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SNC-Lavalin had not been a topic in debates around the Quebec provincial election last fall. The company had “no link” to the election, argued Pierre Jury for Le Droit, a Gatineau newspaper. But, he hypothesized, mentioning the election could’ve been Trudeau’s way to raise the prospect of SNC-Lavalin moving its headquarters from Quebec while still trying to “walk on eggshells” and avoid spelling out the federal political consequences in earnest.

For La Presse, Paul Journet wrote that questions should still be asked about why Wilson-Raybould closed the door so quickly to a remediation agreement, since perhaps a minister from British Columbia wouldn’t understand how important SNC-Lavalin was to Quebec’s public interest. But the Trudeau government’s “clumsy and dubious manoeuvres” now risked making a solution for the company politically untenable.

At Le Devoir, Michel David acknowledged it was normal for the prime minister to note SNC-Lavalin’s importance to the Quebec economy. But it was now very difficult to believe that Wilson-Raybould lost her position as attorney general for any other reason than that she refused to bend to the prime minister’s will. It would be likewise hard to imagine the new justice minister, David Lametti, reversing her decision after Wilson-Raybould so clearly raised concerns about whether the independence of the office would stay intact after her departure.

The Journal’s Richard Martineau, with a headline “The real Justin Trudeau,” dug in the deepest. For all his feminism and openness and humanism and generosity and altruism, etcetera, how could Trudeau fling the justice system out the window so easily? And was it because of empathy for workers that Trudeau wanted to save SNC-Lavalin, Martineau asked? “No. Because Justin needs votes in Quebec to win his next election,” he wrote, and Quebecers will protect their own even if they build prisons for dictators and pay for their sons’ prostitutes to get contracts.

“Imagine if Stephen Harper acted that way. The Red Cross would have to send doctors to Radio-Canada to treat journalist victims of apoplexy,” the columnist wrote. If Quebecers continue supporting Trudeau now, in spite of this attack on the independence of the justice system, “we are imbeciles.”

• Email: mdsmith@postmedia.com | Twitter: mariedanielles