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UPDATED: SNC Lavalin – Just the Facts Ma’am

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10 minute read

Opinion by Cory Litzenberger

Let’s take emotion out of it. Let’s take a look at the legislation. While I am not a lawyer, I do interpret tax legislation for a living, and so I decided to take a closer look at the criminal legislation pertaining to the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

The relevant legislation is in 《parentheses》below, but here is the Coles notes:

FACT – in 2015 SNC was charged by the RCMP under Section 3 of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act

《3 (1) Every person commits an offence who, in order to obtain or retain an advantage in the course of business, directly or indirectly gives, offers or agrees to give or offer a loan, reward, advantage or benefit of any kind to a foreign public official or to any person for the benefit of a foreign public official

(a) as consideration for an act or omission by the official in connection with the performance of the official’s duties or functions; or

(b) to induce the official to use his or her position to influence any acts or decisions of the foreign state or public international organization for which the official performs duties or functions.》

FACT – In 2015, the RCMP charged SNC-Lavalin, along with its international division, with corruption and fraud in relation with their business dealings in Libya. The RCMP said officials at the company attempted to bribe several public officials in the country, including dictator Moammar Gadhafi, as well as other businesses in Libya.

FACT – The prosecutor is allowed to enter into a remediation agreement under Section 715.32 of the Criminal Code of Canada , if ALL conditions are met under 715.32(1).

《715.32 (1) The prosecutor may enter into negotiations for a remediation agreement with an organization alleged to have committed an offence if the following conditions are met:

(a) the prosecutor is of the opinion that there is a reasonable prospect of conviction with respect to the offence;

(b) the prosecutor is of the opinion that the act or omission that forms the basis of the offence did not cause and was not likely to have caused serious bodily harm or death, or injury to national defence or national security, and was not committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization or terrorist group;

(c) the prosecutor is of the opinion that negotiating the agreement is in the public interest and appropriate in the circumstances; and

(d) the Attorney General has consented to the negotiation of the agreement.》

FACT – for the prosecutor to evaluate their public interest opinion, they must consider subsection 715.32(2) in its entirety which includes many relevant pieces of information except when 715.32(3) overrides it

《 Factors to consider

715.32(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), the prosecutor must consider the following factors:

[(a) to (h)]; and

(i) any other factor that the prosecutor considers relevant.》

FACT – 715.32(3) says even with all those factors to consider, you can NOT factor in the national economic interest (ie: the jobs argument) if they were charged the way the RCMP charged them

《Factors not to consider

715.32(3) Despite paragraph (2)(i), if the organization is alleged to have committed an offence under section 3 or 4 of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, the prosecutor must not consider the national economic interest, the potential effect on relations with a state other than Canada or the identity of the organization or individual involved.》

CONCLUSION – the jobs argument is irrelevant under the law in these circumstances – The prosecution knows this – The former Attorney General knows this – and based on the provisions as written, the jobs argument for SNC does not meet the legal requirement for a remediation agreement.

For these reasons, I find in favour of the former Attorney General.
— — — —

Update: While being interviewed on the afternoon of March 7, 2019, I looked even closer at the legislation and caught something I didn’t realize on first glance when reading it.

Notice at the end of 715.32(1)(c) the word “and”.

While I said this means that all of the tests in (a) through (d) must be met, I neglected to say that this means no one person has the sole final decision. The prosecutor is mentioned in (a), (b), and (c); while the Attorney General is only mentioned in (d).

To put another way, this law is written so that it is not solely the decision of the Attorney General, nor the prosecutor. Rather, it requires both the Attorney General and the Prosecutor to agree to proceed with negotiations.

Similar to a scene in the movies where you see nuclear codes kept between two different military heads before proceeding with the launch, such is the wording of this provision.

This means that the Attorney General does not have the final decision and so any suggestion that she does is incorrect. The decision is a joint one with most of the leg work having to be done by the prosecutor, not the Attorney General.

So let me recap: I think it is quite simple, that a Remediation Agreement (aka Deferred Prosecution Agreement) cannot be considered under the “national economic interest” (jobs) argument based on what legislation the RCMP used for the charges.

If that’s the argument, then the answer is “no” and the repeated number of times asking for the former Attorney General to revisit it over a four month period for something that appears so black and white might be considered workplace harassment if I were to do such a thing to one of my colleagues.

So, since the economic argument is moot, what other argument is there?

We heard in testimony that the parties may have wanted the Attorney General to look at it from a stance that does not imply economic interest.

Ironically, “we need to win an election” may actually be legal as “any other factor that the prosecutor considers relevant” but then we would have to assume the prosecutor would have to be partisan, and that is highly not likely in my experience.

So we now know that there must be an agreement between the prosecutor and the Attorney General.

We also know that “economic interest” cannot be the reason under the law.

So, if the law is that clear on economic interest, why would the Attorney General be asked repeatedly for reconsideration, unless it was not “economic interest” they wanted her to consider?

For these additional reasons, I still find in favour of the former Attorney General

Update #2: On March 8, 2019, the Federal Court of Canada ruled in favour of the Public Prosecution Service on SNC Lavalin’s request for judicial review citing:

“The law is clear that prosecutorial discretion is not subject to judicial review, except for abuse of process.” – Federal Court of Canada Justice Kane

Then, on March 11, 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) came to the same conclusion as my interpretation of the law regarding the intention of the 1999 agreement, and said:

“political factors such as a country’s national economic interest and the identity of the alleged perpetrators must not influence foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions.” – OECD

We now have confirmation that there is no legal way that a country’s national economic interest can be considered under the law.

For these additional reasons, jurisprudence about the authority of the Public Prosecution Service, and third party reports about the intentions of the 1999 agreement from the OECD, I still find in favour of the former Attorney General for a third time.

Click to listen to Red Deer Accountant Cory Litzenberger on Charles Adler Tonight

Cory G. Litzenberger, CPA, CMA, CFP, C.Mgr is the President & Founder of CGL Strategic Business & Tax Advisors; you can find out more about Cory’s biography at http://www.CGLtax.ca/Litzenberger-Cory.html

CEO | Director CGL Tax Professional Corporation With the Income Tax Act always by his side on his smart-phone, Cory has taken tax-nerd to a whole other level. His background in strategic planning, tax-efficient corporate reorganizations, business management, and financial planning bring a well-rounded approach to assist private corporations and their owners increase their wealth through the strategies that work best for them. An entrepreneur himself, Cory started CGL with the idea that he wanted to help clients adapt to the ever-changing tax and economic environment and increase their wealth through optimizing the use of tax legislation coupled with strategic business planning and financial analysis. His relaxed blue-collar approach in a traditionally white-collar industry can raise a few eyebrows, but in his own words: “People don’t pay me for my looks. My modeling career ended at birth.” More info: https://CGLtax.ca/Litzenberger-Cory.html

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Trudeau ‘finished what his father started’ driving Canada into failing freefall

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Linda Slobodian

In 2015 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scorned Canada — a country that afforded him so much, yet to which he had contributed nothing of notable significance. His disdain for those on whose backs Canada was built was clear. History and European national origins had to be blotted out.

Canada was a “post-national” nation with “no core identity,” he arrogantly told the New York Times. The reckless socialist ideology he spat out was an omen of the division, fear and attack on so-called privileged (white) Canadians that hit like a storm. It hovers over us like a choking toxic cloud.

If Trudeau’s vision was a Canada “completely splintered,” with Quebec a nation unto itself “separate and distinct,” English-speaking provinces “fractured into oblivion” and breaking up our “common culture” — then mission accomplished.

“He’s finished what his father started,” said Lt. Col. Dave Redman (ret’d), who served 27 years with the Canadian Armed Forces and headed Alberta’s Emergency Management Agency.

The Trudeau concept of a post-national state is “dangerous and misleading.”

“It implies that democratically elected national governments are no longer relevant.”

Redman explained Canada’s “shifting socio-political landscape” with powerful clarity in Canada 2024: A Confident Resilient Nation or a Fearful Fracture Country? in the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Canadians know something has gone terribly wrong beyond mounting financial struggles and trampled rights. Our nation’s rife with “apologies and internal divisions,” said Redman.

“Confidence has been turned into fear and shame. Canada has become irrelevant on the world stage.”

Canada’s in a “failing” freefall.

“Why will no one invest economically in Canada? Why are people leaving Canada? Why are people not believing that Canada has a future? Why are our allies ignoring us and holding us in disdain? Because we are a threat to their national security because China can get to them through us.”

Canada’s at a “critical juncture.” Until politicians and Canadians unite with common values and defended borders —necessary for a successful nation — Canada will be “stumbling from one crisis to another.”

Until Canadians hold them to account, politicians will fixate on minor “wedge” issues — such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — to divert attention from critical national concerns they want us to ignore.

Convincing people to feel bad about themselves makes it easier to manipulate guilt and usher in destructive, ideological programs with obscene price tags.

Canada must foster national pride, prioritize national interests and protect national security to secure its future, said Redman.

“A nation is successful when a group of people live in one country with defended borders and share common values, even if they vary in cultures and languages.”

Redman’s six-point framework for national interests includes unity, national security, good governance, protection of rights and freedoms, economic prosperity and growth and personal and community well-being. He offers strategies on how to achieve these critical objectives.

“I believe the current sitting government truly does believe that the World Economic Forum’s concepts and ideals of post-national states is what Canada should be and they have started it.”

“I believe the current government of Canada is intentionally walking each of those six national interests away from Canada in a way that will allow Canada to become part of a broken world.”

It’s up to Canadians to decide what direction we head in.

“The reason I wrote this paper was to make people think about our country in a 20-to-25-year vision. And not let the current government which loves to use divisive, tactical issues to destroy the larger picture conversation. And in doing so, destroy our economy, destroy our unity, destroy our national security by focussing on tactical issues,” said Redman.

A vision for Canada involves citizens who are optimistic about the future, have self-respect to follow through on their ideas, and courage to stand up for their culture and ideals, he said.

Trudeau and his band of self-serving renegades unleashed an ideological curse on Canada.

But we let them.

Then COVID-19 demonstrated how quickly rights and freedoms “can be trampled on, eviscerated and dismissed.”

For a glorious moment in time Freedom Convoy truckers rejuvenated Canadian pride, united Canadians and emboldened us to fight for freedom. Peaceful protesters who waved the Canadian flag were punished.

Yet the silence is deafening as people who despise Canada’s core identity — yes, Trudeau, we have one — hijack our nation and our children’s future.

Redman points to “diaspora marching routinely in the streets of our cities supporting illegal terrorist organizations demanding the death of both citizens here and abroad.”

They wave flags but never the Maple Leaf. They support other countries “but do not march for Canada.”

“Unity is the core value for a country. A cultural unity is based on common shared ethics, values and beliefs. People wishing to become citizens of a country must understand these principles of belief and join the country because they wish for the same to be the foundation of their daily lives.”

“Many who come to a country, not wishing to join the cultural unity of that country, are enemies, intentional or otherwise, who work to erode or destroy this unity.”

Immigration is part of national security.

“You’re pouring people into our country who do not share our ethics and values. And you’re doing it intentionally. That will destroy unity and while it’s destroying unity it will destroy economic prosperity and growth.”

“Our police and courts take no action or in fact support these illegal acts.”

“Our current federal government, many of our provincial territorial governments and our municipal governments stand silently by, or in some cases support the destruction of our values, laws and national interests.”
Redman said the question is, what do Canadians want Canada to be? Will we stand up and root out infectious ideology? Is it too late?

“My paper is about how to overcome what’s happened. It’s happened, we can’t change that. But it’s how to get politicians and Canadians to change how they think about our country. And to have a process to put in place, a vision for our country and have elected officials explain what they see the vision to be. Canadians can make a choice between visions.”

Citizens, academia, public and private sector organizations, unions, religious and non-religious groups need to get involved to break down national interests into “clear and attainable objectives.”

Politicians must explain what unity and democracy means to them. That’s not happening.

Many Canadians are pinning hopes on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre forming the next federal government.

“My line to Poilievre is I understand his tactical four bullet plan you know that inflation’s up, the cost of living’s up, that housing’s bad and people need more money in their pocket.”

“I get it. He’s beating that drum over and over. But we’ve got a year before the election, he needs to start talking about his vision for Canada.”

Canada was once internationally respected, trusted and consulted. Now we are pitied by shocked outsiders witnessing woke ideology and crushed free speech forced upon us.

“We’ve been taught to be ashamed of our history instead of proud of it, or even to learn from it.”

“We have completely shattered democratic institutions. Our election system is in question. Our legislatures are in turmoil, our courts, our schools, our medical system. The mainstream media is completely partisan. Our economy is broken. People can’t meet bills at the end of the month and we’re ignored and shunned by our allies.”

Redman addressed good governance, offering guidelines on how to “strengthen and preserve the democratic way of life in Canada.”

“Good governance to me means defence of democracy, where in other countries it can mean absolute control of a totalitarian government.”

Redman’s suggestions to stop Canada from being completely “shattered” include a 100% immigration policy review; halting funding to universities that are “domestic threats” and removing Marxists professors; establishing a monitored election process; and ending government-funded media.

Agencies that counter external threats must be “equipped to work individually and cooperatively, with each other and our allies.”

Stop foreign aid that counters our interests and national security.

“While Canadians are challenged to put food on the table and to have a house, they watch as the federal government sends hundreds of millions of dollars to international organizations and specific countries that do not share our democratic aims or our national interests.”

There must be “a wall of people hitting” politicians telling them to listen or face defeat.

“In 25 years will Canada be a democracy? Or will it become a country led by an authoritarian government that uses fear and threats to remove imaginary risks from the daily lives of Canadians who have lost their self-respect and courage?”

Look at what eight years did.

First published here.

Linda Slobodian is the Senior Manitoba Columnist for the Western Standard based out of Winnipeg. She has been an investigative columnist for the Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Sun, and Alberta Report.

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Economy

The 15-Minute City: An extraordinarily bad idea

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Randal O’Toole

” the average resident of the New York urban area—the closest thing to a 15-minute city in the U.S. or Canada—can reach at least 21 times as many jobs in a 20-minute auto drive as in a 20-minute walk. The same will be true of other economic opportunities.  “

The latest urban planning fad to sweep across Canada is the 15-minute city, which proposes to redesign cities so that all urban residents live within an easy, 15-minute walk of schools, retailers, restaurants, entertainment, and other essentials of modern life. This is supposed to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions while it increases our quality of life.

Some think it is a conspiracy. Others insist it is not. Conspiracy or not, the only way to have true 15-minute cities would be to drastically change Canadian lifestyles.

Fifteen-minute cities mean a lot more people living in multifamily housing and fewer in single-family housing. It means most food shopping would be done in high-priced, limited-selection grocery stores. There is no way that Costcos or even large supermarkets can fit into 15-minute cities; to survive, these stores need a lot more customers than could live within a 15-minute walk from their front doors.

Most of the benefits claimed for 15-minute cities are wrong. Proponents claim they would be more affordable, but high-density, multi-story housing costs two to five times as much, per square foot, as single-family homes. Packing people into four- and five-story apartment buildings would require cutting average dwelling sizes at least in half to make them anywhere close to affordable.

Proponents also claim 15-minute cities would save energy and reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants. But let’s be honest: people aren’t going to give up their cars or stop going to Costco.

Admittedly, the U.S. Department of Energy says that people living in high-density cities do drive a little less than people in low-density areas. But it also says that there is a lot more congestion in high-density cities. Since cars use more energy in slower traffic, high-density cities use more energy (and therefore emit more greenhouse gases) per capita than low-density areas.

Proponents also claim that 15-minute cities will be more equitable. Yet, before about 1890, most Canadian cities were 15-minute cities. Most people in these cities lived in crushing poverty and there were huge disparities between the rich and the poor, with only a small middle-class in between.

What changed these cities was the mass-produced automobile. The Model T Ford democratized mobility, allowing more people to escape the dense cities to find better housing, better jobs, access to lower-cost consumer goods, and a wider range of social and recreation opportunities.

The University of Minnesota Accessibility Observatory calculates that the average resident of the New York urban area—the closest thing to a 15-minute city in the U.S. or Canada—can reach at least 21 times as many jobs in a 20-minute auto drive as in a 20-minute walk. The same will be true of other economic opportunities. Eliminating the automobile, which is the goal of the 15-minute city, would eliminate those economic benefits.

We had this same debate 50-some years ago when urban skies were polluted with carbon monoxide, smog, and other toxic automobile emissions. Some people advocated policies that would force people to drive less. Others advocated new technologies that would reduce the air pollution coming from autos and trucks.

Today, total automotive air pollution has been reduced by about 90 percent. All this improvement came from cleaner cars: new cars today pollute only about 1 percent as much as cars made in 1970. None of this improvement came from anti-automobile policies, as Canadians drive far more miles today than they did 50 years ago.

If anything, policies aimed at reducing driving made pollution worse as one of those policies was to increase traffic congestion to get people out of their cars. Yet, as noted above, cars actually pollute more in congested traffic.

Anti-automobile policies today, including 15-minute cities, spending billions on rail transit lines that carry only a small percentage of urban travel, and converting general street lanes into exclusive bike lanes, are going to have the same effect.

People who care about the planet should demand policies that actually work and not ones that are based on urban planning fantasies and fads. Instead of attempting to drastically change Canadian lifestyles, that means making cars that are cleaner and more fuel-efficient so that the driving we do has a lower environmental impact. The 15-minute city may not be a conspiracy, but it is still an extraordinarily bad idea.

Randal O’Toole is a transportation policy analyst and author of Building 21 st Century Transit Systems for Canadian Cities, an upcoming report published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Watch Randal on Leaders on the Frontier here.

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