Your essential argument, Minister, revolves around the independence of the Law Commission. Yet I suggest to you that your position is deeply conflicted. You are both Minister of Justice and you are the Attorney General. As an Attorney General you are involved in a huge number of lawsuits, both as a plaintiff and a defendant, and as Minister of Justice you have other administrative responsibilities. It would hardly do for the Attorney General or the Minister of Justice to be undercutting his own department by floating out a paper, for instance, on aboriginal rights and things of that nature when in fact you're involved in literally hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits with aboriginal groups.
I don't quite understand how you think you're going to get the same quality of advice from your own department. Given that the Canadian Bar Association, in its letter from Mr. MacCarthy, says that they are somewhat surprised to hear that the CBA could fill this role, and given that law professors aren't by nature given to doing this kind of stuff, I fail to see your argument. When we were in government the Law Commission produced reports, some of which were, frankly, a pain in the patootie. You and I would probably agree Beyond Conjugality was a report that neither of us thought was particularly helpful or useful to that debate, and Mr. Ménard, of course, would disagree with that, but that's another point altogether. I think your position is that you have cut off from dialogue among, if you will, the judicial community and legislative community a source of reports that is really forward thinking, that is beyond independent legal advice that you would get from other sources.
I'd be interested in your comments on that.