The document, Accountable Government, is a very long document and contains many provisions. The two provisions I focused on were the ones dealing with non-interference of ministers and ministers of state in judicial matters and in quasi-judicial matters. There is quite an extensive explanation in the guide relating to quasi-judicial officials, quasi-judicial proceedings, which tend to fall under the authority of another minister.
I tried to speak to the importance of non-interference in judicial matters because a lot of people....I certainly didn't see this from elected officials, but in the blogosphere, or the Twitterverse, or the media, some commentators said the last place an MP or a minister of state or a minister could interfere is a court, because our courts are so strongly independent. There's really no harm, so why should we be concerned about that? A judge is simply going to toss out a letter from a minister. It may actually hurt that person's case.
My response to that is I think ordinary citizens rightly see you who come to Ottawa as exercising public power. I certainly see this from my students, and I think many Canadians don't necessarily know the difference among members in the different branches of government. I think there is an unfortunate tendency for many Canadians to think people in government, or people in one political party, are helping people in another political party, or judges will help people in government, etc. That's why I think it is necessary to have that prohibition, to make it very clear and to have a clear separation between the functions of the executive—the functions of ministers and ministers of state—and the functions of the judiciary.