New RCMP Records Reveal Trudeau Aide Tied SNC-Lavalin Pressure to Election Strategy

OTTAWA, February 18, 2025—Transparency watchdog Democracy Watch has released a second trove of RCMP investigative records, alleging that they raise profound concerns about political interference in the national police force’s probe of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government. The records pertain to allegations that Trudeau and senior Cabinet officials pressured then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to halt the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, with one Trudeau aide explicitly stating that intervention was necessary “to help the Liberals get re-elected.”

Newly surfaced evidence, including Wilson-Raybould’s own RCMP interview, indicates that the pressure campaign may have met the threshold for criminal obstruction charges. The thousands of pages of records further suggest that Trudeau’s top aides sought to resolve the SNC-Lavalin affair in a way that would protect the government’s electoral fortunes.

In one portion of her RCMP interview, Wilson-Raybould told investigators, “You can look at the Criminal Code around obstruction charges…” but the remainder of her comment is redacted.

Elsewhere, she said, “There are more people that you guys need to talk to than me… there is a lot more um, information out there um, that I wasn’t privy to… knowing other things that I know, uh, you guys need to get an extension of this waiver.”

“Given pressure by the Prime Minister and Cabinet officials to obstruct a prosecution is a situation that has not been revealed publicly before, and given no past court ruling makes it clear that the RCMP could not win a prosecution, a fully independent special prosecutor should have been appointed and tried to get a search warrant for secret Cabinet communications,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, which obtained the records.