Madam Speaker, I would like to wish all members a happy International Day of La Francophonie.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the principles of cabinet confidence and solicitor-client privilege in a governmental context. I would like to begin with a few words about the important work the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has done so far.
As we know, the committee has held, to date, 11 meetings on the subject of remediation agreements, the Shawcross doctrine and the discussions between the Office of the Attorney General of Canada and government colleagues. The committee heard from 10 different witnesses over the course of approximately 13 hours.
On February 21, that committee heard from the current Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada as well as the deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general of Canada, Ms. Nathalie Drouin, for an hour and twenty minutes, as well as from the Clerk of the Privy Council at the time, Mr. Michael Wernick, for an hour and a half.
On February 25, a few days later, the committee heard from Mary Condon, the interim dean of the Osgoode Hall Law School; Maxime St-Hilaire, associate professor in the faculty of law of the University of Sherbrooke; Wendy Berman, a lawyer and partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP; Kenneth Jull, a lawyer at Gardiner Roberts; and academic Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, senior associate counsel at Woodward and Company LLP and a professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, over the course of a period of about two and a half hours.
Two days subsequent to that, on February 27, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights heard from the former attorney general for a period of almost four hours as a result of an unprecedented waiver that was issued by the Prime Minister. It was an exceptional waiver that addressed cabinet confidentiality, solicitor-client privilege and any other duty of confidentiality to the extent that they were applicable.
That waiver was indeed exceptional. Since 1987, there have been only four instances of cabinet confidence being waived, and none of those cases, absolutely none, included a waiver of solicitor-client privilege. The waiver was broad in scope, such that no witness was prevented from providing evidence relating to any relevant information during the period covered by the waiver, which was the focus of the committee's review.
As well, in response to this waiver, on March 6 the committee heard from the former principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr. Gerald Butts, for two and a half hours, in addition to recalling Ms. Drouin and Mr. Wernick, who also appeared for approximately two and a half hours.
On Tuesday, Liberal members of the committee sent a letter to the committee chair, indicating that they had achieved their objectives with respect to these meetings. They expressed that following the testimony of all witnesses, they believed that all rules and laws had been followed and that Canadians now had the necessary information to arrive at their own individual conclusions.
Yesterday, the committee adopted a motion to move on to a study of how to amend the Canada Human Rights Act “to stem the propagation of hateful acts and incitement of hate”. In my opinion, the committee's timing could not be better, in light of the tragic events that unfolded in Christchurch, New Zealand, last Friday, which bear an eerie resemblance to the tragic events on January 29, 2017, at the mosque in Quebec City.
As the Prime Minister stated in this chamber on Monday, in response to the horrific acts in Christchurch, New Zealand:
As leaders, as a privileged few with power and an audience, we have a responsibility to do something. This responsibility is not negotiable. It is not to be waived when it is politically convenient.... We have to chase out this hatred from our parties, fight it online, denounce it at town halls and push back when it reaches our front door.
We can take a stand here and now in Canada and around the world and say that enough is enough, that the days of spewing hatred and inciting violence without consequences are over.
We must counter this hatred, and together we will.
As a Muslim-Canadian member of this Parliament, I thought those were some of the most important words that have been spoken in this chamber since I was privileged enough to become a member.
The justice committee continues to do important work, and I look forward to its report on the propagation of hateful acts and the incitement of hate.
We also know that the Ethics Commissioner is conducting an investigation into this matter, and that the investigation is ongoing. On March 18, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of a special adviser to examine the position of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to make recommendations to the Prime Minister by June 30 of this year regarding whether any legislative changes may or may not be recommended.
That is insofar as the important issue that has surfaced in the context of these hearings with respect to what is called the Shawcross doctrine and the notion of potentially dividing the roles between two separate individuals, the role of the attorney general as compared to the role of minister of justice.
As the Prime Minister has stated, Canadians expect and deserve to have faith in their institutions and the people who serve within them. I am confident that the study by the special adviser, as well as the investigation by the Ethics Commissioner, will be thoroughly and fairly conducted and will provide Canadians with the additional answers and information that they seek.
I would now like to turn to the concept of cabinet confidence and solicitor-client privilege.
As all of us in this chamber know, the Canadian governmental system is based on a cabinet system. The cabinet consists of ministers acting in the name—