In February 2007 (after the Liberal defeat), police charged one official in the Department of Finance, who pled guilty. There was also an investigation into the RCMP’s behaviour in this matter and its Complaints Commissioner concluded that the RCMP had discretion as to whether or not to answer the NDP’s query by announcing that a criminal investigation was being conducted. It also found that naming Goodale in the news release was “not consistent” with past practice. Goodale recovered from the way he was treated and, in a rather delicious irony, is now the Liberal Cabinet Minister responsible for the RCMP.
In light of that previous experience, it should not be surprising that the RCMP might want to avoid any appearance of affecting the outcome of another election campaign. Their new commitment to detachment, however, might have been more convincing, if they had not waited until the day that the election was being called before announcing that they would hold off on further investigation for now – thereby guaranteeing that this would be the opening story of the campaign.
Out of concern that Conservative politicians may dislocate their shoulders while patting their backs about their moral superiority, I would draw their attention to a recent article by Michael Harris, no stranger to federal politics. He describes how Lavalin was successful in lobbying the Harper Government to establish new rules in July 2015 as part of its “Integrity Regime.” If convicted of integrity-related offences (including bribery, fraud, bid-rigging, and money laundering) a supplier was barred from doing business with the government for 10 years – but that ban could be reduced to five years if the company took remedial action to mitigate its offences. In addition, new rules created “Administrative Agreements” that would allow convicted companies to continue to do business with the government in lieu of a suspension if such an agreement was, for example, “in the public interest.” If you think this sounds rather like the deferred prosecution agreements of Lavalin notoriety, you are correct!