Canada’s rule of law in glare as Trudeau embroiled in corporate nepotism scandal

Relations between Canada and China have been rocky for the last several months. It all started on December 1, 2018, when Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of leading Chinese technology company Huawei, was detained while transferring between flights in Vancouver, Canada.



Meng is now suing the various divisions of the Canadian government for rights violations involving her arrest, and rightly so. The other reason behind her lawsuit is that this is a political issue, not a criminal matter.



Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that Canada upholds the rule of law and that there was nothing he could do to help Meng. Fast forward to today: Many Canadians have come to learn that Trudeau does not believe in the rule of law. If you are a large Quebec corporation, and he needs seats in the province to win a majority in the October 2019 national elections, he's willing to change the law to help you out.



SNC Lavalin, which reportedly gave a $100,000 campaign donation to the Liberal Party, was facing serious criminal charges including fraud and corruption allegations and therefore requested a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) from the Canadian government.



Most Canadians were not even aware that the Canadian Criminal Code included a DPA, which was added by the current Trudeau administration in 2018. The DPA allows prosecutors to suspend criminal prosecution proceedings against a company if it agrees to fulfill certain requirements.



If SNC Lavalin were prosecuted, it would have been banned from bidding for Canadian government contracts for 10 years. As a result, the former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured by senior staff in the prime minister's office and the finance minister's office to offer a deal to the company in order to receive a DPA. This pressure created by senior government employees is illegal because the attorney general cannot, and should not, be swayed by partisan interests. She must remain neutral and away from political interference at all times.



If the attorney general gives in to official pressure into doing something that is illegal, she would be obstructing justice which is a criminal offence. The reason behind granting SNC Lavalin a DPA was to stop it from moving its head office to London. The senior staffers were concerned about 9,000 jobs being lost in Canada. But the truth is workers who became unemployed would have found jobs with other construction companies. The real reason why Trudeau wants to grant SNC Lavalin a DPA showed in what he told then attorney general Wilson-Raybould that there is an election in Quebec and raised his status as a member of Parliament for Papineau, a Montreal-area riding, according to Wilson-Raybould's testimony.



The attorney general advised him to stop as he was crossing the line. As a result, on January 14, 2019, Trudeau replaced her with someone more compliant and made Wilson-Raybould the minister of veteran affairs. On February 12, she quit as the minister and also resigned from the cabinet. When the story broke out in the press, Trudeau denied it and said "nothing happened."



Well, we Canadians have come to learn that a lot happened and that Trudeau is not a defender of the rule of law. Why was he so worried about SNC Lavalin and not concerned about Meng and our relations with China? Because he is afraid of US President Donald Trump and needs votes and seats in Quebec for a majority in the general election. Meng did not receive help from Trudeau because she couldn't win him any seats in Quebec. Trudeau failed to realize that by wrongfully detaining Meng, he was putting a much more important relationship - with China - at risk.



It's still not too late for Trudeau to do the right thing and release Meng. She is in the middle of a political dispute stirred by the US, and not a criminal charge. The US deliberately misused the extradition treaty with Canada. Meng and Canada's relations with China were the collateral damage.



The author worked for the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada, before moving to China where he spent 16 years as a successful entrepreneur. His forthcoming book Diplomatically Curious: My Unofficial Canadian Ambassador Life in China chronicles his business life lessons from the late 1990s through the 2000s - especially in Guangzhou and Shanghai. senses.gz@gmail.com





