SNC-Lavalin sought Ottawa’s help to give Gadhafi’s son vice-president’s job

SNC-Lavalin sought Ottawa’s help to give Gadhafi’s son vice-president’s job by Colin Freeze, May 23, 2013, The Globe and Mail
Canada’s flagship engineering company hoped to persuade Ottawa officials to let a Libyan dicator’s son come to Canada as a temporary foreign worker, newly unsealed court documents show. In 2008, Saadi Gadhafi, the 40-year-old son of Moammar Gadhafi, was being touted as a potential “Vice-President Maghreb” for SNC-Lavalin, with the multinational’s executives stating that they had hoped to bring him to Montreal for his “precious services.” Immigration forms for Mr. Gadhafi were recovered by the RCMP during raids related the police force’s ongoing corruption investigation into SNC-Lavalin.

News of these documents come as Canada’s temporary foreign worker immigration program has lately emerged as controversial. The number of foreign workers in the country has tripled during the past 12 years, raising questions about how much scrutiny the government has been brought to bear on applications. It’s unclear whether any government official in Canada ever actually received an immigration application for Saadi Gadhafi. According to the RCMP’s characterization of data it has recently seized during raids, in 2008 SNC-Lavalin had been planning to pay Mr. Gadhafi $150,000 a year over three years if he was allowed to come to Canada as a temporary worker. SNC-Lavalin had apparently filled out the forms for a “temporary work permit” for five years ago, under both the federal government’s and Quebec government’s immigration programs. The forms were addressed to immigration officials at the Canadian embassy in Tunisia, and they were approved by SNC-Lavalin executive vice-president Riadh Ben Aissa, according to the RCMP. [Emphasis added]

SNC-Lavalin replaces chairman, 3 directors, Gwyn Morgan to step down as board chairman in May by CBC News, April 4, 2013

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