As MPs pull all nighter, Philpott breathes fresh life into SNC Lavalin scandal

As MPs pull all nighter, Philpott breathes fresh life into SNC Lavalin scandal
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Former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott told Maclean's magazine there is "much more to the story" in the SNC-Lavalin affair. File photo courtesy CBC.

Former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott told Maclean’s magazine there is “much more to the story” in the SNC-Lavalin affair. File photo courtesy CBC.

Former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott says there’s “much more to the story” of the SNC-Lavalin affair that should be told.

Philpott has given an interview to Maclean’s magazine that landed like a bombshell Thursday morning on Parliament Hill.

She says she had concerns before the controversy became public in January, but that she has been prevented from discussing them, alleging efforts by the Prime Minister’s Office to quote — “shut down the story.”

Philpott joined former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould in resigning from cabinet last month, following public allegations that Justin Trudeau and others pressured Wilson-Raybould to avert a criminal prosecution of the Montreal engineering firm for alleged corrupt practices in Libya.

Philpott told Maclean’s quote — “My sense is that Canadians would like to know the whole story.”

Her new public statements are already fanning the flames of a scandal the government is desperate to douse, and which the Opposition Conservatives are doing their best to keep alive.

They forced the House of Commons to sit all night, voting line by line on the Liberal government’s spending plans.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel says that article shows there’s a gag order on some of the players.

The Liberal majority in the House shot down a Conservative motion calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to let Wilson-Raybould testify more fully about what she experienced through the fall and into the early winter, especially what prompted her to resign from cabinet altogether after she was shuffled from the justice portfolio to Veterans Affairs in January.

The motion was defeated by a vote of 161-134, with both Philpott and Wilson-Raybould absent.

A day of committee meetings scheduled for today has been cancelled.

The Canadian PressThe Canadian Press

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