The SNC Lavalin scandal is not looking good for the Trudeau government. The more people are digging up on the pressure placed on Jody Wilson-Raybould (JWR) when she was Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the more it appears the current government interfered in a criminal court case. But for me it goes further then just that. Yes, it proves the corruption inside the Trudeau Liberals, but it is the connection leading back to Trudeau that i am interested in.
The #LavScam runs to the highest levels of government, this is proven. The President and CEO of SNC Lavalin is Neil Bruce. He achieved his position in October 2015. Even before this, during his time as Chief Operating Officer, he was influential in turning SNC Lavalin into a giant corporation. He has been there in all of the corruption that has SNC Lavalin under scrutiny the last few weeks. Neil Bruce is married to Emma Griffin.
Emma Griffin has an extensive record, mostly in corporate financing. She has worked with Industrial Alliance, a Financial Group that is involved with selling insurance, wealth management and group pensions. She was co-teacher/ CEO of Insights class which is part of the MBA program at McGill University. She sits of the Board of Directors at AIMIA Inc, a global data-driven marketing and loyalty analytics company and finally is a Non Executive Director at Claridge Inc. It's this last company that makes it interesting. Claridge Inc was created in 1987 by Charles Bronfman, the father to Stephen Bronfman. Claridge is the private investment firm that manages Charles Bronfman's wealth and that "represents the interests of the Stephen Bronfman family". Stephen Bronfman is one of the Chief Liberal supporters/fundraiser and is a personal friend to Justin Trudeau.
The Bronfman family has a long shady past, even going back before the 20th century. Samuel Bronfman was the first of the Bronfman patriarchy that turned his little backwater family into prosperity through his creation of the Seagrams company, a distillery dealing in Canadian whisky, or at least that is the official story. In reality, Samuel Bronfman was placed in Canada. He has been described as "The Rothschild of the New World". He was set up by the Rothschild banking dynasty to carry out their plans in Canada and the US. His fortune was created by his involvement in smuggling alcohol into the States during Prohibition. He partnered with several Jewish and Italian mobsters stationed in America to carry out the sale of this alcohol. He was even partnered with the notorious Al Capone, who frequently visited Canada to meet with the Bronfmans and their representatives. They Bronfmans eventually expanded their business into prostitution and protection rackets, but has forever claimed their fortune came from Seagrams.
More recently, Stephen Bronfman was found to be hiding his fortunes overseas in private banks. This came out during the Paradise and Panama papers and people took notice for his connection to the Trudeau government as a fundraiser. This was also around the time that Trudeau was saying he was going to crackdown on people hiding their assets offshore to avoid the taxes and was after Trudeau's 2015 campaign promise to make the rich pay their fair share in a progressive tax bracket. In the end, the big liberal donors walk free while 80% of middle class Canadian families have been burdened with higher taxes.
But an even bigger back to Trudeau exists then Stephen Bronfman. One of the people sitting on the Board of Directors for SNC Lavalin is Jacques Bougie. he sits as Chair of the Governance and Ethics Committee.
Bougie has worked in many different well know companies including acting as PResident/CEO of Alcan inc, Director of McCain Foods Limited, sits on the boards of BCE Mobile Communications Inc., Bell Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Rona Inc and the Gairdner Foundation. He also involved with one other foundation, The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation where he is listed as a mentor.
The Trudeau Foundation is similar to the Clinton Foundation in that is is used to circumvent the election and donations rules set in place. People funnel money into the Trudeau Foundation and in return, the Prime Minister will act on their interests. SNC Lavalin has a direct connection to Trudeau. This is why the PM and his Cabinet have been attempting to change the prosecution to allow the Deferred Prosecution Agreement. It is not about protecting jobs, it is about protecting friends of the Liberal Party. And protecting their own assets.
Since the scrutiny began, We have discovered the connection of SNC Lavalin and the Quebec Pension Fund. The stock prices of SNC Lavalin has dropped significantly as investors have distanced themselves from the corruption allegations.
This would affect anyone who is still invested in the company stocks. We have discovered that Quebec's main public pension fund, The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, is the largest shareholder of SNC Lavalin stocks, owning about 20%. The Caisse is in control of both the Quebec Pension Plan with a net asset of $69.3 billion, the Quebec Retirement Plans Sinking Fund with a net asset of $78.5 billion and the Government and Public Employees Retirement Plan with $68.5 billion in assets. This is a lot of money to lose if SNC Lavalin stocks tank. This would affect the retirement savings of millions of Public Employees and members of government, both provincial and federal. This would potentially affect the retirement savings of people like the Prime Minister.
The bigger concern for the Liberals is the possibility of losing the province of Quebec, which has been a long standing Liberal stronghold and recently has been under attack as the Conservative Party has been making inroads. If the Quebec Pension Plan tanks due to their investment into SNC Lavalin, then millions of people will have lost their investments and quite possibly turn against the Liberal Party in the 2019 election. The stakes are high for the Liberals and is the real reason for the strong defence against any formal investigation by the RCMP into the matter.
