consequence, and if they feel that there were constitutional violations in the Affair, they have the choice to avail themselves of the opportunity to speak.

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Roundup: Philpott has more to tell, but won’t

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The day, which was already off to a cranky start for most MPs who were voting all night, got an early, crankier start – for the Liberals, in any case – as a bombshell interview with Jane Philpott was released, in which she stated that there was more to the Double-Hyphen Affair story that needed to be told. But…she’s not going to do it. Oh, and by the way, she has no leadership ambitions, so this isn’t about that. And that was pretty much throwing a cat among the pigeons in the Commons, as suddenly the Conservatives started waving this interview about as further ammunition in their so-called protest vote-a-thon to “let her speak” (never mind that the votes have absolutely nothing to do with this Affair in any way, shape or form). And as the day wore on, other nonsense crept in, such as the Liberals fumbling a “shift change” during the votes and almost losing one of them. And incidentally, Philpott and Wilson-Raybould have been excused from the vote-a-thon, so as to not exacerbate any tensions with their sleep-deprived colleagues.

And it becomes increasingly more obvious that the way both Wilson-Raybould and Philpott are handling this is becoming a problem for all involved. Other MPs like John McKay and Judy Sgro vented by saying that if they’ve got something so important to say, that they should just raise it as a point of personal privilege in the Commons and get it over with. The former Law Clerk of the Commons, Rob Walsh, also said that they have absolute immunity in the Commons if they want to speak, and there would be no real consequences as they are no longer in Cabinet – except possibly being booted from caucus, and Trudeau reiterated that he was fine to let them stay in caucus because they’re okay with disagreement in the Liberal caucus. (He also insisted that Wilson-Raybould was not shuffled over the SNC-Lavalin DPA, yet again).

In hot takes, Matt Gurney says that Philpott is waving a red flag and we should hear what she has to say. Justice committee chair Anthony Housefather gives his reflections of what the committee heard, but also cautions that they are not a legal process and can’t be expected to behave like one. Susan Delacourt, however, is running out of patience with the drama, and notes that speaking truth to power isn’t acting like you’ve got a big secret you can be coy about. If it’s that important, then they should take any advantage they have and say what it is.

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Roundup: Traps and tantrums

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Budget Day was a giant production, for a variety of reasons yesterday, starting with the long-awaited showdown at the Commons justice committee. Given that the Liberal members had released that letter the night before, we knew that they were going to wrap it all up – without a report, I might add – and on their way in this morning, they handed to the media a copy of the motion they were planning to move to start a new study on hate crimes (because this increasingly seems like what the Liberals want to fight the next election on). Well, this caused the opposition to storm out because that motion was supposed to be in camera (and we all know how much they’ve respected the notion that committee business be handled in camera of late), and then they came back and had their meeting, and the committee (read: Liberal majority) decided to end the study of the Double-Hyphen Affair.

This set the Conservatives off, and they warned that they would ensure that the budget was going to be delayed, mark their words, and they set up all manner of procedural trickery in which to do so. Except that the Liberals outplayed them, tabled the document just before 4 PM, right before the vote was being called that was intending to delay the budget speech, and then Bill Morneau marched out to the Foyer to start talking to all of the assembled media outlets and get his message out, while the opposition stayed in the Chamber to carry on their procedural shenanigans, to the point where they essentially held themselves hostage. When Morneau was able to give his speech, well over an hour later, the Conservatives did ensure that he was drowned out with noise so that he couldn’t be heard and that no clips were able to be captured for news media, but given how Morneau was doing the media rounds and Scheer wasn’t – indeed, after the fact, when he and his caucus marched out to the Foyer, they denounced the budget as a distraction from the Double-Hyphen Affair, and had nary a substantive comment on it. (Jagmeet Singh, incidentally, had the usual NDP talking points about how it wasn’t enough, but couldn’t really respond when pressed about specifics or implementation of their vision). So, take it for what you will, I’m not sure how well the Conservatives came across in the end yesterday, especially as Scheer walked right into Trudeau’s very obvious trap that about the Conservatives not wanting to talk about the economy.

Speaking of the budget, it was far more stimulus-heavy than I would have expected, but then again, targeting both seniors and millennials, and going some distance in doing more for skills training, though their housing affordability measures were weak sauce and will likely do nothing about the supply side of the issue (especially as they keep the focus on buying a home rather than simply having affordable housing writ large).

With that in mind:

  • The deficit will grow this year before shrinking again, but there is no path back to balance in the immediate future. (Debt-to-GDP continues to decline).
  • Here are the highlights for five key demographics.
  • Here are 23 key measures in the budget.
  • There was the start of Pharmacare, beginning with the Canadian Drug Agency to facilitate bulk buying – next steps coming with the Hoskins report.
  • Municipalities got a chunk of new funding (with shots taken at premiers who are holding up infrastructure agreements).
  • There are more funds earmarked for Indigenous services, not only with water but also child and family services.
  • The budget also outlines a plan to start targeting stock options for taxation as another way of soaking the wealthy.
  • There is a plan to start taxing cannabis products by the potency of their THC.
  • The budget has money to help veterans transition to civilian life, but doesn’t seem to have anything to deal with the disability backlog.
  • There was a big commitment on rural broadband, but implementation details remain fuzzy.
  • Here are ten things that may slip under the radar.
  • Here’s a fact-check of Morneau’s speech (but the sources could have been better selected).

In budget hot takes, Chris Selley calls it the budget of a government that is no longer selling utopia – just buying votes, whereas Alan Freeman simply calls it a “do no harm” budget. John Geddes details the spending surprises in the document, while Andrew Coyne grouses about the how there seems to be more concern over the quantity of spending over the quality of it, given there is nothing in the budget about things like productivity. Heather Scoffield takes note of the Liberals’ attempt to frame the budget as a response to anxieties – economic or otherwise – that Canadians are feeling. Kevin Carmichael cautions that there budget leaves very little wiggle room for economic downturns, given how sluggish growth already is. Paul Wells notes the sprinkling of spending throughout the document, and the big bomb for political journalists in there. There are also worthwhile threads from economist Kevin Milligan here and here.

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Roundup: Trudeau begins his Big Reset

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Yesterday very much looked like the start of Justin Trudeau’s attempted Big Reset after the weeks of damage that the Double-Hyphen Affair has done to his reputation, starting with the appointment of Joyce Murray to Cabinet as the new Treasury Board president. Murray has been the parliamentary secretary for Treasury Board during the entire life of this government, has been pushing for a “greening of government” initiative within the department, and has a history of being someone who has gone offside with the rest of caucus on several occasions, thus her appointment could be seen as sending signals that Trudeau is open to disagreement. Following this was the announced retirement of Michael Wernick as Clerk of the Privy Council, citing that he couldn’t carry on in the role if he was no longer trusted by opposition parties on issues like his role around sounding the alarm regarding election interference. This doesn’t mean culpability for the Double-Hyphen Affair, but it is nevertheless part of the accountability process (and accountability, like democracy, is a process). Wernick will be replaced by Ian Shugart, who is currently the deputy minister of foreign affairs. (I’m also not convinced that this is the last of the staffing changes, and we may yet see more cleaning house in the PMO as a demonstration of doing something).

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Minutes later, during Question Period, Trudeau announced that former justice minister Anne McLellan was named as a special advisor to the prime minister to examine aspects of what happened in the Affair, particularly as it relates to the dual roles of Justice Minister and Attorney General, and whether it’s time to separate the two. (She also backed out of a fundraiser for the Liberal Judy Lamarsh fund – which aims to help more women run for office – after taking on the new role). And then, after QP, Trudeau gave a rousing speech about condemning hatred and calling out white supremacy, and made some pointed digs at Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier for their winking and nudging of white nationalists without condemning their messages. All of this is working to change the narrative – things are being put into place to fix what happened, the speech sets Trudeau on a different rhetorical tone than Scheer – and sets out a huge contrast between the two, especially after Scheer’s insipid speech that followed – so we’ll see if the Liberals can capitalise on this, but the fact that Trudeau explicitly said in the speech that this was exactly the time for politics could be the signal that he wants to fight an election on this issue.

But that may be harder to do, given that the Liberal members of the justice committee put out a letter saying that they weren’t inclined to call Jody Wilson-Raybould back to testify further, stating that they’d heard enough and wanted to get on with the report, and let the other processes carry on. I will say that at least they put out a letter with reasoning in it – they simply could have gone in camera today and emerged saying they were going to focus on writing the report, and saying nothing more. You know, like the Conservatives frequently did when they were in power. It doesn’t look good for the Liberals, and feeds the Conservative narrative that they’re hiding something, but they may simply be trying to move on as quickly as possible. (Of course, there is no smoking gun here, and it’s a matter of determining credibility and finding the line of where pressure is deemed “inappropriate,” so that makes for a harder sell to keep this going as long as possible).

The Senate, meanwhile, is debating the motion to start their own study on the issue, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m not sure that the Conservatives in the Senate will get the Independents onside, as their performance during the inaugural televised Senate Question Period had the ISG leader tweeting right away that it was all about partisan posturing, but stranger things have happened.

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Roundup: Musings from a non-committee member

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It was another day of clutched pearls as Liberal MP Francis Drouin, who moved the motion at the stunt committee meeting on Wednesday to adjourn until the planned meeting next week, spoke to CBC about the fact that he thinks that they’ve heard enough and it’s time to move to the next phase of the committee. The problem? That Drouin isn’t actually a member of said committee, so his opinion doesn’t really matter. That he was at the committee on Wednesday is largely because his riding is not far from Ottawa, and that tends to be what happens when emergency meetings get called – most of the regular members don’t end up showing up because of travel times and commitments (or in this case, it’s the middle of March Break, and some of them have families with kids that they don’t see nearly enough). Now, if the Liberals meet on Tuesday, and put a bunch of ringers on the committee when they decide to go in camera to talk next steps for witnesses and timetables, and they decide they’ve had enough, well then, yes, we will have something to complain about. But that hasn’t happened yet, there isn’t any indication about that happening, so let’s all just calm down. Drouin is entitled to his own opinions, but he won’t be making any decisions here.

Should the justice committee opt to end the investigation, here are options that Jody Wilson-Raybould could use to “speak her truth” some more (though given how tactical her silence has been, I wouldn’t hold my breath). I also suspect that after their dire warnings yesterday, the opposition are going to start procedural shenanigans in order to try and force the government to carry on the hearings, but we’ll see how that unfolds.

In related news, it turns out that SNC-Lavalin also tried to recruit the Quebec justice minister to lobby for a DPA on their behalf. As well, a luxury condo in Toronto owned by the Gaddafi family, redecorated at SNC-Lavalin’s expense, has been sitting empty since 2009.

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Roundup: The Republic of the Northwest wank-off

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With an election soon to be called in Alberta, we’re going to start seeing all manner of ludicrous stories related to it, and lo, Maclean’s brings us an imagining of the future history of the “Republic of the Northwest,” which is apparently what a would become of a future Alberta-Saskatchewan-Manitoba-parts-of-BC-and-the-North seccession from Canada. The piece should have instead come with a mature content warning, as it’s basically the two authors jerking one another off to the masturbatory fantasy of a “more prosperous, freer, and more patriotic” future that is never going to be. Why? Because they simply glossed over all of the hard things that such a future would entail, the biggest and most obvious obstacle being the fate of the Indigenous populations. Sure, all of their environmental concerns are just “Laurentian Canadian” bureaucratic meddling. Apparently once Ottawa was out of the way, this new Republic (and curious that such a “patriotic” imagined country would not retain the Crown, if this is supposed to be some kind of small-c conservative fantasy that doesn’t involve being immediately swallowed up by the US), all kinds of pipelines could get built in mere months, with no obstacles whatsoever! Sure, the tidewater is all in Northern BC because the southern coast wouldn’t separate with them, but that won’t affect things! There weren’t any domestic environmentalists in this new country – they were apparently either all figments of Ottawa that were rained upon them, or they were all subject to mass arrest in this “freer” country. There were no Indigenous protests. There were no concerns about actual economic viability of these pipelines with relation to future capacity, or the fact that there is an ongoing global supply glut of oil and dumping more Alberta crude into the world economy wouldn’t be subject to yet more price declines because of basic laws of supply and demand. Nope – it’s all just freedom and prosperity!

And that’s not even to talk about how much they glossed over in terms of what separation would actually mean for the country, from fiscal arrangements, armed forces (do you think they’d just let them take half of the fighter fleet and a chunk of the Navy for their strip of Northern BC Coast line?), and again, the reality of treaties with Indigenous peoples with the Crown of Canada. Honest to Hermes, my eyes could not stop rolling the entirety of this piece. And the worst part is that there is a cohort of Albertans who think this is a plausible vision of the future. They all need to give their heads a shake, and the pair who wrote this piece need to wake up to reality.

On a related note, Jen Gerson digs into the looming problem of Alberta not really preparing for a future with a decreased oil demand, as they prefer instead to keep waiting on the next oil boom. (As the bumper sticker says, “Please God, give us another boom, and I promise not to piss it away this time.”) Yes, the province’s economy has diversified somewhat, but it’s still very dependent on oil revenues. That said, the Bank of Canada did note that the share of GDP that the oil sector is responsible for has diminished a fair amount since the 2015 oil shock, and it’s now less than IT services. The big problem the province is going to have is what to do with all of its under-educated young men, who either quit school or barely got their high school diploma while counting on lucrative oil sector employment. Those days are dwindling, and there will need to be plans to help them transition, sooner than later.

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Roundup: A policy without details, part eleventy

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Earlier this week, the Conservatives unveiled a new election policy, which was about removing the GST on home heating. For those of you who remember, this used to be an NDP policy that never went anywhere. It’s populist in that its economically illiterate and won’t help those who need it most, but gives a bigger break to the wealthy. But over the past couple of days, economists have been digging into just what this entails, so I figured I would showcase some of that discussion, to get a better sense of a promise that comes with few details about implementation. (Full thread here).

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Double-Hyphen Affair developments

There was a slightly unexpected development in the Double-Hyphen Affair yesterday when the Federal Court decision on SNC-Lavalin’s request for judicial review of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision not to offer them a deferred prosecution agreement was released, and to the surprise of nobody who has paid the slightest bit of attention, it was denied because this isn’t something that is reviewable by the courts. So that means the prosecution goes ahead, barring the Attorney General issuing a directive that would override the DPP’s decision. In related news, here’s a deeper look at just who SNC-Lavalin was consorting with abroad, and for all of his demands for Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Andrew Scheer says he won’t introduce any non-confidence motion. Hmmm…

And because the hot takes are still coming on this, Chris Selley wonders whether there will be utility to prosecuting a company if it takes four years to even decide whether to prosecute, during which time the company has undergone an ethics and compliance overhaul. Andrew Coyne wonders why any company would bother with the courts when they can lobby as effectively as SNC-Lavalin has (but perhaps it’s because SNC just plays that game better than anyone else). Martin Patriquin supposes that Trudeau may be playing this whole Affair that will benefit him in the long term. Colby Cosh (rightly) clocks the Liberals’ supposed commitment to internationalism also taking a beating in light of the Affair given that it is centred on SNC-Lavalin’s corrupt practices in Libya.

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