Global Courant 2023-05-18 21:04:37
Alberta’s ethics commissioner says Danielle Smith, in her capacity as prime minister, has violated the conflict of interest law in her interactions with the justice minister and attorney general in connection with criminal charges against Calgary street preacher Artur Pawlowski.
“On the whole, it is a threat to democracy to interfere with the administration of justice,” wrote Marguerite Trussler, Alberta’s ethics commissioner. in her report.
In January, CBC News reported that a staffer in Smith’s office had sent a series of emails to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service questioning prosecutors’ assessment and direction of cases arising from the Coutts border blockades and protests .
Later that month, CBC News reported that Smith pressured Attorney General Tyler Shandro and his office to intervene in COVID-related lawsuits, according to multiple sources familiar with the interactions.
Smith asked for updates on cases or inquired about the possibility of giving them up, particularly including the prosecution of Artur Pawlowski, a pastor who was then charged with two counts of criminal mischief and one charge under Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defense Act regarding the Coutts Border Blockade.
In March, CBC News reported on a leaked phone call in which Smith spoke to Pawlowski several weeks before his sentencing trial, in which she said she was already in contact with Justice Department officials “almost weekly.”
Trussler wrote in her report that she found no evidence of emails as described by CBC News and “could only conclude, based on the evidence I have, that no prosecutor has been directly emailed about any of the business.”
“There appears to be no interference with the independence of prosecutors at this level,” she wrote.
Smith’s call to Shandro
In her report, Trussler wrote that Smith called Shandro on the evening of January 6. During the conversation, the Prime Minister did not inform Shandro that she had called Pawloski personally, Trussler writes, and began the conversation by “saying that she did not know whether it was appropriate to call him”.
She advised that he indicate that she could continue as the deputy minister protected him from the COVID related matters. Although she says she started talking about the matters in general, at some point she turned to the case of Mr. Pawloski,” writes Trussler. . “It’s important to note that this call was just a few hours after the Pawloski call.”
Shandro recalled another version of the conversation, Trussler said. He couldn’t remember the prime minister starting the conversation asking if she could ask about the COVID-related prosecutions.
“He told me that he never felt that such a conversation would be appropriate and that he almost certainly would not have indicated that it was OK to continue,” she said. “He remembered there was generally a brief conversation about COVID-related prosecutions, but Prime Minister Smith moved very quickly to Mr Pawloski’s case, which Secretary Shandro understood was the reason for the call.”
Tyler Shandro, pictured in a 2021 archive photo. Shandro said he clearly remembered a phone call with Prime Minister Danielle Smith as he was vacationing in Fernie, BC, with his family, wrote Alberta Ethics Commissioner Marguerite Trussler. (Todd Korol/The Canadian Press)
Shandro also recalled that Smith asked him during the conversation, but not at the beginning of the conversation, how far he could become involved in a prosecution, Trussler wrote. Pointing out he was the attorney general, Smith seemed to suggest something influenced by a letter from Ezra Levant, who heads the right-wing media outlet Rebel News, she wrote.
In response, Shandro recalled trying to explain the Attorney General’s role, saying that while the prosecution is under his authority, he could not get personally involved in case files or talk to prosecutors. He pointed out that there is a separation between his office and that of the prosecutors.
“Minister Shandro stated that Prime Minister Smith was passive/aggressive throughout the conversation. She specifically asked him if there was anything he could do about Mr. Pawlowski’s case,” she wrote.
“She wanted him to make it go away, even though she didn’t order him to. She was worried about a press conference Mr Pawlowski said he was going to hold and how bad the optics would be for the party.
Minister Shandro told her there was nothing that could be done, and she took his advice.
There were no further talks between Minister Shandro and the Prime Minister on this subject.”
In a statement posted to Twitter, Smith wrote that the “CBC and NDP had repeatedly lied to Albertans for months” about Smith’s office contacting prosecutors about COVID-19 prosecutions.
Regarding her contact with Shandro and his office, Smith said she had “always stated that she wanted to find a way for amnesty for those charged with non-violent COVID-related crimes and violations during the pandemic.”
“As I have explained before, I spoke to Minister Shandro, who is an experienced lawyer (I am not), because I was very interested in his advice on what could be done about it legally,” she wrote.
Of the 85 investigation requests sent to Trussler in 2021-2022, she has conducted only one investigation, according to the commissioner’s latest statement. annual report. That investigation centered around Secretary of Education Adriana LaGrange, acquitting her of inappropriate conduct linked to a $150,000 contract for reusable student masks awarded by her ministry to a company in her Red Deer drive.
Some of Trussler’s investigations were completed within a month, but usually the commissioner took between three and eight months. The prime minister’s office said the investigation was launched last month.
Read the full report here.
More to come.
