Alleged PMO obstruction in SNC Lavalin case

[MilEME09]

Their fine was nothing more than a slap on the wrist.  A few hundred million dollars is nothing compared to the billions of dollars companies are fined in the US.

its a joke what they got fined,  and they know it, but does this prevent them from going after government contracts? if it doesn't then thy got the outcome they wanted which tells me the libs intervened.

 

[Altair]

its a joke what they got fined,  and they know it, but does this prevent them from going after government contracts? if it doesn't then thy got the outcome they wanted which tells me the libs intervened.

This does not prevent them from going after government contracts.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Like Butts said, Trudeau gets what he wants.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Plead guilty to corruption but not necessarily corruption?

Vern Krishna, a leading tax lawyer and tax professor in Canada, previously made a statement which I believe to be 100 percent correct: "Corruption of government officials is a routine cost of doing business in many countries, including Canada.
https://taxchambers.ca/bribery-and-corruption-in-international-business/

So here we have a plain statement that corruption and bribery are in fact a routine cost of doing business in Canada, like pretty much everywhere else.

Thankfully, at least the the 280,000,000 is theoretically not tax deductible:

"However, even though bribes are a necessary and essential cost of doing business in some countries, the Income Tax Act weighs in with its own “economic morality” by prohibiting the deduction of bribes in computing net income and undermining the very foundation of income tax law, the accurate computation of net income."

"If Canada is going to rigorously apply the CFPOA to all Canadian corporations operating in the 172 countries listed below it in the Corruption Index, we should prepare for less international business and more litigation."

It might be this last point that has more recently come to weigh heavily on political leaders.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Filed under Nothing to see here, SNC operating as usual.

[Mods not sure if there is a more appropriate thread sorry]

Councillors shocked by sloppiness of SNC-Lavalin's winning Trillium Line bid
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/snc-lavalin-technical-bid-reaction-1.5439818
[qiote]Some Ottawa city councillors are calling for answers in the wake of revelations the city's technical evaluation team wanted SNC-Lavalin thrown out of the bidding process for the second stage of Ottawa's north-south rail line.

Instead, the company was eventually awarded the $1.6-billion contract for Stage 2 of the Trillium Line.[/quote]


The real question here is why are the councillors shocked?  It's SNC  :

 

[Navy_Pete]

If you go to the story that came out earlier yesterday, they actually have the summary of the tech evaluation for all three bidders; the SNC bid was shockingly bad.  Can't believe they passed it through with clear problems with scope, understanding of the basic project, safety/regulatory issues, and just a generally unprofessional submission.  Sometimes there is a clause allowing a bit of wiggle room, but generally it's for things like a required certificate wasn't included in the bid or something, so it's to prevent an otherwise good bid being failed for not meeting a mandatory items because someone forgot to add a piece of paper or whatever.

Here's the link; was completely stunned.  This should get the oversight team fired, and tarred& feathered, and the contract award should be canceled.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/snc-lavalin-technical-evaluation-1.5438697

Really not sure why they did this; only thing that makes sense is that they peaked at the financials and it was way cheaper. Which, you know, may happen when you haven't costed major sections or overlooked other basics.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Yea I liked that. SNC didn't even realize the train was diesel which comes with a bunch of important differences.

Maybe they can get the Honourable Justin Trudeau to make these unflattering news stories go away.

 

[Edward Campbell]

If you go to the story that came out earlier yesterday, they actually have the summary of the tech evaluation for all three bidders; the SNC bid was shockingly bad.  Can't believe they passed it through with clear problems with scope, understanding of the basic project, safety/regulatory issues, and just a generally unprofessional submission.  Sometimes there is a clause allowing a bit of wiggle room, but generally it's for things like a required certificate wasn't included in the bid or something, so it's to prevent an otherwise good bid being failed for not meeting a mandatory items because someone forgot to add a piece of paper or whatever.

Here's the link; was completely stunned.  This should get the oversight team fired, and tarred& feathered, and the contract award should be canceled.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/snc-lavalin-technical-evaluation-1.5438697

Really not sure why they did this; only thing that makes sense is that they peaked at the financials and it was way cheaper. Which, you know, may happen when you haven't costed major sections or overlooked other basics.

It's hard to fire the mayor and his cronies, except at the regularly scheduled municipal elections.

SNC-Lavalin's tentacles are long and they are embedded deep in the Canadian and Ontario Liberal Parties. Mayor Jim Watson is a strong Liberal, a former minister in Kathleen Wynne's Ontario Liberal regime. He toes the Party Line which seems to include giving SNC-Lavalin whatever it wants. 

 

[Navy_Pete]

The oversight team is a greasy legalist and some senior city staff, but agree that the Mayor is effectively part of the party.

It's really frustrating that this whole thing is so sub standard; if they are going to be greasy about the process, you really need to deliver something that is at least good enough to stop people from poking at the process and asking questions. Corruption is bad on it's own, but this is kind of inept corruption that is also embarrassing for the cartoon villains involved.

I think heads will roll in the next election but that's not until 2022, so unless someone grows a pair and cancels the contract, phase 2 is going to be an even bigger soup sandwich than phase 1. So far no one has gotten hurt, but with the scale of equipment failures happening, seems like a matter of time. High tension power cables arcing and breaking, trains on parallel tracks somehow colliding at the yard, and some other inexplicable failures are not good signs 4 months into opening.

 

[ModlrMike]

Why am I thinking of the Simpsons monorail episode?

 

[OldSolduer]

The oversight team is a greasy legalist and some senior city staff, but agree that the Mayor is effectively part of the party.

It's really frustrating that this whole thing is so sub standard; if they are going to be greasy about the process, you really need to deliver something that is at least good enough to stop people from poking at the process and asking questions. Corruption is bad on it's own, but this is kind of inept corruption that is also embarrassing for the cartoon villains involved.

I think heads will roll in the next election but that's not until 2022, so unless someone grows a pair and cancels the contract, phase 2 is going to be an even bigger soup sandwich than phase 1. So far no one has gotten hurt, but with the scale of equipment failures happening, seems like a matter of time. High tension power cables arcing and breaking, trains on parallel tracks somehow colliding at the yard, and some other inexplicable failures are not good signs 4 months into opening.

A week is a long time in politics - two years is ancient history. MAYBE if the electorate would actually get out and vote that might send a message.

 

[dapaterson]

Why am I thinking of the Simpsons monorail episode?

Ottawa aspires to get that quality of work, someday...

 

[brihard]

Ottawa aspires to get that quality of work, someday...

I hear those things are awfully loud...

 

[dapaterson]

I hear those things are awfully loud...

 

[Good2Golf]

Latest on the SNC Lavelin affair….conveniently 48 hours after the federal election…

SNC-Lavalin corporations and 2 former top execs charged with fraud, forgery by RCMP

OTTAWA -- The corporate entities of SNC-Lavalin Inc. and SNC-Lavalin International Inc., as well as two former senior executives of the Quebec-based firms have been charged with a series of fraud and forgery offenses by the RCMP.

According to a statement released by the RCMP on Thursday, former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin Normand Morin and former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin International Inc. Kamal Francis have been arrested but released. They, and the two corporate entities, are facing “a number of charges” including fraud against the government, following “a lengthy and comprehensive criminal investigation by the National Division RCMP Sensitive and International Investigations section.”

The investigation into the alleged criminal wrongdoing relates to “bribes that were paid in exchange for obtaining a contract,” according to the RCMP. The domestic investigation focused on construction work on the Pont Jacques Cartier in Montreal between 1997 and 2004.

The charges have not been tested or proven in court. The matter will next come up in a Montreal court on Sept. 27.

As The Canadian Press has reported, in 2020, four subsidiaries of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. were barred from bidding on public contracts in Quebec after the engineering giant’s construction subsidiary pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to pay a $280-million fine related to work the company did in Libya between 2001 and 2011.

It was this case and the firm’s attempts to lobby for a deferred prosecution agreement that saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government embroiled in scandal in 2019.

 

[dapaterson]

Having done some work with the RCMP in the past, I'll argue Hanlon's razor.

 

[Good2Golf]

Same here, re: RCMP, but I’ll stay with Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli’s Razor.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Seriously, was anyone really surprised by this? The only anomaly is how soon it happened. I was sure they'd wait until the election signs came down. But hey, why waste time?

 

[brihard]

Having done some work with the RCMP in the past, I'll argue Hanlon's razor.

This is a completely separate SNC investigation from the one that implicated PMO, JWR, etc. That was “Project Assistance”, this was “Project Agrafe”. This one appears to involve fraud against the provincial government in Quebec.

I don’t see that this is any different from any other matter where, during caretaker period, Federal departments and agencies will refrain from taking actions that could be politically loaded. Most would not both to look to actual facts in the matter and would simply see “SNC” and jump to immediate (but incorrect) conclusions about it being linked to the controversy around the other SNC prosecution.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is a completely separate SNC investigation from the one that implicated PMO, JWR, etc. That was “Project Assistance”, this was “Project Agrafe”. This one appears to involve fraud against the provincial government in Quebec.

I don’t see that this is any different from any other matter where, during caretaker period, Federal departments and agencies will refrain from taking actions that could be politically loaded. Most would not both to look to actual facts in the matter and would simply see “SNC” and jump to immediate (but incorrect) conclusions about it being linked to the controversy around the other SNC prosecution.

Indeed. How soon people seem to have forgotten the fallout from the income trusts fiasco in very late 2005.