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This is a story about the giant engineering firm recently described as “a signature Canadian company” based in Montreal — why yes, it is SNC-Lavalin — and another, smaller but successful company based in Mississauga, Ont.

Compare, if you will, how the two were treated by the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

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The former has been in the news for months, but most recently because the CBC recently obtained a secret list of the names of key SNC executives who allegedly made bogus political donations, mostly to the federal Liberal party.

I say allegedly as a matter of courtesy.

SNC-Lavalin signed a “compliance agreement” in 2016 with the Commissioner of Canada Elections in which the company admitted that “certain former senior executives” or their relatives had made the fake donations, and that those employees then either got fictitious bonuses or false expense refunds so they weren’t out of pocket, and that it was actually SNC-Lavalin itself forking out the dough, presumably to make new friends or thank existing ones in the natural governing party.