Is The RCMP Investigating Or Protecting Justin Trudeau?

Yesterday was a particularly whiplash-inducing news cycle in Canadian politics. At the start of the day, it was reported by the National Post that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of his Cabinet were still under investigation by the RCMP over the SNC Lavalin scandal. By the end of the day, the RCMP had attempted to deny that anyone was under investigation and that the SNC matter had closed in January 2023.  

This may just seem like a standard issue in reporting. Media says one thing, then gets corrected by a reliable source; the RCMP.

The issue in this situation is that the RCMP has said contradictory things, and it is unclear if they are genuinely making contradictory statements due to mistakes being made, or if they are attempting to play defence for Justin Trudeau and his cabinet.

You see, the reason the story was reported in the media in the first place was that the organization Democracy Watch made a freedom of information petition (FOIP) request to the RCMP regarding the SNC matter and were told they could be given anything because the situation is “is currently under investigation”.

This was a request that Democracy Now got a response to on May 25, 2023, several months after supposedly the investigation had ended in January 2023, that the RCMP now claims. 

This feels like the RCMP are trying to let Trudeau have his cake and eat it too.

Justin Trudeau doesn’t want it to be public that he is still being currently investigated, but he also does not want the matter to be closed so that the public can gain access to information regarding his attempt to get SNC Lavalin a deferred prosecution for their bribery schemes in Libya. 

This has led to a situation where to protect Trudeau (if that is the motivation) the RCMP is still investigating Trudeau and other members of his government in a case that they say closed six months ago. 

It’s Schrödinger’s Trudeau Scandal. The case is both open and closed.

The National Telegraph’s correspondent Daniel Bordman has a good summation of the SNC scandal and why it is such a damaging scandal. No doubt, Justin Trudeau’s insanely corrupt behaviour, in this case, influences his wish for the public to gain no records from the investigation. 

For now, this RCMP investigation/non-investigation is just another legal anomaly that seems to be increasingly occurring around the Trudeau government.