Opposition MPs turn to ethics committee to probe SNC-Lavalin affair

Opposition members of the House of Commons ethics committeewill be pushing this week tobring renewed attentionto the SNC-Lavalin affair, with the hope of hearingfrom the two Liberal MPswho quit cabinet over the government's handling of the issue.

Members of the standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics are meeting Tuesday to discuss requests from theConservatives and NDPto study the SNC-Lavalincontroversy, which sparked the cabinet resignations of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott andleft Prime Minister Justin Trudeaufacing tough questions.

"The ethics committee is a natural second point for this because we deal with issues of lobbying," said Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus, a vice-chair of the ethics committee.

The Conservatives are planning to present a motion at Tuesday's meeting that would:

• Ask the prime minister to waive all constraints preventing former attorney general and justice minister Wilson-Raybould from speaking about her experience on the SNC-Lavalin file.
• Invite Wilson-Raybould and Philpott to testify before April 5.
• Allow the committee to table its findings in Parliament.

Wilson-Raybouldappeared before the justice committee last monthto answer questions about a Globe and Mail reportthat alleged she was pressed by senior people in the prime minister's officeto allow the Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to enter into a remediation agreement to avoid criminal prosecution on fraud and bribery charges.

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Jane Philpott, who left her role as president of the Treasury Board,recently made waves with an interview she gave to Maclean's, in which she said there's "much more" to the SNC-Lavalin story.

Philpott has not testified before committee, but her comments to Maclean's drew a strong response from some in the Liberal caucus. Humber RiverBlack Creek MP Judy Sgro told Chris Hall, host of CBC Radio's The House, "it's either put up or shut up," in an interview that aired on Saturday.

"You can't tell people to put up or shut up when you're not letting them speak," said Angusin response to Sgro's remark.

In addition to a possible Commons ethics committee inquiry, the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner is investigating the SNC-Lavalin case.

The government maintainsnothing improperhappened but opposition MPssay the full story has not yet been revealed and they want to hear from both the former ministers.

Last week, the Liberals used their majority on the Commons justice committee to end an inquiry into the matter. The Liberals have a majority on the Commons ethics committeebutAngussaidthat doesn't worry him.

The NDP MP shares the role of vice-chair of the ethics committee with Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.

In late February, as morequestions emerged about the SNC-Lavalin story, Erskine-Smithsided with an opposition motion Angus presented that called for a public inquiryand for the prime minister to waive solicitor-client privilege for the former attorney general.

Erskine-Smith didn't respond to CBC's request on Sunday for an interview, but Angus said he would be "very surprised" if the Toronto MPdidn't support a motion for their committee toinvestigate the government's handling of the SNC-Lavalin case.

"I'm hoping the Liberal members of the ethics committee will stand up on principle, as their colleagues on the justice committee obviously didn't," said Peter Kent, Conservative ethics critic and Thornhill MP.

"The biggest question is to hear what she [Wilson-Raybould] has to say between the moment she was officially removed from the attorney general post up until the moment that she resigned completely from cabinet."

Cabinet confidence questions

The prime minister has waived solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidence for Wilson-Raybould to testify about the matters linked toSNC-Lavalin dating from her time as attorney general, but she remains bound by cabinet confidence and can't speak about the period after she was moved to Veterans Affairs and before she quit cabinet.

An increasing number of Liberal MPs have said Wilson-Raybould and Philpott couldshare theirstories by rising in the House and using parliamentary privilege, but University of Ottawa law professor Errol Mendes said the former cabinetministers may feel bound by the oath to the privy council.

"It's basically swearing to the Queen and to God that as privy councillors they will keep secret everything that has been treated or debated in their capacity as privy councillors, i.e. members of the cabinet," Mendes said.

"I think there is an indication that they have a higher obligation to observe that even if they are allowed to present whatever they want within the confines of parliamentary privilege."

It's a question of legal constraints versus moral ethical constraints, according to Mendes, which the committee and the former cabinet ministers will have to navigate.

But there's something else Mendes wants the Commons ethics committee to review: the application of deferred prosecution agreements, a newly created legal tool. There are ethical questions to explore thereas well, the legal expert said.

Whether anything at all relating to the SNC-Lavalin affair will be scrutinized at the ethics committee could be decidedthis week.