To the Expositor:
Very astute, in your “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” Feb. 13 editorial, (SNC –Lavalin a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, The Manitoulin Expositor, page 4) to recognize that the recent debate over corruption charges against the “SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.,” (headquartered in Montreal), could sink Justin Trudeau in the upcoming election. However, I take issue with your assumption that Canada’s campaign financing laws successfully limit corporate lobbyists from influencing political parties. “Democracy Watch” has disputed this mainstream media narrative for some time, running a “Money in Politics Campaign”, to stop big money in Canadian politics through existing loopholes and dodges.
“Democracy Watch highlighted key problems with the changes made by Bill C-76 (which became law in December), and the federal government’s initiatives announced today, that together don’t do enough to stop secret, fake online election ads, false claims about candidates, or to protect voters’ privacy. The Trudeau Liberals’ actions so far will make the fall 2019 federal election more dishonest and dominated by wealthy interests running false ad campaigns aimed at trying to undermine the election.” (Democracy Watch: January 30)
It has also been revealed in “A closer look at SNC-Lavalin’s sometimes murky past” by CBC, (Feb. 8), that “the Libya case is just one scandal among many linked to SNC-Lavalin in the past decade.” (“An investigation by CBC News and the Globe and Mail found SNC-Lavalin used a secret internal accounting code that former employees say was for bribes on projects across Africa and Asia.”) Though this “perfect political scandal” could sink the Liberals, neither the Conservatives nor the NDP seem likely to eke out a majority in the upcoming election. This could be a good thing, as Canadian minority governments have been a big improvement on previous Liberal or Conservative majority governments, who have always succumbed to massive indulgence at the corporate trough.
Derek Stephen McPhail
Providence Bay
