The recent controversy between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould over the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin has been front-page news for days. Was this a casual conversation or improper interference with the administration of justice? This blog post by former lawyer Andrew Roman discusses the issues from a legal standpoint. The bottom line: there is no law prohibiting either of them from speaking publicly about their conversation.
Canada has come full circle, with prosecution of corporate crimes again determined by politics. Read the latest from Probe International’s Patricia Adams on SNC-Lavalin in today’s National Post opinion.
What are deferred prosecution agreements (or remediation agreements), how did Canada get them, what are the potential benefits and what are the down sides? Patricia Adams of Probe International is firmly in the latter camp: “… they turn the prosecutor into the prosecutor, the judge and the jury. Because of that they are undermining the rule of law — they are essentially political instruments.”
Li Rui, who died on Saturday at 101, “saw himself as a conscience of the revolution and the party,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, the late Harvard scholar of Chinese history. “But he had grave doubts about the system he spent his life serving.”
Better to develop trading relationships with tomorrow’s winners than to tie our fortunes to an economy that can pull us down.
The French version of “The road from Paris: China’s climate U-turn” is now available!
An editorial published by China’s People Daily makes clear its position on the arrest in Canada of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. The threats to Canada are unambiguous, writes David Bandurski, the translator of an English version of this editorial for China Media Project, a research project of the Journalism & Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. Behold China’s warning to Canada: “The various illegitimate methods employed to attack the Chinese company Huawei have exposed the dark psychology of certain shameful people, but it will ultimately be a stone dropped onto their own feet. The Canadian side must think clearly. Between justice and shamelessness, there is no grey area.”
What happened to China the climate champion? The Globe and Mail dives into Patricia Adams’ new report: Paris – China’s Climate U-turn.
To meet its energy needs, China is aggressively pursuing every means at its disposal except green energy.
“Just a few years ago, China was lauded as a climate saviour. That’s all in the past now.” Read Patricia Adams’ new paper out today!
In its submission to Ottawa’s 2018 Legislative Review of the Export Development Act, Probe International calls for a repeal of the Act and the privatization of Export Development Canada (EDC). Probe argues the federal government’s export-financing agency shares many of the same characteristics as China’s controversial state-owned enterprises (SOEs), characteristics that ensure market distortion and stunt private development.
Activists call the agency “essentially self-governing” in the areas of environment, human rights and anti-corruption.
“For all its talk about cutting coal mining capacity, China actually plans to add more,” reports Bloomberg News. Indeed, China’s greenhouse gas emissions increased 4 percent in the first quarter of 2018, so what gives?
No political leader anywhere in the world is truer to Adam Smith’s prescriptions for free trade than Donald Trump.
Canada has been relegated to third-wheel status and now depends on Trump’s graces.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
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