Battlefords - Lloydminster MP Rosemarie Falk. (File photo/battlefordsNOW staff) : Tyler Marr

By Tyler Marr

SNC-Lavalin affair

Falk says JWR testimony shows ‘inappropriate, potentially illegal’ actions by PM, staff

Mar 1, 2019 | 3:56 PM

In the wake of scathing testimony from Jody Wilson-Raybould in the SNC-Lavalin affair, Battlefords – Lloydminster MP Rosemarie Falk says the prime minister allowed his own political motivations to take precedence over his duty to upload the law.

Wednesday afternoon, all eyes were on the former justice minister as she detailed what she described as a relentless campaign, including veiled threats from Trudeau, his senior staff, the nation’s top public servant and the finance minister’s office, for her to intervene and order a “remediation agreement” for the Quebec engineering giant to avoid criminal corruption charges.

“For a period of approximately four months, between September and December of 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney general of Canada, in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred-prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin,” she told the Commons justice committee investigating the matter.

The prime minister has since said he disagrees with how she described discussions she had with him and others about the case, and that the ethics commissioner, Mario Dion, will settle the dispute and decide who is telling the truth.

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Falk said in a statement that Wilson-Raybould’s “explosive testimony” detailed “grossly inappropriate, corrupt and potentially illegal actions” by the prime minister and the highest officials in his government.

“He does not know where the interests of the Liberal Party ends and where his responsibilities to the Government of Canada begins,” she said.

She went on to echo calls from Conservative leader Andrew Sheer for Justin Trudeau to resign and for the RCMP to launch a probe and investigate the potential of criminal activity.

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tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr