One of Canadian PM Justin
Trudeau's top ministers has quit saying she has lost confidence in the
government's handling of a corruption inquiry.
Treasury Board President Jane Philpott said: "I must abide by my core
values, my ethical responsibilities, constitutional obligations."Mr Trudeau said he was disappointed by the resignation, but understood it.
He has denied political meddling to shield engineering firm SNC-Lavalin from a bribery trial.
Opposition Conservatives last week called on the Liberal PM to resign.
A number of opinion polls indicate Mr Trudeau's popularity is slipping in the run-up to a general election scheduled for October.
Who is SNC-LAVALIN? From Wikipedia:
SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is a
Montreal-based company that provides
engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services in various
industries including; mining and metallurgy, oil and gas, environment
and water, infrastructure, and clean power. The firm has 50,000
employees worldwide with offices in over 50 countries
and operations in over 160 countries.[2]
Still from Wikiepdia:
Legal Issues[edit]
SNC-Lavalin's management teams have been investigated in a number of allegations under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act regarding contracts beginning in 1995. Most of the cases involve allegations of potential criminal activity that took place before 2012 management changes.[44]SNC-Lavalin Kerala hydroelectric dam scandal (1995–2008)[edit]
SNC-Lavalin won a large infrastructure contract to renovate and modernize hydro electric power stations with the Indian government in 1995 which resulted in an alleged net loss to the Indian exchequer of 3745.0 million rupees.[37][45], but led to no charges against the firm. SNC was subsequently accused of bribery and financial fraud related to the contract in 2008. A government investigation resulted in the expulsion of several Indian government officials.[46]Montreal's Jacques-Cartier bridge (early 2000s)[edit]
According to a February 1, 2019, article in La Presse Quebec prosecutors with Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) are cooperating with RCMP in an investigation called Agrafe 2[22] on potential criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin, concerning a contract in the early 2000s to repair Montreal's Jacques Cartier Bridge.[21][Notes 3][22]Libya (2011)[edit]
A 2012 CBC News report, said that the first reports of murky affairs surfaced against the company in 2010 in relation to contracts in Libya.[2] According to a CBC News article, a Libyan bribery and fraud scandal involving crimes that took place from 2001-2011 led to charges in "connection with payments of nearly $48 million" to Libyan public officials.[47] In the same article, it was reported that the company was also accused of "defrauding Libyan organizations of an estimated $130 million".[47][48]In 2015, SNC-Lavelin was charged with bribing Libyan officials in exchange for construction contracts between 2001 and 2011.[48] In 2011, the RCMP began their investigation called Project Assistance which was triggered by a tip from Swiss authorities.[49] According to an August 8, 2013 Financial Post article, Michael Novak who, had been the head of SNC International, had signed "several of the contracts between SNC and "unknown commercial consultants to help win contracts" for "work in Africa".[50][51] This included a contract with former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's controversial government.[52] By the summer of 2013, police alleged that the "unknown commercial consultants" had never existed and that Ben Aissa had "set up shell companies so he could pocket the [$56 million] himself".[51][53] By July 2014, Aissa was jailed in Switzerland for "suspicion of corruption, fraud and money-laundering in North Africa".[54][55][Notes 4] When SNC-Lavalin pulled out of Libya in 2011, it left behind $22.9 million in Libyan banks.[56] In 2013, Roy filed a countersuit for wrongful dismissal, claiming lost wages and damages to his reputation, alleging that he had been framed and scapegoated by higher-level executives whose directives he was obliged to follow.[57][58][59][60][Notes 5]
By February 2012, SNC investors had found out that audited financial statements had been delayed to accommodate an internal review relating to SNC's operations. The internal review probed $35 million of unexplained payments in Libya. Prior to the launch of the investigation, there had been months-long media speculation about the company's work in Libya and its ties to the Muammar Gaddafi family.[61][62][63] In 2012, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated the company on these charges in the Project Assistance investigation and,[64] in 2015, they charged SNC-Lavalin with "fraud and corruption", which the company indicated they would contest in court.[65]
McGill University; the Arthur Porter kick-back scandal (2011–2014)[edit]
Charges were laid against senior executives from 2014 through 2019 in the bribery cases involving Arthur Porter at the McGill University Health Centre. According to a 2012 article in The Globe and Mail, these reports prompted calls for Canada to tighten bribery laws.[66]According to the National Post, SNC-Lavalin employees allegedly were involved in fraud and forgery in relation to a $22.5 million kick-back described as "consulting fees" to Dr. Arthur Porter[Notes 6] on the contract to build the new $1.3 billion hospital at the McGill University Health Centre's CEO in violation of the Quebec Health Act. SNC-Lavalin were awarded the contract even though they were outbid by $60 million.[32] The case led to an investigation by the Charbonneau Commission. Porter resigned from the post on December 5, 2011 in light of substantial public pressure.[67][68][69] Porter was arrested in Panama on fraud charges on May 27, 2013, which alleged that he took part in the kick-back scheme.[70] The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called it the biggest fraud investigation in Canadian history.[71][72] SNC CEO, Pierre Duhaime in March 2012,[73][2][74] Duhaime was arrested on fraud charges by Quebec authorities on November 28, 2012.[75][76][Notes 7][Notes 8][77]
Padma Bridge (since 2011)[edit]
An investigation into an alleged graft related to 2011 bids for the construction of the 6.51 kilometre (four-mile) USD$3 billion road—rail bridge crossing the Padma River in Bangladesh,[78] resulted in the former SNC-Lavelin employees being cleared of all charges by a Canadian court. In May 2011, two former SNC-Lavalin International Inc. (SLII) employees Ramesh Shah and Mohammad Ismail met government officials in Bangladesh to discuss a bid for the $50-million supervision contract to build the Padma Bridge, a project estimated to be worth USD$3 billion.[44] Part of the allegations were related to SLII common practice of list project consultancy costs (PCC), also known as project commercial cost, as a line item in internal budgets documents related to the bidding process.[44][Notes 9][44] As a result of the original investigation by World Bank investigators who worked with RCMP officers, in September 2013, the World Bank blacklisted SNC-Lavalin and its affiliates from bidding on the World Bank's global projects.[79] The World Bank had originally offered to fund $1.5 billion of the $3 billion but pulled back following the allegations. However, on February 11, 2017, the Ontario Superior Court found no proof of the Padma bridge bribery conspiracy, dismissed the case, and acquitted the ex-SNC-Lavalin executives.[80] According to the Dhaka Tribune, Justice Ian Nordheimer rebuked the Canadian police, saying: "Reduced to its essentials, the information provided in the [wiretap applications] was nothing more than speculation, gossip, and rumor."[80]SaskPower serious design flaws (2015)[edit]
In 2015, internal documents from SaskPower (the crown corporation that is the principal electric utility in Saskatchewan, Canada), revealed that there were "serious design issues" in the carbon capture and storage system at its coal-fired Boundary Dam Power Station, resulting in regular breakdowns and maintenance problems that caused the unit to be operational only 40% of the time. SNC-Lavalin had been contracted to engineer, procure, and build the facility, and the documents asserted that it "has neither the will or the ability to fix some of these fundamental flaws".[81] The low productivity of the plant had in turn meant that SaskPower was only able to sell half of the 800,000 tonnes of captured carbon dioxide that it had contracted to sell to Cenovus Energy for use in enhanced oil recovery at a cost of $25 per tonne. In addition to the lost sales, this meant that SaskPower had been forced to pay Cenovus $12 million in penalties.[82] In 2017, Cenovus sold its Saskatchewan operations to Whitecap Resources.[83] By September 2018, "SaskPower and SNC-Lavalin had completed mediation and were headed to binding arbitration".[47] In July 2018, SaskPower announced in their annual report that that would not be proceeding with retrofitting the two aging facilities near Estevan—Boundary Dams 4 and 5 (BD4 and BD5) with carbon capture and storage (CCS).[84] According to a February 11, 2019 CBC News article, SNC-Lavalin has "received about $765,800,000 in [Saskatchewan provincial] government contracts from 2009 to 2018".[47]Deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) investigation (2019)[edit]
Following a 2017 public consultation process, the Government of Canada moved forward with the establishment of a "made-in-Canada version of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) regime", called the "Remediation Agreement Regime",[85] which was introduced in the March budget and came into effect in June 2018.[Notes 10] By 2019, SNC-Lavalin, still facing criminal charges in regards to several contracts, began investigating the possibility of a DPA under the newly introduced Remediation Agreement Regime, as early as April 2018.[86][85][48] On February 10, 2019, the Toronto Star reported that opposition Leader Andrew Scheer met with SNC-Lavalin CEO Neil Bruce in May 29, 2018 to discuss the remediation agreement.[87] The director of public prosecutions informed SNC-Lavalin on On October 9, that their DPA option was rejected because "is not appropriate in this case."[88] According to the National Post, "If the company is convicted it would be barred from bidding on federal contracts for 10 years, potentially costing it billions in forgone revenue."[88] In response, the company's share prices dropped, leaving it vulnerable to a hostile takeover. According to the Montreal Gazette, Quebec Premier François Legault said that SNC-Lavalin was one of ten publicly-traded companies headquartered in Quebec that the province considers to be "strategic" and therefore in need of protection from a takeover that would force the company to leave the province.[89]On February 8, 2019, The Globe and Mail reported that sources close to the government said that the Prime Minister's Office allegedly had attempted to influence Jody Wilson-Raybould's decision concerning SNC-Lavalin's request for a DPA, while she was Minister of Justice and Attorney General. When asked about the allegations, Justin Trudeau said that the story in the Globe was false and that he had never "directed" Wilson-Raybould concerning the case.[90] Wilson-Raybould refused to comment on the matter citing solicitor-client privilege.[91] Under pressure from the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party (NDP), on February 11, 2019, the Federal Ethics Commissioner launched an inquiry into allegations of political interference and a possible violation of the Conflict of Interest Act in the SNC-Lavalin case.[92][48]
On February 18, 2019, Gerald Butts, Trudeau's principal secretary, resigned and denied that he or anyone else in the Prime Minister's Office attempted to influence Wilson-Raybould.[93]
On February 27, 2019, Wilson-Raybould spoke about the SNC-Lavalin controversy at a hearing of the House of Commons justice committee. In her first substantial public statement on the matter, she testified that she was inappropriately pressured to prevent the Montreal-based company from being prosecuted in a bribery case.[94]
As for Justin's problems with the company, CBC explains:
It all centres around one key question: Did the prime minister, someone in his office or other government officials try to pressure Wilson-Raybould when she was attorney general to step in and resolve the corruption and fraud case against SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. in an effort to spare the Montreal-based engineering giant from criminal prosecution?
Along with Philpott's resignation, the scandal has had other political ramifications. It has cost Trudeau his principal secretary, Gerald Butts, who resigned from that key role but has denied any wrongdoing. His resignation came nearly a week after Wilson-Raybould said she was stepping down from her post as veterans affairs minister.
The justice committee has agreed to investigate what, if any, pressure Wilson-Raybould was subjected to regarding the SNC-Lavalin case. It had been unclear what Wilson-Raybould could say at that committee, as she was bound by solicitor-client privilege.
But on Feb. 25, the government issued an order-in-council that, in effect, waived solicitor-client privilege between the former attorney general and her client, the government. It excluded, however, any communications between Wilson-Raybould and the director of public prosecutions on SNC-Lavalin while she was justice minister.
Meanwhile, the ethics commissioner is investigating whether there was a breach of Section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act, which prohibits any official responsible for high-level decision-making in government from seeking to influence the decision of another person so as to "improperly further another person's private interests."
Justy is so pretty but he's in so much trouble. Guess that makes him a hot mess.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, March 5, 2019. No progress in Iraq but the war continues.
Let's start with US House Rep Illhan Omar.
Let's start with US House Rep Illhan Omar.
There is no doubt in my mind -- and I think many others -- that the vicious, targeted attack by both Republicans and Democrats against @IlhanMN is grounded in anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, anti-immigration, and misogyny.
Which side are you? #IStandWithIlhan
Really?
Dems and Republicans are targeting her because of sexism and racism and Islamophobia?
The same Democrats who welcomed her weeks ago?
I don't see it. The Democrats are going after her to bully her and intimidate her.
It's not about gender or race. They want to shut her up and get her to toe the line.
Now her gender and religion and race may allow the predominately White Democratic members of the House of Representatives to think they can get away with it and to go a little further than they might with a White, Christian male.
They love to be a mad pack, tearing into someone. They tried it with Cynthia McKinney. She wouldn't be intimidated so the Democratic Party worked to get her out of Congress.
Illhan's gender, et al was not an issue until she started speaking.
She has noted that an Israeli lobby has a great deal of influence on the US Congress. She's not wrong. And the fact that she's not wrong has people in Congress hissing at her and ready to participate in a public stoning.
She has not attacked the Jewish people in her remarks, she has not attacked the people of Israel. She has addressed the issue of lobbyists and, if we're at a point in the US where we can't talk about how money controls and dominates, that's truly scary.
Today, the US Congress plans to spend hours on her.
They won't address the ongoing wars.
They won't address the needs of the American people.
But they will spend forever and a day condemning her.
“I don’t ever want you to worry about me. I am fine. I know what my mission is. I know what my purpose is. I know that as long as I breathe that I will continue to make people uncomfortable in the best way possible” @IlhanMN is strong but we will NOT be silent #StandWithIlhan
Surviving war gives you perspective on life, I know to not be fearful and work to create a life that alleviates people from fear!
Ilhan Omar Retweeted
So now Ilhan is to blame for the 57% rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes last year and the deadliest mass shooting in US history? That’s really rich coming from someone who praised Bannon.
Do yourself a favor and work on your Anti Blackness
This is about silencing her. This is about putting guard rails around dialogue, enforcing what she will and won't say. Bullying her is about silencing a discussion at a time when walls are starting to crumble.
If you called out apartheid in South Africa (I did) you realize what a time we are at now for the Israeli government. The oppression of Palestinians is not being accepted the way it was even a decade ago. Like South Africa, the apartheid in Israel cannot stand.
Moving over to Iraq . . .
When I say I can bring this country together again, I can back it up: In 2006, I won a 2-to-1 Republican district by campaigning on Medicare for All and getting out of Iraq. I've won blue, purple and red districts. I'm the best candidate to run against Trump, and I can beat him.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is seeking the 2020 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. She says she won by calling for Medicare For All and getting out of Iraq.
She says she won on those issues.
She's probably right. Those are popular positions.
But, here's the thing, Kirsten, we don't have Medicare For All and we are not out of Iraq.
On the latter, IANS reports that US-led airstrikes on Anbar Province have left at least 8 people dead. They hope they were 'militants,' they say they were 'militants,' but, honestly, they don't know. And the US government honestly does not care.
So how, as president, would you ensure that we have Medicare For All and that US troops will be out of Iraq?
Arwa Damon, Ghazi Balkiz, Muwafaq Mohammed and Brice Laine (CNN) observe:
There is a marked disconnect -- one the
country has tragically suffered before -- between the changing Iraq
described by Baghdad's politicians and military leaders and the reality
on the ground for those living in areas once under ISIS rule.
While
US-backed forces are on the verge of retaking ISIS's final stronghold
in neighboring Syria, Iraq declared victory against ISIS just over a
year ago, claiming the group had been reduced to a handful of lawless
troops. Now, the militants are waging a fresh guerrilla campaign from
their base in far-flung territories of northern Iraq -- launching
targeted assassinations, looting villages, planting roadside bombs and
training a new "strike force," an Iraqi intelligence source told CNN.
In
the vast desert badlands near the Hamrin mountain range, residents
remain at the mercy of ISIS "gangs" who rule the night. They know the
region well, having embedded themselves here back when they were known
as the Islamic State of Iraq, and as al Qaeda in Iraq before that. It
is in these lands, which stretch all the way to the Syrian border, that
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his terror group once went to ground to bide
their time, before emerging more powerful, lethal, and merciless than
before.
Minutes after our military escort veers onto a dirt track outside of Mosul, the soldiers stop to check for bombs.
The
village of al-Thaya, barely more than a cluster of homes, is one of the
most recent victims of ISIS' brutal new campaign. Three days before we
arrived, six people were slaughtered there.
Yousuf
Hawwas, 72, was still in shock. His older brother, his ailing wife,
three of the couple's sons and one daughter-in-law were executed. The
killers pried open the metal container where the family hid their money,
stole the cash and two guns before trying to make off with a pickup
truck, which got stuck in the mud.
"My emotions ... I don't know," Hawwas said, his eyes welling up with tears.
That's reality in Iraq. And it could be reality in any year. The Iraq War has not brought anything of value to the Iraqi people. Nor has there ever been anything that could qualify as progress.
Hey, remember when Iraqis suffered from a lack of electricity? Remember when they had spurts of electricity but nothing they could depend upon?
Guess what? Today, MENAFN notes, "Iraq was reported to be struggling to defeat all its electricity troubles, with the government facing heated criticism over its incapacity to offer a dependable solution."
Loa'y Al-Khateeb , the minister of electricity: "Iraq will continue to
import electricity from Iran until the end of this year, and we support
the work of the Iranian companies in Iraq."
16 years. In weeks, the Iraq War hits the 16 year mark.
Iraq is the Sisyphus of wars. The same rock is pushed up the mountain day after day. What would Oswald Spengler make of this?
What do we make of it?
I think our collective brain has fried as a result of the ongoing wars. These wars don't end. They don't accomplish anything of human value. But they go on and on and on.
It repeats over and over. The same thing.
Dropping back to the July 18, 2015 snapshot:
Scott Neuman (NPR) notes the Diyala Province bombing has left "at least 11 people" dead and that "Susannah George, reporting for NPR from Iraq, says amateur video shows dazed civilians wandering through destroyed streets and buildings." Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) points out that this is "one of the deadliest single attacks in the country in the past decade."
What's going on?
All that happened when the assault began on Anbar is the violence spread elsewhere. Consider Falluja the middle of a tube of tooth paste. Nouri putting the thumb in the middle of the tube did not make the toothpaste disappear, it only made it increase in opposite ends.
You probably think I wrote that today or this week when the (latest) assault on Anbar began.
No.
That's from February 21, 2014.
When is anyone going to wake the hell up?
I am not the smartest person in the room and never will be.
This week the so-called Center for American Progress offered more useless garbage about Iraq and trying to defend Barack.
There's no defense.
There is experience and there is knowledge.
We have explained the toothpaste metaphor over. I believe the most recent time was April 25th. Equally true, Gen Martin Dempsey picked it up and used it when testifying before Congress this month.
When he did, I thought about including it here. But then I thought, "Am I patting myself on the back?" So we avoided it here.
We can't avoid it anymore.
The United States needs to start paying attention and stop whoring.
Whoring for Bully Boy Bush didn't help Iraq.
Whoring for Barack Obama doesn't help Iraq.
Take your mouth off the cock of which ever of the two men you're in love with and worship and stop your whoring.
(Although some, like Andrew Sullivan, managed to worship and whore for both men.)
If you want a military approach to Iraq -- I do not -- you need to grasp that Barack and Haider al-Abadi's strategy or 'strategy' or plan or 'plan' is doomed.
It does not work.
Even by military standards it will not work.
If you want a military approach to Iraq's political crises, then what you want is not 'degrade and destroy' -- which are two bulls**t terms used to trick the American people -- many of whom want to be tricked, let's be honest.
The two terms are "clear and hold."
That's the military strategy that needs to be carried out in Iraq.
You do not defeat (militarily) an 'enemy' in an area by jumping here (Tikrit) and then there (Ramadi) and then many miles over there and then many miles over here.
If you're trying to defeat an enemy in the borders of country, a state, a province, whatever, you are doing clear and hold.
You are starting from point X and you are methodically working to the next point.
So if we're in California, for example, we don't clear Los Angeles and then jump tons of miles over to Monterey.
If you made Los Angeles your starting point, you would immediately send troops into Ventura and Kern and Orange and San Bernadino because each of those counties border Los Angeles (while keeping forces in Los Angels county to ensure that it is 'held').
You would take Los Angeles county and then grab the immediate surroundings ones -- this is clear and hold.
Once you had secured those counties, you would continue to work outwards.
When you instead, grab Los Angeles county and then jump miles and miles and miles to the north to grab San Francisco, you accomplish nothing. Between the two you have San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, Merced, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, etc., etc.
So if you retake Los Angeles and then jump to San Francisco, all those areas between the two? That's where the 'enemy' will flood to.
That's the point of the toothpaste analogy. You're just pressing on one point of the tube and the toothpaste is just spreading elsewhere in the tube.
(To be successful, you would need to work from the closed end of the toothpaste tube all the way across -- squeezing all the toothpaste out as you do -- to the nozzle.)
The toothpaste in the middle, always. And the US government still has nothing to brag about.
And that's before we get to the ineffective puppet government the US keeps installing.
One thing that you learn following Iraq for any period of time is that when bodies start popping up in the streets, the violence is increasing.
A body of unidentified man with knife stabs has been found in a square in Doura area south of Baghdad.
We noted the brain drain last Thursday so let's note this:
Iraq is desperately short of doctors.
70% doctors are considering emigrating due to threats made against them.
20,000 doctors have already fled Iraq since 2003.
Attacks against health care put everyone's lives in danger: ow.ly/siVc30nUQJx
Let's close by noting Human Rights Watch's Belkis Wille:
Last week, the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) transferred at least 280 suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members to Iraq, following their arrest in Syria. Though the detainees are overwhelmingly Iraqi, there were reportedly at least thirteen French ISIS suspects among them. Their transfer to Iraq raises a critical issue: where exactly should these detainees be held?
On February 25, Iraqi President Barham Salih announced that the Iraqi justice system would be prosecuting at least thirteen French ISIS suspects “according to Iraqi law.” His statement marks the first transfer of foreign ISIS suspects to be publicly recognized by the Iraqi government, and also comes after many European government have refused to bring home and prosecute their nationals who joined ISIS.
Iraq’s judiciary convened on February 28 to discuss how it would “examine the cases of terrorism suspects – both national and foreign – recently handed over to Baghdad by the SDF.
Despite Salih’s assurance that Iraq is acting within the confines of international law, the record of previous ISIS trials in Iraq shows that these transfers may instead violate it, as detainees risk torture in detention. Furthermore, detainees are subject to unfair trials that could still end in the death penalty. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all countries and under all circumstances, but in Iraq, where the trials of ISIS suspects fail to meet even the most basic markers of due process, its application is particularly concerning.
Until now, trials of ISIS suspects in Baghdad, which have lasted as short as 5 minutes, have consisted of a judge interviewing the suspect, usually relying on a confession, often coerced, with no effective legal representation. Authorities have also made no efforts to solicit victim participation in the trials, even as witnesses.
It would be galling if France, a member of the European Union, with a key foreign policy goal of eradicating the death penalty globally, did not speak out publicly even as its citizens risk prosecution and death in unfair trials that deny victims their day in court. Any country allowing Iraq to receive and prosecute its citizens should press the government to take urgent measures to improve the quality of these prosecutions. Otherwise, it should take its nationals home and investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute them in trials that meet internationally-accepted fair trial standards.
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