Justice Committee on Feb. 11th, 2009

[Brian J. Saunders]

No, that is not quite accurate. The investigation was conducted by the RCMP integrated team, which in English is known as the IMET, Integrated Market Enforcement Team. Our lawyers provided advice to the RCMP IMET during the investigation. The prosecution was then carried out by the office of Mr. Dionne, the director of Quebec criminal prosecutions. We assisted him throughout the prosecution by providing him with a lawyer who worked with the Quebec team. That is how we were involved.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Explain something to me. I do not want to get into all the details of the case, but I'm simply trying to understand it. The prosecution was conducted under the provincial legislation of the AMF but you provide counsel on Criminal Code matters.

[Brian J. Saunders]

When I referred to our involvement in the Norbourg case, I was alluding to charges laid under the Criminal Code.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Very well, I didn't understand that.

I would like to raise one final issue, if I still have some time remaining, and I would like you to answer me quickly.

Mr. Lemay raised a matter of interest to me. You seem to be the last intervener at the Supreme Court level. For example, a case is prepared in a province, and this could be British Columbia, Quebec or somewhere else, and it goes through the various levels such as the Superior Court or the Supreme Court, depending on what these courts are called in the various provinces, the Court of Appeal and, finally, the Supreme Court. You told my colleague that this was in fact when you stepped in, namely, at the Supreme Court, and that you decide to represent the interests of the provincial crown with respect to the interests of the federal crown.

[Brian J. Saunders]

Pardon me, but I did not express myself clearly. The question pertained to a scenario where the prosecutions were conducted by the provincial prosecution services, in Quebec and Ontario. We were not involved in these prosecutions.

However, when the prosecutions get to the Supreme Court, it does not become our prosecution, but we can decide to intervene if we believe that we have something to add. We can therefore help the court make a ruling. In this case, our committee makes a recommendation to the director, and then I decide, as the acting director, whether or not to intervene.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We've moving next to Monsieur LeBlanc.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Saunders, for coming today. I think you were ready to appear before this committee at some previous meeting, but the meeting ended in a bizarre way and you weren't able to appear, so we're glad to see you here today.

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, I could follow up on the questions my colleague Brian Murphy was getting at, and perhaps it wasn't clear.

Mr. Saunders, I think what Brian was asking you was not how many times your office would have sent a section 13 briefing to the minister, or not how many times you would have met face to face with him or his staff to discuss those briefings, presumably, or the notes you were sending. How many times would the minister or his staff, unprompted by you--in other words, not as a result of a notice or a memo you've sent--have asked you for information on a particular prosecution?

[Brian J. Saunders]

I just can't give you a number. It wouldn't be very often, I can tell you that.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Can you give me a range? Is it one to five? Is it one to three?

[Brian J. Saunders]

Sometimes the request would not come to my office. I have two deputy directors, one of whom has more contact with the Attorney General's office, so I don't know whether she has been contacted or my other deputy director has been contacted either.

I might add, though, when you talk about staff--and I mentioned the section 13 notices--when we meet to discuss issues of prosecution, we do not involve the minister's staff; we meet with the Attorney General.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I appreciate that, but if the minister or his staff had talked to one of your deputies, would you automatically have been informed that a request had been made?

[Brian J. Saunders]

Yes, but I'm just going back in memory and offhand I can't recall. But I wouldn't be surprised if it occurred on a few occasions.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I want to make sure I understand. You are saying that from time to time, unprompted, the minister or his staff would ask for information on a particular prosecution.

[Brian J. Saunders]

Not his staff.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

The minister directly would.

[Brian J. Saunders]

That's it; I don't recall. I've never been contacted by the Attorney General asking for information on a particular prosecution.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Are you aware of anybody else who has been?

[Brian J. Saunders]

I said I left the door open in case it did occur, but I tend to doubt that it would have occurred, because if we wanted to discuss such a thing, we would have raised it at the meetings we have, the occasional times we do meet.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Okay, but in those meetings, then, he never, as a result of a notice you'd given, said, “Oh, and by the way I want to ask you about another case”?

[Brian J. Saunders]

I prefer not to talk about those discussions. We discuss cases of interest. Can I just leave it at that? That is a question of solicitor-client privilege as to what cases we discuss, because sometimes they are cases before the courts and sometimes they are cases that we might want to intervene in.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

But then he would not necessarily restrict himself only to the cases for which he's been briefed or that he's come into knowledge of as a result of your memos, your notices under section 13.

[Brian J. Saunders]

He could, if he wished, raise other cases he's heard of, but I think we do a fairly good job of bringing to his attention those cases of general importance that are within our competence of which he should be made aware.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you.

Mr. Saunders, I'm curious to see how you would define cases of general importance, or within what parameters you would understand a case to be of general importance that might require briefing the minister; for example, a prosecution under the Canada Elections Act, which would obviously generate all kinds of media attention.