They fired an Indigenous woman because she wouldn’t break the law for them


#LavScam cover up continues

Check this out.  These guys are a bunch of clowns.  They think Canadians are really, really stupid.


#LavScam truth – the whole truth, and nothing but

As I said on the great Newstalk 1010 this morning: why isn’t Trudeau letting Jody Wilson-Raybould speak about the period after she left Justice?

We know Trudeau spoke to her many times after they fired her from the Attorney-General post – he’s admitted he did.  So, is Trudeau and his inept PMO making an effort to cover up what they had done?  Is Trudeau trying to hide the truth, still – namely, that they wilfully interfered with the prosecution of a corrupt crony, punished a proud Indigenous woman for not going along, and are now scrambling to cover up the cover up?

As per that Watergate maxim: it’s not the break-in that kills you.  It’s the cover up of the break in that kills you.

 


#LetHerSpeak: part of the truth isn’t the whole truth

From the Globe (natch):

Former attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould has agreed to testify in televised parliamentary hearings on Wednesday, but is expressing disappointment that a cabinet order permitting her to speak without violating solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidentiality does not apply to conversations that took place while she was veterans affairs minister or in relation to her resignation from cabinet.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould takes centre stage Wednesday on Parliament Hill in an extraordinary session of the Commons justice committee in which MPs and the public will hear the former justice minister and attorney-general testify about pressure from her own government to abandon the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.

In a letter on Tuesday to Liberal MP Anthony Housefather – chair of the justice committee, which is probing the matter – Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the removal of some of the constraints on what she can say is a “step in the right direction” but “falls far short of what is required” for Canadians to learn all the facts.

The cabinet order “addresses only my time as attorney-general of Canada and therefore does nothing to release me from any restrictions that apply to communications while I served as minister of veterans affairs and in relation to my resignation from that post or my presentation to cabinet after I had resigned,” she wrote.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould noted she is in fact being restricted from speaking about “communications on topics that some members of the committee have explored with other witnesses and about which there have been public statements by others.”


#LavScam echoes: in yesterday walks today

THEN: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Donald Trump told James Comey, “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

NOW: “A lot of [your] colleagues and the Prime Minister are quite anxious,” the Clerk of the Privy Council told Jody Wilson-Raybould.  “There are a lot of people worried about what [will] happen, the consequences – not for [you] – the consequences for the (SNC-Lavalin) workers and the communities and the suppliers.”


#LavScam legal: why I think some folks in Ottawa may have obstructed justice

A reporter and I went back and forth on the issue today.  He had written there was no chance of a criminal charge.  I disagreed.

I told him the actus reus of the offence of obstructing justice, under s. 139, is that the act simply needs “the tendency to defeat or obstruct the course of justice”.(See: R. v. Robinson, 2012 BCSC 430 at 21). “The tendency.” That’s a pretty low bar, no?

That’s not all, as they say: the accused need only have only created a risk that an injustice will occur. (See: R. v. Graham, (1985), 20 C.C.C. (3d) 210 (Ont. C.A.), which was affirmed before the Supremes at 1988 CanLII 94 (SCC), [1988] 1 S.C.R. 214).  And, anticipating what the likely accused may say, it’s no defence that the actions were an error in judgment or a mistake. (See R. v. Yazelle 2012 SKCA 91 (CanLII)).  Won’t work.  Neither will saying – as they’ve done, over and over – that jobs were at stake.  They’d get laughed out of the courtroom (no case law needed).

I’ve felt from the start that this thing will end up in Court.  Acquittal or not, R. v. Duffy demonstrates why that may be unhelpful in an election year.