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In contrast to the ideal view of the current Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who has a quiet smile and speeches defending the rights of the "marginalized", the Justice Committee has seen the Canadian House of Commons just a week ago and on February 27, The past, one of the most controversial hearings in the history of Parliament, centered on the testimony of Justice Minister and former Canadian Attorney General Judy Wilson-Raibold on the case of Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Engineering, when Judy claimed she was under pressure "Constant and sustained" by the Prime Minister Lee "glossy" "Justin Trudeau" and a number of his aides to push the course of the case, in which the company faces charges of fraud and payment of bribes, towards an agreement under which the company to pay a fine to avoid criminal punishment.
The case has been the subject of much controversy in Canada over the past three years since its turning point in 2015. It has been considered the "main political scandal" of Trudeau's administration so far, igniting a wide-ranging disagreement between the government and the opposition over the past month and almost seems to mark the first steps of Trudeau's exit from the battle The parliamentary elections scheduled for next October, if he does not find his way out of it, maintaining his political credibility at home Canada.
| SNC.LAVALIN (Web sites) |
Establishment: How did the case begin?
The first beginnings of the current conflict of 2011 are when the Swiss authorities, in coordination with the RCMP , announced the initiation of investigations 1 in allegations that SNC-Lavalin paid bribes to Libyan officials for lucrative "home-building" Riyad Ben Issa, the former vice president and one of its project managers in North Africa, then filed the Swiss case for "corruption and bribery", two counts confessed by "Ibn Issa" to be sentenced in August 2014 to 29 months' imprisonment - Already during the trial - as well as a refund of millions of dollars I spent in bribes to the company.
The management of the giant company - with a market cap of nearly $ 10 billion - did not deny what it called "mistakes" in Libya, but ultimately blamed its "rogue employees" for the company's reputation. In 2012 to develop and build what it called a "global ethical compliance framework" by which it restructured its management teams around the world. The three elements that govern its global "ethical" program, "Prevention - Investigation / Discovery - Response" The company takes to maintain its ethical link (2) p Li long-term.
This "moral" propaganda approach has little impact on the Canadian police investigation, which on February 19, 2015, filed criminal charges against the Canadian engineering and construction giant for alleged "bribery and fraud" related to its business in Libya Between 2001 and 2011, the company's management tried to break the impasse by signing an agreement with the Canadian Public Prosecution under which the company would pay the fine required in return for dropping the criminal charges against it, but such agreements were not legally recognized in Canada at the time, It was fixed until 19 September Or past 2018 when it was activated under these agreements, the official Canadian legal umbrella, the date can be regarded as the beginning of the crisis of the current backlog of Trudeau.
"Judy Wilson" was under pressure from Prime Minister "Trudeau" and some of his aides to intervene and turn the case of "Lavalin" to the direction of a plea agreement
At the time, the Lavalin case saw a major turning point when, on the same day, amendments to the Canadian Criminal Code (4) were announced, allowing the authorities to carry out the so-called " Deferred Prosecution Agreement ," a procedure that allows Canadian judicial and parliamentary authorities, And specifically the Federal Public Prosecution, to negotiate with companies and institutions committed to legal offenses to pay a fine instead of litigation until criminal conviction, convictions if any company has stopped working for ten years on average in the Canadian market and globally, and those convictions were the specter of "Lavalin "His prone is Has been convicted in Canadian courts, especially after the prosecution announced on October 10 last month, after less than a month of legal amendments, continue to file criminal charges for the company.
But Trudeau came to the scene clearly on January 14, when Judy Wilson was sacked as justice minister and appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to replace her as David Justice's new justice minister, meaning implicitly marginalizing Wilson "In the federal government, a marginalization that the former minister did not endure long enough to resign from her new position days after the report of the newspaper The Globe and Time of Canada on the seventh of February, a report put the details hidden behind the" overthrow "of the Minister of Justice in the circle Light and a goal from the eyes of all Canadians.
The newspaper's report revealed that Wilson was under pressure from Prime Minister Trudeau and some of his aides to intervene and turn Lavalin's case toward a future plea agreement, which Wilson rejected. With continued rejection and failed lobbying attempts, she was sacked from her post at the Justice Department that. However, the newspaper also announced that the company "Lavalin" had knowledge of the Canadian public's refusal to request an agreement since the fourth of September last, before officially announcing the rejection of the claim more than a month.
| Former Justice Minister and Attorney General Judy Wilson (Reuters) |
Wilson is not only a lawyer with a brilliant history, but also the first Canadian public prosecutor of the indigenous population. 5 Her appointment as Trudeau came as a first step in what some saw as a resetting of relations between the young prime minister and his government and indigenous people, A step that soon faded after Wilson's resignation, and the announcement of "Trudeau" intention to consider its future within the party, which did not prevent it from announcing on Saturday the intention to run 6 in the next election, under the banner of the Liberal Party, the area "Vancouver Granville" British Columbia.
So, with the publication of a revealing investigative report in Ottawa's political capital, Trudeau granted Wilson the right to talk about her term in the Justice Department only, something that the former minister had never been able to do because of the secrecy laws and being the former attorney general of the government, Then came the political development expected at the controversial hearing in the Canadian Parliament last week, which was also a new turning point for the company's cause and Canada's Prime Minister's Office.
Crisis: Why all this controversy about "Lavalin"?
SNC was founded in 1911 by Arthur Surveyer . In a few years, SNC became one of the most important Montreal companies to provide engineering services for energy projects. For decades, the company was one of the most successful Canadian companies, before merging with Lavalin Engineering in 1991 to form together SNC-Lavalin , a giant of construction, engineering and energy investment services, is now serving in Canada and 160 other countries around the world.
The controversy over Lavalin stems not only from its material importance and global reach, but also from the reputation that the company acquired over the past decades with the involvement of a number of its officials in cases of financial corruption
Lavalin's profits last year alone reached more than $ 10 billion, making it one of the world's most important companies, adding to its physical value another strategic value as it provides jobs to more than 50,000 people around the world. Is doubling domestically, especially in Quebec, Canada's second-largest province. The company employs 3,400 out of a total of 9,000 in its various headquarters. Lavalin is one of 10 companies that make up the region's main financial resource.
But the controversy over Lavaline stems not only from its material importance and global reach, but also from the reputation the company has acquired over the past decades with the involvement of a number of its officials in cases of financial corruption and the payment of bribes, most notably in Canada itself in 2009 when police arrested Pierre The former executive vice president of the company, on charges of paying bribes in the scandal that was associated with the construction of the $ 1.3 billion Montreal hospital at the time. Pierre already admitted on February 1 of this year his involvement and role in the case of these big bribes to represent another Those who fell in it.
Two years later, in 2011, a new crisis put the giant company in a bind when it opened investigations into its involvement in paying bribes to officials in Bangladesh. Then another black point in the company's history came on April 17, 2013, All the Bank's projects around the world for ten years. Then came the news of the involvement of the company officials in the corruption cases of Libya in the current controversy, and the condemnation of "Ben Issa" in Switzerland after his confession to pay bribes to "Saadi bin Gaddafi" to facilitate the company's access to projects including the construction of a new airport and irrigation system and prisons, The latter almost destroys the reputation of the company in the world.
What happened at the extraordinary hearing?
Wilson made her statement at the parliamentary hearing for nearly four hours about the pressure of Trudeau and his aides on the Lavalin case, the main points of which were the front page news of each Canadian newspaper. The former secretary made the details of ten meetings and her phone calls Between September and December last year, with 11 members of the Canadian government, 10 led by Trudeau himself, Finance Minister Bill Moreno, the Special Royal Office official Michael Wernick, Trudeau assistant and his close adviser "Gerald Potts," who announced his resignation on Background of the current crisis.
Wilson claims that Trudeau told her in a meeting on Sept. 17 that she had to find a solution to the Lavaline crisis. While the meeting was not about the company, Wilson had met his request to acknowledge that it would not And the prosecution will be left to the public prosecutor's office to decide on this matter. However, this did not stop the prime minister from completing his speech, causing the possibility of losing thousands of people working for the company in Canada and internationally if the latter is convicted in the local judiciary. Has been lost means to ban the company from entering into government auctions within O and externally as we mentioned.
Wilson responded by refusing, but Trudeau's response was loaded with what appeared to be a closed signal, reminding her that there were regional elections to come. She asked him whether he was interfering in his role in her decision and her role as public prosecutor, which Trudeau denied. the crisis". It is worth mentioning that the Canadian law gives the Attorney General the right to intervene in such cases and give directions, and even gives him the power to take full charge of the case if he so desires. This authority can be interpreted by the current Minister of Justice on February 10, Only from the publication of the Globe report that he could make a decision to take up the Lavalin case at the college, which gave Trudeau's theory of intervention in the course of the investigations until Wilson's implication was more credible.
Will Trudeau lose his emerging political future?
An opinion poll 11 published by the Angus Reed Institute of Canada a week ago found that 66 percent of Canadians believe there is a "deeper scandal" in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office, while 63 percent said it was necessary to continue prosecuting Lavalin "Trudeau's" Liberal Party "popularity, according to the poll, fell to second place in front of the Conservatives led by Andrew Sher, who called Trudeau to resign over the current scandal, citing his request - rejected by Trudeau Of course - that the latter has "lost the credibility and transparency it brought to the Office of the Presidency of the Ministers ».
Opposition leaders, supported by a group of lawyers and former public prosecutor, also called on the Royal Canadian Police to investigate the claims raised by Wilson's testimony about Trudeau and Lavalin, but a representative of the Canadian police had previously stated that the Royal Police only investigated cases brought "The crisis is still" moral in its entirety, "but it requires the attention of Canadians to the same extent as criminal cases, if not more, which will make Trudeau very cautious and hesitant. In his decisions so as not to provoke more inevitable anger For the Canadians and thus influence his chances and the chances of his party in the upcoming elections.
Trudeau confirms that the allegations of former prosecutor Judy Wilson have no basis and believes that she misunderstood what was justified by the government, which is its boss, to preserve the jobs threatened by tens of thousands of Canadians inside and outside the country. "The current crisis raises questions about the Trudo 12 agenda and its associated reconciliation with the indigenous people of Canada, but the whole crisis brings the memory of Canadians, and of the Liberal Party in particular, back to the memory of my scandal," said Billand, political analyst and director of the McGill University Institute. Party 2006 (13), which took place on charges of corruption and bribery in the The party's program to raise awareness of the province of Quebec, a scandal in which the party lost an easy part of his popularity as well as the post of prime minister for the next nine years, before Trudeau to revive it and return again with a resounding success, a success now hovering around him doubts cast Canadians To wonder whether Trudeau himself is also who will lose the party once again the ability to form a government, and a possible new scandal may not be liberal Canada can recover from them for many years.