Lessons From Two Corruption Stories in North America: Trudeau vs Trump I

Recently, two North American countries witnessed their leaders facing charges of corruption.

In and of themselves they were not particularly interesting. But they were very telling about how political scandals affect conservatives and liberals. And how the media propagates the dominant narrative.

It was edifying.

Corruption In Canada 

Here is a summary of the Canadian scandal. Feel free to add air quotes around the word scandal.

SNC Lavalin, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world, paid bribes in Libya in between 2001 and 2011 to get construction projects. When this became public knowledge after the fall of Gaddafi, RCMP charged them with corruption and fraud. The management issued a mea culpa and promised to change their ways and establish corporate procedures to prevent something like this happening again.

They lobbied openly in favor of remediation as opposed to prosecution. In the latter case, if found guilty, and they would certainly be, thanks to their mea culpa, they would be barred from bidding for federal contracts for a full decade. And the company would almost certainly go bankrupt. In remediation, a plea deal would be entered, some fines would be paid and no jobs would be lost.

These deferred-action prosecutions are pretty common in the US but they are a recent introduction in Canada. It is fair to note that this might have been the result of SNC Lavalin's lobbying efforts.

In any event, SNC Lavalin is an aggressive company operating mostly in the developing world and they were willing to do anything to get new contracts. For instance, since 2013 SNC-Lavalin has been unable to bid on World Bank contracts because of another bribery scheme in Bangladesh.

I can't tell you that bribing officials in Bangladesh was necessary but in Gaddafi's Libya - I know from several companies that operated there - that it was a sine qua non. No pay no play. I can affirm that any company that had any contract in Libya paid bribes.

So put yourself in Justin Trudeau's shoes and you have a Quebec company that could go bankrupt if the Attorney General took the bribery in Libya charge too seriously.

Quebec is also a Canadian province that held two referendums to seek independence. And Trudeau is from Quebec.

As a politician what would you do?

Here is the crime he is alleged to have committed: He sent some intermediaries to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to ask her to consider the lighter option.

When she demurred (she says she held firm), Trudeau did a cabinet shuffle and moved Wilson-Raybould to Veterans' Affairs which is a demotion.

She didn't react at first but when the story came out, she accused the Prime Minister of pressuring her to save the company, Quebec jobs and Liberal Party votes in the Province.

She then testified before the judiciary committee of the House of Commons.

During her testimony, Wilson-Raybould said that Trudeau and his senior aides had embarked on a “consistent and sustained” effort to get her to interfere in the case against SNC-Lavalin. She described the pressure as inappropriate but said that in her opinion, it “was not illegal.”

This is an understatement. In the British system, and by colonial extension first-past-the-post single constituency system, any Member of Parliament or MP is obliged to defend, support and look after the interests of their constituency.

This is what Trudeau did. Unlike Jean Chretien's Shawinigate, there is no allegation that he benefited from this support financially or did it for personal benefit.

Yet Canadians were outraged and this whole episode might cost him the election. After a sustained media campaign, the feeling is summarized as "He's not a bad person but..."

This is the first feminist, progressive Prime Minister or President anywhere, a unicorn and he might be replaced by a conservative politician because he tried to protect jobs.

For Canadian liberals, or indeed any of us who cling to outdated ideas such as good governance and liberal democratic values, it was like watching a unicorn get flattened by a lorry. 

Was he blameless? No.

Butts and Wilson-Raybould

A cabinet shuffle after pressuring the Justice Minister was simply stupid. I also suspect that he sent his private secretary and closest confident Gerald Butts to see Ms. Wilson-Raybould and he was likely to be heavy handed.

Butts denied it of course but he is combative and as a former national debating champion his style is confrontational.

That is the extent of the "scandal."

But why did it become a such a big deal?

In a word, the relentless and skewed media coverage.

Canadian media outlets are owned by a small number of companies, (Bell, Corus, Rogers, Newcap, Quebecor) which also hold "a diverse mix of television, cable television, radio, newspaper, magazine, and/or internet operations." (That is the main reason why Canadians still pay long distance charges)

As a group with similar interests, they tend to present a cohesive point of view. And on the whole they favor a conservative editorial perspective. Theirs is not a blatant propagandist position a la Fox News. It is more along the lines of pushing certain priorities and omitting certain points a la The Economist, though with more subtlety.

For instance, prior to the Conservative Party's electoral victory in 2006, deficit was the most important issue that dominated the headlines and evening news, only to be completely forgotten after the Stephen Harper victory.

Similarly, when Canada escaped relatively unscathed the 2008 financial crisis, the media credited Harper even though it was the specific policies of the previous government (such as not relaxing the real estate borrowing rules) that were responsible for that outcome.

The way media outlets achieve their goal to emphasize a specific point of view while appearing objective is to give disproportionate access to right-wing politicians.

Boris Johnson, David Davis, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage dominating television debates during the Brexit referendum is a classical example. No broadcaster confronted their blatant lies about the economic impact, the NHS gains or impossibility to maintain Irish border open.

There are many other examples of wingnuts getting more coverage than anybody else.

One of the best illustration of this in this case is this recent item from the BBC. They posted an article that did very little other than simply list Conservative charges and refute Liberal arguments.

This is the picture of Trudeau they used.

The piece maintained that SNC Lavalin intervention was unnecessary, implied twice that there was more to the story, called Trudeau a "fake feminist" for shuffling a woman minister and cast doubt on possible job losses if SNC Lavalin was convicted of fraud. It only provided quotes from opposition politicians and analysts who question the Trudeau position.

For instance, on the likelihood of job losses, the piece quoted opposition figures and academics who maintained that there was no evidence that if SNC Lavalin was unable to bid on federal contracts, the 9,000 jobs on its payroll might be at risk.

Think about it for a second. What evidence can there be? This is a firm that is already on World Bank's blacklist until 2023, which means most other multilateral lenders shun them. If they were banned from Canadian federal contracts for a decade, where would they get their next project? Why would you need evidence to indicate a substantial number of jobs would be lost? It is a simple equation. No new revenue stream, layoffs. The company might survive but it is a virtual certitude that they would shed a large number jobs.

Which was the Liberal point.

So far no one's is listening.

I expect another Conservative government will come to power in the Fall and start implementing the same blueprint we see everywhere else. Fake news accusations, blaming the immigrants for everything and denying climate change. And dividing the nation into Us and Them.

I do not expect the Canadian media to have a major problem with that platform. There will be a couple of critical op-eds in some regional papers like the Ottawa Citizen. The Globe and Mail will have some investigative journalism reports which will not have any impact, National Post will praise the government and that will be that.

Now let's take a look at the other scandal, one that involves massage parlors, prostitution and paying the President for foreign access.

And the American media's reaction.