Export Development Canada has hired outside legal counsel to review some of its dealings with SNC-Lavalin. The review comes after a company insider told CBC News the engineering giant secured billions in loans from the Crown agency over the years, some of which he alleges was intended to pay bribes.

If true, it could mean taxpayers have unwittingly backed illegal payments.

Export Development Canada is a federal agency that provides financing and insurance to Canadian businesses operating abroad.

The insider, who worked on several large projects funded by EDC, claims it was an “open secret” within SNC-Lavalin that “technical fees” listed in budget proposals included cash to be used as bribes to secure international contracts.

Those line items could total millions of dollars. The insider says EDC’s internal due diligence policies should have detected something was going on.

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A couple of articles I read about
Jody Wilson-Raybould

seemed to hint at what she could expect at the meeting before she was fired. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Trudeau and his lawyers had approved of everything she was going to say before-hand. Did they monitor her so closely because she had acquired information about the
Export Development Canada

(EDC) that could have brought the government to its knees?

According to EDC’s website the Crown agency operates at arm’s length from government and is “self-financing.

"However, Adams says all of its debts and liabilities are backed by the government.

"It doesn’t exist but for the Canadian taxpayer.

"Adams says the public has very little idea of how the Crown agency operates.

”[It] is a secretive institution that sets its own rules and standards and regulates itself, with little public oversight,“ she said.

"They’re a black box.”