Justice Committee on March 6th, 2019

[Michael Wernick]

Yes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you.

Ms. Raitt, you have five minutes.

[Lisa Raitt, Milton, CPC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Mr. Clerk, why did Mr. Butts say this morning that he was able to get access to his own emails within days of his needing to come to this committee, but Mark Norman has had to go to court to get access to his own emails?

[Michael Wernick]

I'm not sure I even understand the premise of the question.

[Lisa Raitt]

Okay. Then let's try this one. Mr. Wernick, you have given incredibly conflicted testimony, and I am going to take you through some of it.

The crux of the issue, according to Mr. Butts this morning was what and when the former attorney general told the Prime Minister himself, or you, that she had made up her mind and she was not going to change it.

Now, I asked you that question when you were here last. You didn't give an answer specifically but we ended up settling on September 17. Would you now say your testimony is that you found out from the former attorney general that she had made up her mind on this issue by September 17?

[Michael Wernick]

I accept that on September 17, in her mind, she had made a final decision.

In law, the decision was never final because she could always take into consideration public interest considerations and was able to take into account new information.

[Lisa Raitt]

Okay.

Mr. Wernick, you have provided for us your contact with SNC-Lavalin. I find it very helpful and I want to thank you for it, but I am troubled by one thing. You went to great lengths in telling us in your last testimony about how you had only a few meetings with them and indeed that you had several email requests for a meeting on September 18, a meeting you took. You registered it.

Then you told us about running into SNC executives at the NAC gala and that you left right away.

Indeed, the clerk contact document also indicates there were further requests for more meetings until October 15, and you took a call from the former clerk of the Privy Council, Kevin Lynch.

[Michael Wernick]

I believe that was the 18th.

[Lisa Raitt]

I have October 15 here in this. Whatever the date was, the date is this.

[Michael Wernick]

Whatever the date was.

[Lisa Raitt]

Here is my concern. You rejected everybody else in terms of speaking about SNC-Lavalin, but you took the meeting from the former clerk of the Privy Council. My concern is this. Section 33 of the Conflict of Interest Act sets out exactly what a previous office-holder can and cannot do. What it says is:

No former public office holder shall act in such a manner as to take improper advantage of his or her previous public office.

You rejected all SNC.... You told us with great glee that you walked out of an important dinner that you wanted to go to because you didn't want to be seen with them, and yet you took a call from the former clerk. Do you have concerns that the former clerk breached his duties and obligations to Canada?

[Michael Wernick]

No.

[Lisa Raitt]

You don't think that you took the call from Kevin Lynch because he was the former clerk of the Privy Council.

[Michael Wernick]

No.

[Lisa Raitt]

Why did you take the call from Mr. Lynch?

[Michael Wernick]

Mr. Lynch was the chair of the board. I knew this was an active issue in October. I took the meeting with the company. They are not a pariah. It was not improper to have communications with the company.

The conversation was a telephone conversation and not a meeting, and it lasted less than 10 minutes.

Mr. Lynch, as the chair of the board, expressed his frustration that he did not understand why a DPA was not being considered and he knew that the board, in its trustee relationships for the shareholders in the company, was going to have to take some tough decisions in October and November.

My recollection of the conversation is that he asked, “Isn't there anything that can be done?” I told him, in the firmest, curtest possible terms, no, he would have to go through the Attorney General and the DPP through his counsel.

[Lisa Raitt]

Wow, so not more than two weeks ago when you gave your first testimony about having no contact with SNC, you said nothing about this phone call, and yet today you have—

[Michael Wernick]

I was cut off, if you recall, Ms. Raitt. I was proceeding to read the chronology and I was cut off with it incomplete, and I undertook to provide the chronology to the committee, which I have done.

[Lisa Raitt]

Well, thank you for cutting me off, Clerk, but as I was going to say, I think it's incredibly pertinent. You must have had knowledge of it because you gave us almost a verbatim right now about what the content of that telephone call was.

Can you not see how disturbing this could be for Canadians to see that former clerks who are now chairs of boards of SNC-Lavalin have easy access and immediate access into the central office of this government, into your office, when you turned down everybody else and walked out of a gala because you didn't want to see SNC anymore? Do you not see that as a problem for this country?

[Michael Wernick]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

We have exhausted the five minutes on that one.

We will go to Mr. Rankin.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'll let Mr. Angus go, and I'll take the next round, Chair.

Thank you.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Wernick, I'm looking at your statement. I find it pretty thin gruel given the fact that five former attorneys general have asked for an RCMP investigation. Former Liberal attorney general Michael Bryant said he's never seen such “brazen” and “reckless” interference in an independent prosecution. We've had two cabinet ministers resign, and Ms. Philpott saying she had constitutional and ethical obligations in the face of political interference.

You are one of the key political actors in this, Mr. Wernick, and yet I find what's missing from here is any attempt to explain what happened in that key meeting of December 19. We asked Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould on record if you threatened her. She said she wasn't threatened once, she was threatened three times by you. Then she said that you wanted to find a way to talk directly to the prosecutor, which would be the direct interference in the prosecution case. She warned you that you were on dangerous ground.

How come you haven't even tried to rebut her testimony?

[Michael Wernick]

I haven't been asked the question, Mr. Angus. I do not have an independent recollection of what I said. I did not record the conversation. I did not wear a wire. I did not take contemporaneous notes. That is not my recollection of the way the conversation flowed.