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As the Liberal government descends into full-blown crisis, Conservatives could take some satisfaction that this is all happening in part because of a long-ago measure they implemented precisely to catch Liberal scandals.

In 2006, one of the first actions of the new government of Stephen Harper was the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, a measure designed to prevent future occurrences of the Sponsorship Scandal. Now, that act is at the centre of events apparently showing an attempt by the government of Justin Trudeau to halt a criminal prosecution for political reasons.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or The Harper government passed a measure 13 years ago to catch Liberal scandals. It worked perfectly Back to video

“Gerry (Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) talked to me about how the statute was set up by Harper (and) that he does not like the law,” former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould said in Wednesday testimony before the House of Commons justice committee.

“I said something like ‘That is the law we have.’”

Wilson-Raybould said she was subjected to “hounding” and then ultimately shuffled out of her job as Attorney General because she failed to stop a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal construction and engineering firm accused of bribing the government of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Photo by Brent Foster/National Post/File

Specifically, Wilson-Raybould refused to overrule the Director of Public Prosecutions, an independent office created by the 2006 act in order to prevent political interference in criminal prosecutions.

Previously, Canadian attorneys general had full discretion over which criminal cases were pursued and which were abandoned. Since the Attorney General is also a sitting cabinet member, the door was left open for easy – and quiet – political meddling in the judicial process.

The 2006 act created an independent prosecution service shielded from interference. The Attorney General can still overrule the director, but any such decision has to be publicly announced.