If anyone still doubted that the relationship between Justin Trudeau and his former justice minister had soured in the aftermath of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s demotion to a lower-profile cabinet post last month, those doubts were put to rest this week.With the government hit by the biggest political storm to have come its way since its swearing-in, the prime minister and the former justice minister have been unable to land on the same page.Instead, Canadians have been treated to the rare spectacle of a sitting minister opting to leave the prime minister wiggling on a hook rather than fish or cut bait.Faced with Globe and Mail allegations that his office pressured Wilson-Raybould into offering the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin a remediation agreement instead of bringing the company to trial on pending corruption charges, Trudeau has maintained that he never “directed†the former minister to do anything.She, on the other hand, has declined to confirm or deny the prime minister’s take on the nature of their exchanges. Nor has she responded to allegations by confidential sources of undue pressures on the part of the PMO.In a statement issued Friday, Wilson-Raybould said she was bound to silence by solicitor-client privilege.That there have been exchanges between the PMO and the then-justice minister on SNC-Lavalin is not really in doubt. Any prime minister, regardless of political stripe, would be concerned about the viability of a strategic economic asset of the magnitude of the Montreal-based company. SNC-Lavalin is one of the world’s leading engineering firms, with a Canadian workforce numbering thousands, and its demise would result in a significant brain drain and a grievous loss of Canadian expertise.It is no secret that SNC-Lavalin was lobbying the government to avoid a criminal conviction on charges related to its activities in Libya. Such a conviction would result in a 10-year prohibition on bidding for federal contracts and the pos ...
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