Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre slammed RCMP leadership Tuesday as “despicable,” alleging the agency covered up scandals tied to Justin Trudeau's Liberal government. This follows the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General's decision to stay private prosecution of the former Prime Minister related to the SNC-Lavalin scandal, where he faced obstruction of justice and breach of trust allegations.

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme, a former deputy to commissioner Brenda Lucki, defended the force against Poilievre's remarks.

“With regards to senior management, I would invite Mr. Poilievre to meet with us and to meet with the people who run this great organization,” Duheme told reporters in Toronto.

Duheme denied taking political orders and dismissed Poilievre's claim of law-breaking in the SNC-Lavalin affair, asserting no criminal interference in the case involving pressure on the justice minister regarding a Montreal engineering firm.

NEW: RCMP Commissioner Duheme fires back at @PierrePoilievre:

“We’ve talked about SNC-Lavalin quite a lot… and I think it’s clear that there was no interference.” pic.twitter.com/PtQGABfEFg

— TrendingPolitics.ca (@TrendPolCa) October 16, 2025

In a Northern Perspective interview this week, Poilievre criticized Trudeau's government, alleging Criminal Code violations in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and accusing the RCMP of protecting the former Prime Minister.

The RCMP declined to pursue an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair, citing insufficient evidence, in part because of its inability to access all confidential government documents. However, Trudeau was found to have violated federal ethics law. 

RCMP documents, shared by Conservatives, noted challenges in obtaining evidence due to parliamentary confidentiality and the ethics commissioner's view that Trudeau's actions were not “criminal in nature.”

On February 28, 2024, Duheme and Sgt. Frédéric Pincince acknowledged the agency has “limited” access to information on the scandal from the Privy Council Office.

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Trudeau also faced questions on blocking access to cabinet confidences. “The Opposition is digging into the past to try and bring up things that were settled many years ago,” he claimed.

RCMP ignored pleas to broaden SNC-Lavalin investigation, reviving interference claims

RCMP top brass also did not pursue criminal charges against Trudeau for the alleged coverup, though interference allegations emerged in February of 2019.https://t.co/9ypJVsAMQh

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) February 19, 2025

Further investigation, including reviewing RCMP evidence and questioning then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and her former chief of staff, is needed to determine if prosecution is warranted.

The RCMP earlier accepted the Liberal cabinet’s restricted disclosure order, decreeing that the authorization to waive solicitor-client privilege would not extend to any information or communications between Wilson-Raybould and the director of public prosecutions concerning SNC-Lavalin.

A confidential interview from September 10, 2019, with Wilson-Raybould was released February 19, revealing her unsuccessful lobbying of the RCMP to investigate Trudeau, who pressured her regarding the 2018 SNC-Lavalin affair. The federal police service only interviewed three other persons of interest, excluding Trudeau.

Democracy Watch applied to the Ontario Court of Justice the same day, alleging a “weak” RCMP investigation into the matter. However, the Complex Prosecutions Bureau halted the application, citing no “reasonable prospect” of proving Trudeau's criminal intent. It also refused calls for an independent review of prosecution evidence.

SNC-Lavalin, which rebranded to AtkinsRéalis in 2023, agreed to pay a $280 million penalty after pleading guilty to a fraud charge in 2019.

Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher criticizes the RCMP’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

Democracy Watch will be filing an application in the Ontario Court of Justice for court approval to pursue private prosecution of allegations of obstruction of justice and breach… pic.twitter.com/zVjRzHVeaP

— Juno News (@junonewscom) February 19, 2025

Democracy Watch argued the RCMP had a “massive conflict of interest” due to the prime minister appointing its commissioners. In a 2021 memo, the Mounties admitted to political pressure regarding SNC-Lavalin but ultimately deemed it harmless. 

Bureau Director John Corelli stopped the case against Trudeau, stating it was not “in the public interest” to hear informant evidence, given that new evidence was unlikely. 

The federal agency “never considered prosecuting anyone for breach of trust,” despite evidence of executives admitting to $47.7 million in bribes. Democracy Watch argued that proving the offender acted “willfully” to obstruct justice—not criminal intent—should have been enough.

She resigned from cabinet in February 2019, in connection with allegations that she was pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene in the SNC‑Lavalin criminal case (i.e. to seek a deferred prosecution/remediation agreement).

Wilson-Raybould was shuffled from Justice to Veteran Affairs in January 2019. She resigned from cabinet the following month, after allegations that she was pressured by the Prime Minister to seek deferred/remediation agreements with SNC-Lavalin in relation to corruption and fraud charges stemming from the company's operations in Libya.