Q&A: 'No evidence' in SNC-Lavalin controversy, Edmonton MP says

There is "no evidence" that former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured to allow Quebec-based SNC-Lavalin to sidestep criminal prosecution, says Edmonton MP Randy Boissonnault.

The Globe and Mail reported last week Wilson-Raybould was pressured by the Prime Minister's Office to step in and resolve a case against engineering firm SNC-Lavalin which has been charged with bribery and corruption involving its contracts in Libya.

Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet Wednesday.

The House of Commons justice committee agreed Tuesday to hold an inquiry, but the five Liberal MPs used their majority to block nine key players in the controversy — including Wilson-Raybould — from testifying.

Committee member Randy Boissonnault spoke with Mark Connolly, host of CBC's Edmonton AM Thursday.

What is the reason for not summoning Jody Wilson-Raybould and some of Trudeau's top aides to testify?

We want to understand exactly what the limits are when you're an attorney general, what the limits are of how you can speak with your colleagues, how you can speak to your cabinet colleagues, how you can speak with other government people.

We want to take a look at what is known as the Shawcross doctrine. That's how you can actually talk about legal cases but not cross the line into insisting or directing somebody to do something.

And when it comes to asking Wilson-Raybould to come to committee, there are a couple of limitations. The reality is, she can't talk about her time as former attorney general. When you're a minister of the Crown and you become a minister of another portfolio, you can't talk about your previous portfolio. She's also bound by solicitor-client privilege.

The prime minister has asked the current Attorney General David Lametti to take a look and analyze if it's possible for the prime minister to waive that client-solicitor privilege. There's a lot going on. That's why we, in our motion, asked to take a look at the witness list together next Tuesday.

The prime minister, according to some, can waive the solicitor-client privilege. So far he hasn't done that. Doesn't it look like the Liberals are trying to silence the former attorney-general?

Absolutely not. Wilson-Raybould can speak to Canadians at any time. In fact, she doesn't need to come to the justice committee to speak. She's actually retained the counsel of former Supreme Court justice Thomas Cornwell, one of the best legal minds in the country.

I'm not sure what we would accomplish by having her come to the justice committee. We could ask her to come and she could just refuse.

What is important though is to really ask ourselves what's going on here. We have one story from Bob Fife at The Global and Mail with unconfirmed sources that people had a conversation. Well what are the conversations? Who are the people? What did they talk about?

The ethics commissioner has been asked to do an investigation, and that is the appropriate person in the Parliament of Canada to do such an investigation.

There is no evidence. Nobody's come forward and said this happened. And so we're going to have a good discussion about this on Tuesday.

Can you at least understand the optics of all this?

I can understand the optics, of course. I mean, the Conservatives called this back to Ottawa to have this conversation in conjunction with the NDP. And they were expecting us to just show up, shut down their motion in 10 minutes and go back home. We didn't do that because we know that Canadians are interested in this issue. They want to know what's going on. So do we. And so that's why we're proceeding.

We're going look into the issues that are affected by what did, or did not take place. And we're going to have witnesses. We're going get some answers. We're going get to the bottom of this

We're getting a lot of emails and messages from people who think that the Liberals are trying to hide something. What do you have to say to them?

We're going to have a conversation on Tuesday and we'll have a greater witness list. I think what people need to realize is that the justice committee is not a court of law.

The transcription above has been edited for length and clarity.

With files from The Canadian Press