The Libranos: SNC Lavalin

SNC Lavalin The Libranos 75 Comments

It’s been years since I read Bourque. These days, it’s worth an exception.

This morning, overheard at Nate’s Deli one block south of the West Block in downtown Ottawa, is a savory suggestion that at least 3 and as many as 7 Liberal MPs are ready to bolt from the Liberal caucus if Jody exits the team, including one high profile cabinet minister .. >>> And perhaps equally troubling is news out of the PMO from a person extremely close to the action that heads are about to roll inside the bunker, including the abrupt exit of one of the PM’s top adjuncts (a power struggle is underway), possibly couched as a diplomatic posting to some exotic location half way around the world. Apparently the natives are restless and the leadership is in full panic mode ..

75 Replies to “The Libranos: SNC Lavalin”

  1. He used to have a byline called “overheard at Hys”
    Sounds like the swamp denizens have found a place to gather and feed the court stenographers.
    The one point in that screed that is pure rumour mill is about the 7 or so MP’s that are ready to jump ship including a senior cabinet member.

    Any guesses?

    1. I think there are Liberals plotting to get rid of Justin. I would be very surprised if any jump ship. The number one goal of Liberals is to stay in power. They have no other principles.
      If they get rid of Justin then they have a better chance of staying in power. Their argument being “see we got rid of the corruption, now move along folks, no need to keep digging”

        1. Justin does not function without Butts in the background. Who would run the show? If one goes, the other must to as well. They are more or less joined at the hip.

      2. Um, yeah. It’s Bourque. I wouldn’t trust any of the nonsense Liberal fluff on that site. Just trying to draw hits (money) to his website by creating “unnamed sources” drivel.

        Yeah, 7 Libs leaving caucus, um, ok, sure, we’ll get right on that. I don’t trust ANY Ottawa mediot swamp creature!

    2. If true, that would be quite bad for Justin.

      It’s one thing when a high-level affirmative action hire bolts. She can be silenced with some doing.

      But seven?

      Let’s see.

    3. Eat a breakfast there every once in a while when I have site visits, etc. Suits and construction workers. Wish my hearing was better…

        1. Plus Two: So, the connection of the current Lavalin — Librano scandal may make a full circle back to the Chretien era Librano scandal. Bonokoski, in the Sun: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/bonokoski-why-is-trudeau-seemingly-standing-up-for-snc-lavalin talks about the conviction of one Michael Fournier who was the head of the Federal Bridge Corp. Well, guess who appointed Michel, not Michael, Fournier to the top of the Federal Bridge Corp.? Jean Chretien. Apparently, the RCMP are bringing 4 more charges. Yeha! Same old Libranos.

    5. Joseph,imo, if anyone was going to jump ship it might be Garneau who must be terminally pissed off at Trudeau getting the job he should have had.
      It would be celebration time for non-Liberals in Canada if 7 MP’s and a Cabinet member walked across the House to sit as Independents.

  2. These Quebecers probably find it unfathomable that they could get in trouble for bribery and corruption. It’s part of daily life there. I used to work with a guy who was a maintenance manager for a 1000+ employee factory in Montreal. Company is still a major global company, although the Montreal plant is closed. (Which is why he ended up working for me in Ontario).
    When he worked at the plant in Montreal the company provided him with a locked cash box he kept in his desk. Whenever someone from the government showed up – health and safety, environment etc to inspect, he just hauled out the cash box, paid them off and at worst got a couple of easy cheap work orders to make it look good. It was expected, and happened everywhere in Quebec. Imagine how badly hosed the companies that didn’t play along were.

    1. Amazing? Nope. I too have friends who have worked in Quebec and their stories are all along the same vein. Quebec is a dirty corrupt place, truly a distinct society.

      1. Joe, you should watch the Quebec movie The Barbarian Invasions. It documents how to get healthcare in that province.

    2. Remember the guys changing light bulbs at Olympic stadium. One would go around in the lead with a long stick break every 4th light.

      1. G of E…and once the toilets and urinals were installed in The Big Owe, they were routinely smashed and, of course re-installed. Never heard of anyone getting nailed for that. It’s a way of life in Quebec.

    3. Greg is absolutely correct. The corruption is culturally ingrained. Years ago (80’s) I was visiting my folks in Montreal and saw that street level frontage on St Catharines was super cheap. I made some inquiries and started putting together a decent business plan for a hip coffee shop (The craze had yet to hit Montreal). The deeper I got in, the better it looked and was moving ahead full steam. In passing I mentioned it to my father who had for the better part of his career been involved in the food/agriculture business and new it well in Quebec. He asked me one question, “Who are you buying your coffee from”? When I answered him he rephrased the question, “Who do you THINK you’re buying your coffee from”? It took me all of a nano second to immediately understand what he was telling me. I might have had a purchase agreement with a supplier but shortly after opening I would be visited by a pair of individuals who would introduce themselves as my new supplier of coffee. I would have no choice and the price I would pay would be non-negotiable. My great plan instantly evaporated.

      1. I’ve got one for you…Back in the 60’s when I was in high school in Ottawa one of my classmates was from Point Gatineau. His uncle had a trucking business in Montreal, he did dump truck work. My classmate said he was going to go and work for his uncle. In the fall when school was back in we talked about summer jobs etc. I asked him how the truck driving job went. Well the story still makes my blood boil….according to him his day started with a dump truck full of fuel and a full load of gravel to be delivered to the new Expo Site. He would go in one gate get his load stamped as delivered, he then drove around the construction site and then left by the exit gate. HE DID NOT DROP OFF HIS LOAD OF GRAVEL. He then went for a coffee or took his time driving around and then went through the same gate and be stamped as delivered and the drive around etc. He said he lost more gravel driving around than delivering. He was delivering the same load of gravel for at least one or two days. This is I guess the best example of corruption I have ever seen except the current liberal government…..Steve O

        1. Steve O,I worked with a caulker from Quebec city who worked on The Big O stadium. He told me that at one point the job wasn’t ready for the caulkers, but the boss of the company was well connected,so the men showed up for work, then hid in a discrete spot and slept until the work day was over. This went on for at least a week.

          They got paid, didn’t care,it was as “Roland” said, “the way we do it in Quebec”.

        2. I heard effectively the same story from my Dad (his info circa the same time) about cement mixers. Five went in the front gate, and 4 went out the back gate, off to contribute to other construction goals. And then there were the things he had to say about Duplessis et al….

    4. Greg: good post. These things need to be explained to TROC. Westerners have little clue how quebek rolls.

      Fishworld is much the same. 40 seats – 40 libranos. It’s the, ‘what’s in it for me crowd’, there. Maritimers see the government as the solution to all problems, not the cause of all problems.

  3. We have no confidence in Government! It’s curtains now and downhill all the way. Fall on your knees, fall on your sword. Good riddance Liberals. It’s over. Away!Away!Away! Call an election! Toute suite!

    https://youtu.be/bPkK1CNPtjk

    1. Of course above post implies that the Liberals would have to fall on their upcoming budget.The new MPs should be worried. Why wait for September-October? Rotten Government stench, we must drain the swamp!

        1. “Germans?”

          “Forget it, he’s rolling.”

          One of the funniest movies ever made!

    2. Don’t bet on it. The CBC is reporting the scandal now, but as the election nears they’ll consider it old news and not worthy of mention. Instead they (and the rest of the mainstream media) will be telling us how wonderful Justin is despite his “very minor” failings and how extremely radical, racist, homophobic, misogynist, islamaphobic, anti-science and all round hateful all conservatives are.

  4. When Harper handed over the keys to the Libs, the list of crap to fix was very small. Now if Cons get into power the list is endless, (US, India, China, Saudi relations, the budget, Pipelines, illegal immigration, the open border, SNC bribes, NAFTA, Carbon Tax, Weed, Provincial fighting) not sure I would want the challenge, it might be better to wait 4 more years and let the Libs reap what they have they have sown. God help Canada if it happens thou!

    1. Good point. Besides, the neo-Marxists have a huge majority of Canadians enthralled with their promises. When you start telling them everybody has to pay for shit, including debt, not just the top 60%, they’ll piss and moan like never before.
      The tipping point has long since passed.

    2. Wakeup, you are right on. It is such a mess that the Conservatives should just run candidates in Alberta and Saskatchewan and get us out of this mess. Fixing the Federal Goverment and Quebec is never going to happen.

  5. I have no confidence in the Canadian public to make an informed decision regarding this corruption.

    After it was revealed that the Chrétien liberals were laundering government program money and funneling it into the liberal party coffers, the conservatives only won a minority government.

    People don’t care about corruption, they only care about what hand out they’re gonna receive.

    1. Without an independent free press, how can Canadians make an informed decision on anything? There is only fake news and faker news. Governments alway counts on ignorant votes. If more Canadians really understood the truth, we would throw all the bums out of office.

  6. Well Groper gave a cushy diplomatic job in Chicago to a Toronto Star executive, so I’m sure he can find suitable taxpayer funded spots around the world for his buddies to avoid scrutiny.

  7. Paul Wells’s column of yesterday is condign, highly-explanatory, and highly-damaging to the Liberals, but, nevertheless, very good for Andrew Scheer, actually (gellen or someone else linked to it last evening — sorry if the reference is wrong, but it’s well-worth a “re-link”):

    https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canada-the-show/

    I had thought from Saturday that Scheer had been the naive victim of a set-up (to co-opt him to inoculate the Liberals from a scandal), which, apparently he was: he should never have agreed to meet on the subject (and the CPC should never have taken any money from the outfit involved), as I have previously stated in these pages. My only concern, other than for the Country, is for the Conservative Party, as I have no doubt about what the Liberal Party is about.

    So, Mr. Scheer, given Mr. Well’s and M. Bourque’s comments, was very clearly kept in the dark, just as much as JW-R was kept in the dark (and maybe the PM himself: “You know, I am not in charge here, I am only da’ Prime Minister”).

    That’s exculpatory for Scheer: hopefully, he’ll do better going forward: “Fool me once, …”

    1. “So, Mr. Scheer, given Mr. Well’s and M. Bourque’s comments, was very clearly kept in the dark”

      True David. But that is the way with mushrooms the world over.

      And while we’re talking about things dank and fetid, our illustrious press has been obligingly running with the story that things must be rocky between J W-R and turdo la doo because she has retained a lawyer.

      But, as someone pointed out here yesterday, he is on the Turdo Foundation. So the MSM has also (obligingly?) failed to mention that there is zero chance that his representation of J W-R will have anything to do with opposition to turdo la doo. Why, a more cynical guy than me might even suggest that “someone” had handed J W-R a business card!

      “He retired from the Supreme Court of Canada on 1 September 2016. The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation APPOINTED HIM A TRUDEAU MENTOR in 2017.”

      http://www.fondationtrudeau.ca/en/community/thomas-cromwell

      1. Jamie MacMaster: Do you think Jody W-R knows about the conflict of interest in hiring Thomas-Cromwell. Now we will find out if he can separate working for both and which one he really needs to feather his pillow.

    1. That’s true, but they may well be very fed up with the Butts and Justin show. Justin’s insiders are hurting the Liberal brand and certainly hurting Canada. I don’t think a lot of Liberals were prepared for all the feminist virtue signalling and fiasco around immigration. Under Justin, the Liberals are borderline extremists (at least from the point of view of traditional Liberalism.) Their policies are not at all balanced. And of course, Justin himself is just a puppet in all of this. Insiders know this. I predict that many Liberal voters are planning to stay home next time.

  9. Something strange is going on. I think we’re through the looking glass on this one people and there is more going on than meets the eye. I find it hard to believe that anyone that would run for the liarberals and ascend to the level of cabinet minister would have any ethics whatsoever. It simply isn’t in their DNA. For someone to all of a sudden have pangs of guilt over a wink, wink, nudge, nudge when they have knowingly and willingly joined a group who’s only mantra is power, power, power, money, power, power…

    This SNC thing is just the tip of a much larger iceberg or a diversion from something even more nefarious (even for a liarberal)

    1. I totally agree with the tip of the iceberg analogy. Something occurred to me – there must be some reason WHY Canadian crude isn’t being shipped to Eastern Canada (i.e. Quebec) instead of crude from other countries. There must be a reason other than the tired stock environmental “dirty oil” one why Quebec’s Premier and Montreal’s Mayor are so virulently anti-Energy East Pipeline. Could it be that there’s a secret “business” understanding linking eastern Canadian companies like SNC getting large lucrative overseas work in other major oil producing countries that secures a negotiated portion of the eastern Canadian market (complete with complicit gov’t officials) for those countries? I have no proof but it’s funny how SNC’s pants got caught pulled down over Libya where oil only started producing again between Sep 2016 to Sep 2017. I wonder how much of Libya’s oil now comes down the St. Lawrence?

      Another point to be made – the media’s tossing out endless justifications for SNC’s overseas palm greasing behaviour as “just how business over there is done” and how many thousands of jobs in Quebec (roughly 9000) depend on SNC. It’s ironic and hypocritical how many MORE thousands of Western Canadian (primarily Albertan jobs) depended on pipeline construction that JT’s Liberals effectively and intentionally torpedoed. Yet only those from Quebec get media support even to the point of gas lighting criminal activity of most favoured company. This confederation is so utterly broken. Wholesale change is needed and the will to investigate and imprison those who’ve sold out the rest of Canada for their few pieces of silver.

      1. Martin B nails CBC’s typical smarm and hipocracy,according to CBC “Thousands of jobs may be lost”7-9000,yet when 100 thousand get laid off in the West,CBC insinuates “Alberta’s whining again”.
        And of course a whole bunch of the SNC maintenance jobs will still get done,just not by SNC.
        Where as the oil patch jobs are completely gone.
        All that is left of confederation is the con.

      2. I think you may have nailed it. There must be a well connected liarberal(s) making a great deal of money brokering foreign oil into Quebec and the east.

        Can you imagine what our press would be doing if the PM was Harper and the company was Suncor. I don’t think there would be such a hue and cry about “Canadian” jobs

      4. Martin B, Power Corp. has been invested in ME oil since the 1980’s through their part ownership of Total Fina,and you are undoubtedly right about SNC having a lot of business in the ME as well. Probably half the Bigs in Quebec are invested over there.
        They don’t want Alberta oil simply because it would interfere with their contracts for ME oil.

      5. On the Canadian vs. imported crude question I saw a comment somewhere (I have done so much surfing the last few days I havn’t been able to track back to it, might have even been a comment on SDA) to the effect that foreign crude comes through the Port of Montreal and other Quebec ports controlled by the unions, controlled by the mob and imported from countries/companies that know how to pay their way. Western Canadian crude would come by pipeline, and supplied by Canadian companies which would be much more difficult to get a piece of. I don’t know if that theory has any validity whatsoever or if indeed their could be payola at that level. It was an interesting theory however.

  10. Without an independent free press, how can Canadians make an informed decision on anything? There is only fake news and faker news. Governments alway counts on ignorant voters. If more Canadians really understood the truth, we would throw all the bums out of office.

    1. Bingo! What the Press focuses on becomes an issue (Duffy) and what the Press chooses to ignore just goes away (Adscam and the broken promise to repay it all before the last federal election).
      This story has legalities and numbers and…..oh, look, a fat guy!

  11. There is a tendency in much of the commentary to portray Wilson-Raybould as a virtuous victim. I cannot forget that she is a Liberal, a progressive, and a career politician. Leaving cabinet speaks more of a power struggle and a bruised ego than an ethical standard, and there is nothing yet to indicate otherwise. I seriously doubt that in her 3-year tenure in cabinet SNC was her first dance. The first (or second) rat to desert a sinking ship is still a rat.

      1. “The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy, nothing more.” The corollary to which might be, in this context, “Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake.”

    1. Didn’t watch it, but I gather the Liberals on the committee are starting the cover up. No invite to JWR, no invite to Butts, etc.

      What a pathetic bunch of crooks. Even Warren Kinsella is appalled.

  14. The more PM PantsOnFire squirms, the closer he gets to mental breakdown mode.
    Watch out ladies, if he gets angry he’ll elbow you in the ta ta’s and tell you to get the fcuk out of his way.
    Be fun when Chief Big Screen and the rest of the We Was Here First Nations start attacking the lying, unethical, man-hating poseur for counting coup on one of their matriarchal stars.

  15. Wilson-Raybould is from west coast. She will never be a true Liberal. Not a laurentian Liberal.
    Not too mention she was really just a token. They expected her to be grateful.

    2. “Lots of K Bec press, but not all, are certainly on SNC Lavalin’s side as well as PM Juthtin.”

      In other words, just like the press in the ROC.

    3. This story is completely different in quebek. The corruption angle is acceptable. What they fail to acknowledge is that SNC bribes politicians.

      I guess that’s ok if they pay a fine. What does that say about corporate culture? It’s ok to engage in criminal activity as long as you pay a fine? Nobody is culpable?

      Who would sit on a board of directors of a corporation who repeatedly engaged in this kind of activity?

      I hate crony capitalism.

  18. Since were all speculating how about another angle.

    JWR plays the native card. Lets say she has some damaging info. That info gets leaked and someone upstairs has to take the high jump. Maybe it extends all the way to bongo hizself….

    A huge coup for the native cause. They take down a sitting PM. I know the native boys – they are salivating over the prospect.

    If it did play out this way JWR would be seen as a 5th column type but so what?

  19. Strikes me that the Groper is establishing quite the form of beating up on natives.
    Remember Tootoo?
    Brazeu?
    Now What ‘er name.
    Just as the Chiefs have finally figured out,that the Liberals were lying to them ,again,as usual..
    Liberals are the most racist group in Canada,they have kept the Canadian Apartheid System running longer than any would have though probable.
    2019 and Natives are still not full citizens and Native Women still have no rights at all.

    Keeping a people defeated and trapped on isolated reserves is the Liberal Way.Because the Liberals see the natives as useful..A sure and special way to steal taxpayers funds that is.

  20. Talked with a guy out here in BC about all of this. He said it was all BS, fake news. Trudeau will easily win a majority next election.

    I am afraid the majority of Canadians in our big cities and Quebecers feel the same way. No matter how corrupt the Liberals are the majority of Canadians are left wingnuts and will continue to vote Liberal. The Liberal government knows this all too well. It is after all, the Family Compact of the 1830s redux.

  21. i can imagine that some liberals actually have thought that they can make all of this go away if they just “pony” up and buy snc lavalin. see? that way they can feel good about saving canadians from the opposition parties! 🙂

  22. Oh crap just what we don’t want. The Leader replaced and another 4 years of Liberal Government re-elected by dummies.

  23. In the 1940’s my father owned a country store ESSO gas station in Riverfield Quebec.
    Was denied a license to sell beer by the local Catholic council unless he padded the churches donation plate.
    Dad refused and sold his store, then wanted to buy the hotel in Howick, same problem no liquor license unless he was willing to pay off the church, refused again.
    The last straw was when our maid’s father fell down his stairs and died, his body wasn’t given last rights and couldn’t be buried without some moolah for the church, our maid couldn’t afford the bribe, so the church sent 2 reps to plead with my mother to help our maid pay her indulgence fee, my mother chased them off the property.
    Dad sold everything , said goodbye to corrupt Quebec and moved to Ontario within 3 months.
    True story.

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