A former political insider explains that the view inside government is generally the sooner minority rule is put to bed in favour of a majority, the better. That’s why Trudeau really called an election.
The Liberals claim the election is critical to Canada’s post-pandemic future and suggest COVID-19 badly disrupted the status quo. But is that really the case?
Jennifer Quaid, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
A jury is about to decide the fate of a senior SNC-Lavalin executive accused of corruption and fraud. Meanwhile, Canada’s remediation agreement process is still sorely lacking.
There are a lot of reasons to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin file. But on the matter of saving jobs, he got it right.
Rather than just bribing us with our own money, politicians on the campaign trail should propose structural changes to the way government works and budgets itself.
A firm PMO policy on respecting the political independence of the attorney general might have served Justin Trudeau better when Jody Wilson-Raybould first cautioned him against interfering in the SNC-Lavalin case.
The SNC-Lavalin controversy has resulted in some misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the legal mechanism at its heart: Deferred prosecution agreements.
While the Wilson-Raybould/Philpott resignations are historic by the numbers, they may also prove historic in creating a new faith in federal cabinet, a previously elite and closed decision-making body.
Promoting Canadian jobs is part of any government’s political mandate, but so too is the responsibility of ensuring that Canadian businesses are not supporting or condoning corruption abroad.
The prospect of political interference is at the heart of the SNC-Lavalin controversy. But it raises more issues related to identifying and preventing inappropriate interference.
Sir John A. Macdonald fused the jobs of justice minister and attorney general as Canada’s first prime minister. So is he partly to blame for the SNC-Lavalin controversy?
Until recently, paying a bribe or kickback to secure a contract abroad was seen as the cost of doing business in a foreign land. The SNC-Lavalin case has underscored the need to rethink the approach.
A standard political scandal involves a person who did something wrong out of negligence or motivations of money, personal ambition, sex, etc. But the SNC-Lavalin affair so far lacks those elements.
The SNC-Lavalin affair raises fundamental questions about how decisions to prosecute are made, and what role elected politicians should have in that process – if any at all.