ECA Review 2019-03-07

6 M a r c h 7 ' 1 9 h a N N A / C o r o n a t i o n / S t e t t l e r , A b . E C A r e v i e w
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Published by
Coronation
Review
Limited
72 pt
East Central Alberta
EVIEW
60 pt
48 pt
36 pt
O p i n i o n
Politics of being, not doing
Brenda Schimke
ECA Review
We don’t need either
Conservative Leader Andrew
Scheer or NDP Leader Jugmeet
Singh calling for Prime
Minister Trudeau’s resignation,
that’s the people’s job
when we go to the polls this
fall.
What we need from both
Scheer and Singh is to do their
jobs. Thanks to the Globe &
Mail, we know all about the
SNC-Lavalin affair but we have
yet to hear from Opposition
leaders as to changes they
would make to stop this practice
occurring in the future.
Last week, I wrote about the
‘too big to fail’ scenario—politicians
taken hostage by big
money and multi-national corporations.
But there is other
less obvious, but significant
pitfalls in our current parliamentary
practices that enabled
the SNC-Lavalin affair.
First, we learned about the
imprudence and perils of one
person holding both the Justice
and the Attorney General portfolios.
It creates a natural and
dangerous conflict of interest.
In Great Britain, the
Attorney General (AG) is a
non-cabinet position that provides
legal counsel to the
Cabinet, but first and foremost
is the top legal officer of the
land. Although an elected MP,
the AG answers to Parliament.
On the other hand, the
Secretary of State for Justice is
a member of cabinet responsible
for developing policies
Editorial
that meet political ends. Israel’s
AG performs the same role, but
it has even more independence
as an unelected senior
bureaucrat.
The independence of the
Israeli AG was clearly on display
last week when it charged
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu with bribery and
breach of trust even while in
office.
As important as this separation
of power is to the rule of
law, so too is the recent introduction
of Deferred
Prosecution Agreements
(DPA).
Hidden deep in the bowels of
a 556-page omnibus budget
implementation bill passed by
the Liberal majority in
September 2018 was a provision
to allow for DPAs.
The DPA is another procedural
import from the USA
which is used to protect corporate
wrongdoers from being
brought before the courts to
face criminal charges.
These agreements are negotiated
behind closed doors and
replace criminal convictions
with fines, remediation measures,
enhanced reporting
requirement and maybe third
party oversight for a time.
Stop and think about the
implications—corporations
have not only become ‘too big
to fail’, but also ‘too big to be
held liable for criminal
activities’.
The Conservatives under
Stephen Harper imported the
American omnibus bill plaque
into Canadian legislative proceedings.
He and Trudeau have
both used this non-transparency
tool to slip through
corporate largess and coverups
to the disadvantage of the
masses.
What Trudeau did was not
illegal, it was political. If Singh
and Scheer do not bring forward
specific changes to
eliminate the possibility of
another SNC-Lavalin affair,
but only campaign on
Trudeau’s unethical failings, it
matters not whether it is a
Liberal, Conservative or New
Democratic government.
Promoting anger and emotions
to win elections, rather
than presenting substantive
changes to correct identified
problems, is simply the ‘politics
of being, not doing’ thereby
insuring the same results
regardless of who is in
government.
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Our Prime Minister supports corruption
“
Deferred
Prosecution
Agreements is another
procedural import from
the USA which is used
to protect corporate
wrongdoers from
being brought before
the courts to face
criminal charges.
by Herman Schwenk
It has been an interesting week. I
think the ‘sunny ways mask’ has
finally come off of Trudeau. Even the
mainstream media could not sugar
coat this event.
Nobody, especially Trudeau, his
office and the Liberal party expected
the damning evidence that came from
Jody Wilson-Raybould in her presentation
to the justice committee on
Wed. Feb. 26, 2019.
In that very detailed and explicit
testimony she set a high bar and came
across as being very credible; much
different than the Prime Minister
who has never come across as being
really credible.
So often he sounds like he is
making a presentation on stage.
To me, Trudeau came across as a
true hypocrite. He says one thing in
one part of the country and the opposite
on the other side of the country.
Regardless of what question he was
asked on this issue, even before
Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, his
answer was that his priority was to
protect jobs.
“
It seems that when
it suits his purpose the
strict rule of law is not so
important.
His concern was that there would be
9000 jobs lost if
“
“
SNC-Lavalin was convicted of fraud
and thus be forbidden from bidding on
government contracts for the next 10
years.
To me, that is just a red herring. If
SNC could not bid on those contracts
somebody else would. All that would
happen is that those engineers and
contractors would be working for a different
company.
What Trudeau really was concerned
about was the welfare of a large corrupt
liberal-friendly corporation, not
the welfare of the workers.
Our Prime Minister is blatantly supporting
a large fraudulent corporation
and he appears to take no shame in
that.
If it is a benefit for the Liberal party,
rules and morality can be bent to
accommodate the need. You will constantly
hear him talk about upholding
the rule of law. Especially when he is
mail bag
Act as Albertans
Dear Editor,
1.) These are merely suggestions.
Do what you will.
In Alberta, we do, if something
needs doing. No one
told me to write this. I just
felt it needed to be done.
2.) Fly your Alberta flag.
We have one in our front
window. It is just a natural
extension of our Alberta
license plate, our Alberta
health care cards and our
Alberta drivers’ licenses.
Knowing this, it seems –
to us – strange that many
Albertans fly Oilers flags,
Flames flags, Canadian
Flags - without an Alberta
3.) Be contrary to ‘conventional’
thinking.
Here’s one of my most contrary
thoughts: Vote “NO”
in the next “federal”
election.
This is not a “spoiled”
ballot (one which is
exchanged for a new one).
This one – in fact - makes
it into the ballot box but is
counted as “rejected”
because you did not mark
one of the “conventional”
choices.
The federal election is
usually decided before the
ballots are even counted in
Alberta.
flag in sight?
Turn to Should, Pg 10
Joyce Webster
Publisher/Editor
publisher@ecareview.com
BoNNY WilliaMS
Circulation Manager
referring to Huawei CFO Meng
Wanzhou and telling China that she
cannot be released because he is
upholding Canada’s rule of law.
However in the SNC-Lavalin affair,
he comes close to demanding that the
attorney general overrule the prosecution
service to negotiate a “remediation
agreement”, a new piece of legislation
with SNC so they can avoid a criminal
prosecution.
It seems that when it suits his purpose
the strict rule of law is not so
important.
Now here is where the PM’s hypocrisy
comes in. He seems to go to
extreme lengths to protect jobs in
Quebec but not so much in Alberta.
In this province there have likely
been over 40,000 real jobs lost because
of his cancellation of two pipelines and
his inaction on the Trans Mountain
pipeline.
Turn to Does not, Pg 9
brenda schimke
Editorial Writer
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