Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On January 7, I received a call from the Prime Minister and was informed that I was being shuffled out of my role as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. I will not go into details of this call or subsequent communications about the shuffle, but I will say that I stated that I believed the reason to be the SNC matter. They denied this to be the case.
On January 11, 2019, the Friday before the shuffle, my former deputy minister was called by the Clerk and told that the shuffle was happening and that she would be getting a new minister. As part of this conversation, the Clerk told the deputy that one of the first conversations the new minister would be expected to have with the Prime Minister would be on SNC-Lavalin—in other words, that the new minister would need to be prepared to speak to the Prime Minister on this file. The deputy recounted this to my chief of staff, who told me about the conversation.
My narrative stops here. I must reiterate to the committee my concern, outlined in the letter to the chair yesterday. That is that Order in Council 2019-0105 addresses only my time as the Attorney General of Canada and therefore does nothing to release me from restrictions that apply to my communications while I proudly served as the Minister of Veterans Affairs and in relation to my resignation from that post or my presentation to cabinet after I resigned.
This time period includes communications on topics that some members of the committee have explored with other witnesses and about which there have been public statements by others. The order in council leaves in place the various constraints, in particular cabinet confidence, that there are on my ability to speak freely on matters that occurred after I left my post as Attorney General.
Even with those constraints, I hope that through my narrative today, the committee and everyone across the country who is listening has a clear idea of what I experienced and what I know about who did what, and what was communicated. I hope and expect that the facts speak for themselves. I imagine that Canadians now fully understand that, in my view, these events constituted pressure to intervene in a matter and that this pressure or political interference to intervene was not appropriate. However, Canadians can judge this for themselves as we now have the same frame of information.
Last, as I have said previously, it has always been my view that the Attorney General of Canada must be non-partisan, more transparent in the principles that are the basis of decisions, and, in this respect, always willing to speak truth to power. In saying this, I was reflecting what I understood to be the vital importance of the rule of law and prosecutorial independence in our democracy.
My understanding of this has been shaped by some lived experience. I am, of course, a lawyer. I was a prosecutor in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, so I come to this view as a trained professional and one who is committed to certain values as being key to our system of order.
My understanding of the rule of law has also been shaped by my experiences as an indigenous person and as an indigenous leader. The history of Crown-indigenous relations in this country includes a history of the rule of law not being respected. Indeed, one of the main reasons for the urgent need for justice and reconciliation today is that in the history of our country, we have not always upheld foundational values, such as the rule of law, in relation to indigenous peoples. I have seen first-hand the negative impacts for freedom, equality and a just society that this can have, so when I pledged to serve Canadians as your Minister of Justice and Attorney General, I came to do so with a deeply ingrained commitment to the rule of law and the importance of acting independently of partisan, political and narrow interests in all matters. When we do not do that, I firmly believe, and know, that we do worse as a society.
I will conclude by saying this: I was taught to always be careful what you say because you cannot take it back.
I was taught to always hold true to your core values and principles, and to act with integrity. These are the teachings of my parents, my grandparents and my community. I come from a long line of matriarchs, and I'm a truth-teller in accordance with the laws and traditions of our big house. This is who I am, and this is who I always will be.
Gilakas'la. Thank you.