Trudeau asked 'me to help out, to find a solution to SNC’: Wilson-Raybould‎

Jody Wilson-Raybould says she was subjected to sustained and coordinated political pressure including “veiled threats” to intervene and shelve the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.

In dramatic televised testimony before the House of Commons Justice committee on Wednesday, the former justice minister and attorney-general said there were 10 phone calls and 10 meetings in which she was inappropriately pressured.‎

For a period of approximately four months, between September and December of 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney-general of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin Ms. Wilson-Rayould told MPs.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the lobby campaign involved 11 people from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council Office and the Office of the Minister of Finance.

“Within these conversations, there were express statements regarding the necessity of interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential of consequences and veiled threats if a DPA (deferred prosecution agreement) was not made available to SNC,” she said.

Ms. Wilson-Rabyould said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior officials including Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s chief of staff, Ben Chin, made the point that an out-of-court settlement with the Montreal engineering and construction company would help the Quebec Liberal party electorally in last fall’s provincial election.‎

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