Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s swan song — a high-speed rail from Toronto to Québec City — is to be built by the scandal-riddled SNC-Lavalin, rebranded under a new name.
The outgoing prime minister, who will be replaced March 9 by the winner of the Liberal leadership contest, in 2019 was publicly accused of corruption related to the Montreal-based conglomerate by then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould and then-Treasury Board President Jane Philpott.
SNC-Lavalin in 2019 pleaded guilty to fraud in the Québec Provincial Court and was fined $280 million. As the Western Standard earlier reported, executives in an Agreed Statement Of Facts acknowledged the company paid $47.7 million in bribes to secure contracts in Libya.
A 2021 report by the Ethics Commissioner says Trudeau and his political aides arranged up to 49 separate meetings and phone calls to discuss SNC-Lavalin’s legal troubles and save it from criminal prosecution.
Trudeau’s Liberals and Jagmeet Singh’s NDPs voted against calling a judicial inquiry into the allegations of corruption. The Commons at the time voted 159 to 133 against the inquiry.
Now, less than three weeks before Trudeau’s final day in office, the prime minister has climbed back into bed with SNC-Lavalin, which has rebranded as AtkinsRéalis. CEO Ian Edwards in 2023 said the now 114-year-old company had reached an "inflection point" and was now changing its name, per the CBC.
The Carney-Trudeau Liberals have selected a “cadence consortium” made up of AtkinsRéalis, Air Canada, CDPQ Infra, SYSTRA and SNCF Voyageurs as the government’s “private development partner” to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the high-speed rail.
Trudeau on Wednesday pledged $3.9 billion over six years for the rail’s development phase — in addition to the $371.8 million allocated in last year’s budget.
Transport Canada estimates the overall cost of the project could exceed $80 billion by the time of completion.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) called the project a multibillion dollar “boondoggle” that will stagger taxpayers.
“Trudeau is only prime minister for another couple of weeks, so he shouldn’t be borrowing billions more for a new taxpayer boondoggle,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director.
“Somebody needs to take the credit card away from the lame duck prime minister before he puts Canada further into debt.