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.”

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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.

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Pretty much.

From today’s Globe. There is apparently no rule, no law, no principle that Justin Trudeau will not break to assist this sleazy multinational.  None.

The Trudeau government is considering changes to ethical procurement rules that stipulate how long a company can be banned from bidding on federal contracts, a revision of policy that one expert says could offer Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin another means of coping with the fraud and corruption charges it faces.

SNC-Lavalin, the Quebec engineering giant at the centre of the Wilson-Raybould affair, faces the charges stemming from an RCMP investigation into its business dealings in Libya. If convicted, it could be banned from bidding on federal contracts for 10 years.

Public Services and Procurement Canada is proposing granting itself more flexibility in deciding how long a company is banned from bidding when convicted.

SNC-Lavalin has been seeking a negotiated settlement in which a company admits wrongdoing and pays a fine, but avoids a trial. Last September, however, the federal director of public prosecutions rejected the request and informed the company the prosecution would continue.

Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office have denied putting inappropriate pressure on Jody Wilson-Raybould when she was justice minister and attorney-general on the case. In the ensuing fallout, she resigned from cabinet and Gerald Butts, principal secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, stepped down. Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion has launched an inquiry into the matter.

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