Happy holidays from Daisy Group (and Joey)!
…and Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Season’s Greetings, Habari Gani and Al-Salaamu Aleikum!
Categories for Feature
The system works
It does.
This is a massive fine. This is a guilty plea to a serious crime.
This is justice.
If only they had listened to Jody Wilson-Raybould, they’d still have the Clerk of the Privy Council. They’d still have the Principal Secretary.
They’d still have a majority.
All of that could have been avoided – if they had resisted the temptation to obstruct justice. To interfere with prosecutorial independence.
Our system works. The Rule of Law is the best and only way.
This is vindication for Jody. This is a serious sentence for the company. And it is a valuable lesson for Trudeau et al.
Will they learn it? Who knows.
But I do know this: those 6,000 jobs Trudeau said over and over would be lost?
Not one will be.
And, tonight, SNC’s stock is way up.
Trump’s date with destiny
There is no doubt, by any reasonable standard, that Trump abused the power of his office when he bribed a foreign power to investigate a political rival he feared. And there is no doubt that he obstructed the resulting investigation by Congress – by hiding evidence and blocking people from testifying.
He will be impeached by the House of Representatives today. That’s inevitable. He will not, however, be removed from office by the Senate, after a “trial” there. That, too, is inevitable.
Also inevitable: his legacy. He will be remembered as a crook.
KINSELLACAST 89: Strummer, the Clash and me, 40 years later
#LavScam latest: former SNC exec found guilty
Among other things, this verdict suggests some of us (Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott in particular) were right when we said that crimes had indeed taken place – and that no politicians should be interfering in the resulting trials.
I wonder what they’re thinking in PMO right now? Do they ever say: “Hey, maybe we were wrong to do what we did.”
Kind of doubt it.
Former SNC-Lavalin executive vice-president Sami Bebawi has been found guilty on all counts at his fraud and corruption trial.
He will remain free until sentencing.
Bebawi, 73, was on trial over the last six weeks at the Montreal courthouse. The jury had been deliberating since Thursday.
Serving as the firm’s executive vice-president from 2000 to 2006, Bebawi faced five charges in all: fraud, bribing a foreign public official — former dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Saadi Gadhafi — laundering the proceeds of crime, and two counts of possessing property obtained by crime.
Throughout the trial, the Crown positioned Bebawi as the man behind what it described as SNC-Lavalin’s “business model” in Libya: paying millions in kickbacks and bribes to keep obtaining lucrative contracts.
“The company adopted an unusual, unlawful and dishonest practice,” Crown prosecutor Anne-Marie Manoukian told jurors in her closing arguments, “by artificially inflating the prices of contracts, paying bribes and misappropriating money for personal gain.”
Me on yesterday, on Charles Adler Tonight!
BREAKING: Andrew Scheer resigns
Wow. Justin Trudeau’s life has just become more complicated.
From the Globe:
Andrew Scheer has decided to resign as Conservative leader after a disappointing election loss and facing internal party divisions over his ability to lead the party, sources say.
Mr. Scheer called a special caucus meeting Thursday morning where he announced he was stepping down.
The decision comes as former Conservative cabinet minister John Baird tabled a highly critical report on the party’s election campaign to Mr. Scheer’s office on Wednesday.
Person of the Year vs. A Nobody
Maxime Bernier said Greta Thunberg was “clearly mentally unstable.” He said she was “not only autistic, but obsessive-compulsive, eating disorder, depression.”
Today Greta Thunberg was named TIME’s Person of the Year. She will be remembered.
Will anyone remember him?
When something becomes A Thing
And the NATO “hot microphone” thing has indeed turned into A Thing.
My regular readers didn’t care what I had to say about it, either: Conservative followers and friends were incensed. Still smarting from the election result, they pounced on Justin Trudeau’s unguarded remarks.
It was shocking, they claimed, that a world leader wouldn’t know a live microphone and camera were pointed his way – even though Princess Anne, French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands and even Donald Trump were also caught saying and doing dumb things, on tape, at the same summit. (Trump isn’t new to “hot mic” missteps, of course.)
It was unstatesmanlike for Trudeau to say what he said, they insisted – even though Trump was far more insulting, calling Trudeau names, and leaving the summit early, like the petulant child that he is.
It won’t hurt Trudeau at home – most Canadians detest Trump, and the ones who don’t would never vote for a Trudeau, anyway. But it may hurt us in an impeachment-distracted Washington. Yes, that is true.
Because, 24 hours or so later, it seems that what happened at NATO isn’t going to fade from the collective memory anytime soon, here or in the U.S. It has now turned into A Thing – a thing that may be unhelpful to Canada. The occupant of the Oval Office is a monkey with a machine gun, you see, and he ain’t gonna be happy about this:
The world is laughing at President Trump. They see him for what he really is: dangerously incompetent and incapable of world leadership.
We cannot give him four more years as commander in chief. pic.twitter.com/IR8K2k54YQ
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 5, 2019
Sigh. It’s a good ad. Which is probably bad news.
Trips abroad are never very good for Canadian Prime Ministers – remember Joe Clark’s lost luggage? Remember Paul Martin grinning in a tent in the desert with Libyan dictator Mu’ammar Qadafi? Remember Stephen Harper missing G8 photo sessions because he was in the bathroom?
I, again, don’t blame Trudeau for the hot mic – that’s the fault of the Brits, and some political staff who weren’t on the ball. Nor do I blame him for what he said – I have been present when Canadian Prime Ministers talk with other world leaders, and I can assure you it can get pretty nasty, and even pretty ribald, pretty fast.
But there’s no doubt this thing is now A Thing.
Bye bye, NAFTA: “Trudeau mocks Trump” (updated)
Trudeau’s remarks – and that of Macron and Johnson – are completely defensible, but that doesn’t matter. And, why the Brits (a) had a pool camera pointed at the leaders (b) no one told the leaders (c) no staffers bothered to ask…well, those things will be debated for many days to come, I suspect.
What won’t be debated is that Trump now has an excuse to treat Canada like a chew toy for the foreseeable future. Again. Adios, NAFTA et al.
That impeachment vote can’t come soon enough!
UPDATE: Aaaaaand we’re off to the races!