Article content continued

Or when the DPP pointed out that the professed reason for SNC-Lavalin to be granted such leniency, the jobs that would allegedly be lost in Quebec, is expressly precluded by the same law? Or when she resigned rather than carry out an order she considered unlawful?

Did they not think this would cause something of, I don’t know, a stir? Did anyone think this through?

Suppose the DPP had not resigned, accepting instead this unprecedented assault on her prosecutorial independence, not to say her professional judgement. How was she supposed to negotiate a remediation agreement, if the endpoint – that SNC-Lavalin was to be let off on all charges — had already been decided? What bargaining leverage would she have?

And how would anyone in government have explained all this when, as the attorney general is legally obliged to do whenever she gives instructions to the DPP regarding the “initiation or conduct” of a prosecution (assuming this even applies to the present situation), she made the order public?

What reasons was she supposed to give? “I am overturning the prosecutor’s decision to proceed with charges of fraud and corruption against SNC-Lavalin because it will cost jobs in a province where we need to win seats, in an election year?” Did they not think this would cause something of, I don’t know, a stir? Did anyone think this through?

Or never mind the public, or the prosecutor: how did they think they were going to explain it to a judge, whose consent is also legally required for any remediation agreement?

But then it hit me. The answer, surely, is for the attorney general to talk to the judge. Or maybe the prime minister should, or one of his people. Not to direct him, of course: that would be wrong. But just to explain the context, if you will.