Article content

The CEO of SNC-Lavalin said he doesn’t have much hope the company will be offered a chance to make a deal with federal prosecutors and is now focused on defending itself in court.

“Our innocent employees are being used as a puck in a political hockey game and, frankly, they don’t deserve it and we’ve had enough,” Neil Bruce said on a conference call on Friday afternoon to discuss the Montreal-based company’s annual results.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or 'We have done nothing wrong as a company,' SNC-Lavalin says after reporting $1.3-billion loss Back to video

“We have done nothing wrong as a company and none of our current employees have done anything wrong,” he said. “We have never asked for the charges to be dropped, we have never asked for anything to be circumvented outside the judicial system. Did we ask for the remediation agreement that was enacted by parliament to be applied in our case? Yes.”

The prosecution of the engineering and construction firm — the largest in Canada — has caused a scandal in Ottawa after allegations emerged former attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to reach a deal with the company that would see it avoid prosecution — and demoted when she refused.