Former Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick told a House of Commons Ethics Committee that everyone in government acted in good faith regarding SNC-Lavalin five years ago.Wernick was among only four people who were interviewed by the RCMP in an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair that concluded there was not sufficient basis to pursue criminal charges.At committee Tuesday, Conservative MP Michael Barrett asked Wernick, "Did they ask you any questions dealing with Justin Trudeau?"Wernick replied, "That was five years ago. I do not remember the flow of the interview. We basically went over the flow of the material which you will see in the commissioner's report."Barrett repeated, "You don't remember if the prime minister's name was said by the RCMP investigator?""The interview took the form of going through the chronology of events, who met with whom, who spoke with whom, who communicated with whom and so on. So yes, the prime minister came up because yes I was in contact with the prime minister during that period," Wernick clarified.Barrett asked if Trudeau, Katie Telford or Gerard Butts should have been interviewed. Wernick said he had no opinion and that the decision was up to the police or prosecution service. He pledged to fully cooperate if an investigation would be made, but also said he already shared whatever he had to say about the matter when he spoke to a parliamentary committee five years ago.Trudeau was found to have breached ethics laws by putting pressure on Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to reach an agreement to avoid prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Bloc MP Rene Villemure asked Wernick if something could be unethical but still legal."There are behaviours that are not a matter of criminal law. So we can not be violating the code while not be violating the act. That was the conclusion made by the (ethics) commissioner," Wernick said.Villemure asked Wernick what he thought of the conclusions of the ethics commissioner."I believe that every person involved, the prime minister, myself as the clerk, the privy council, advisors, everyone tried to do their best and worked in good faith," Wernick said.Wernick said two days prior to Wilson-Raybould's testimony to committee five years ago, the deputy clerk authorized partial disclosure of cabinet confidences to allow her testimony. Upon questioning, Wernick said he recused himself of issues of document production after being called to speak to committee himself.Wernick said cabinet confidentiality was established as important by the courts, though he acknowledged to sharing notes on past meetings when requested by judges and commissioners. Villemure asked why there was no disclosure of such documents in SNC Lavalin."It was not my decision. That happened after I left," Wernick said.Conservative MP Michael Cooper challenged Wernick how SNC Lavalin could be said to be at risk of losing jobs and leaving Canada when they had just committed to major renovations at their Montreal headquarters. Wernick said, "That was my understanding at the time," and pointed to public disclosures and testimony by executives of SNC Lavalin to that effect. In later testimony, he added that economic considerations were valid under legislation to be a reason to resort to deferred prosecutions.Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, was dissatisfied with the testimony."Wernick's testimony highlighted that a lot of key information still remains secret and many serious questions still remain unanswered, about who did what to try to stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin and that shows again how negligently weak the RCMP's investigation was," Conacher said."While Mr. Wernick committed to disclosing some secret records to the committee and the committee may also demand disclosure of more secret records from the Cabinet, given the Cabinet will likely resist disclosure and that the RCMP is still hiding thousands of pages of records, likely a full public inquiry will be needed to determine exactly what happened and who was involved in all the very questionable actions and decisions at the time."
