Madam Speaker, I too would like to congratulate you on your appointment and I can assure you that you will certainly get as much co-operation as we are able to muster in this House for your administration of the affairs of this House in the days to come.
I rise today in response to the Speech from the Throne. Nothing in that speech assures me or the people of this country that the integrity of Canada's justice system will be restored by the government or the new justice minister.
Many areas in justice should have been addressed in the throne speech but were not. We could look at the need for the reform of the Young Offenders Act, the elimination of the faint hope clause, exempting violent offenders from conditional sentencing and, of course, a victims' bill of rights. These are all issues of great concern to Canadians and issues which Reform intend to pursue with vigour in this session of Parliament.
According to a July 1997 Angus Reid poll, 52% of Canadians have lost faith in our courts and our justice system. This is a serious matter. Why have so many Canadians lost faith in our justice system and particularly our courts? That is the question I would like to focus my remarks on today.
Canadians' faith in our justice system can only be further shattered by the scandalous affair perpetrated by senior officials within the justice department, aided and abetted by the federal court and concealed from the people of this country by the intentional ignoring or oversight of the facts by the former justice minister and the Hon. Charles Dubin.
In 1996 a series of indiscretions were committed by Associate Deputy Attorney General Ted Thompson who deliberately and knowingly interfered with the judicial independence of Associate Chief Justice Jerome who was conducting a hearing into the deportation orders of three suspected Nazi war criminals.
In an attempt to protect his close friend from embarrassment, Ted Thompson telephoned Chief Justice Isaac to warn him of the proposed supreme court reference. The chief justice of the federal court and Judge Jerome's administrative superior arranged for Mr. Thompson to meet with him in his chambers to discuss the matter further. An exchange of letters ensued in which Thompson outlined the chronology of the court delays on the three cases. This was all done without the knowledge of defence counsel.
Chief Justice Isaac then called Judge Jerome to a meeting and advised him of the threat of a supreme court reference if the pace of the hearings into the three deportation cases did not pick up. With Judge Jerome's assistance, Chief Justice Isaac responded to Mr. Thompson's letter assuring the assistant deputy the cases would be expedited. “I have discussed your concerns with the associate chief justice and like me he is prepared to take all reasonable steps possible to avoid a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada on these matters.” This too was done without the knowledge of defence counsel.
Following this horrendous act of interference into the judicial independence of Judge Jerome, justice department officials sought to minimize the damage by deliberately creating a false scenario designed to mislead defence counsel and Canadians into believing that Ted Thompson has approached Chief Justice Isaac for the innocent purpose of discussing the scheduling of 12 future deportation cases and had inadvertently discussed the three deportation cases being handled by Judge Jerome.
In an effort to cover up this deceit, these justice officials recognized the need to keep Ted Thompson from testifying when a motion for a stay of proceedings was entered on the basis of political interference into the judicial independence of the court. This deceit and the object of deceit is revealed in secret justice department documents which justice officials were ordered to file in the Supreme Court of Canada. One of these documents is a memo to Mr. John Sims, the assistant deputy attorney general responsible for citizenship and immigration dated May 10, 1996, from Mr. Chris Amerasinghe, senior general counsel for the Attorney General of Canada.
Mr. Amerasinghe states in his memo that if Ted Thompson testified in court “The damage done to the image of the department, the attorney general and the court will be incalculable for all time and the consequences could be far reaching, going far beyond the immediate concern for these three cases. It could precipitate the resignations of the minister and the chief justice. More importantly, the reputation of the government and the court will be irreparably damaged if all the evidence were to come out.”
The contents of this one secret document alone is shocking and beyond belief, yet it gets worse.
In a second memo dated May 12, 1996 Mr. Amerasinghe states:
Unfortunately there are several problems in calling Ted Thompson—Bayne—one of the Defence Counsel—will soon realize the extent of the friendship between Ted Thompson and the Chief Justice and will be able to demonstrate that the real reason Ted went to see the Chief Justice was to alert his close friend to an impending Reference which would embarrass the Chief Justice and seek ways of avoiding it, and that the story about the concern for the 12 cases was false and is a cover-up.
Justice officials were not the only ones who advised Thompson not to testify. During a private conversation in Montreal in early May, Judge Jerome provided Thompson with the same legal advice, not to submit an affidavit. Chief Justice Isaac was at the same Montreal rules committee meeting, again an unbelievable revelation.
As unbelievable as this is, Mr. Amerasinghe clearly and accurately describes the story being put forward by the justice department as false and a cover up, and this assessment is not denied by any justice official in the documents filed with the Supreme Court of Canada.
The most outrageous and reprehensible part of this whole scandal is the realization that this false story, this cover up, was extended either knowingly or unknowingly into the House of Commons by the former justice minister who on May 29, 1996 said this in Hansard regarding the meeting between Thompson and Isaac: “The meeting was for the purpose initially of discussing concerns with the pace of litigation generally in the federal court”.
The former justice minister is here parroting the false story and cover up detailed by Mr. Amerasinghe in a secret memo to John Sims. Mr. Amerasinghe said in relation to Ted Thompson's motives and the real reason for approaching his friend was not to discuss general administrative matters but to alert his close personal friend of the proposed supreme court reference which would embarrass Chief Justice Isaac who had been working to improve the reputation of the federal court.
I invite all Canadians to look at the facts, to review the evidence. I am confident a reasonable person would reach the same shocking conclusions. I am confident ordinary Canadians would recognize that aspects of what the former justice minister reported in this House were incorrect and misleading and that the finding of Charles Dubin concerning the conduct of Ted Thompson is at best deficient and at worst a deliberate whitewash as he had access to all the damning information contained in the documents filed in the supreme court, and that the Canadian Judicial Council's examination of the conduct of Chief Justice Isaac is also inadequate and deficient. However, this was to be expected, given that the council did not have access to all the information contained in the secret and confidential justice department documents that were later filed with the Supreme Court of Canada.
It appears that the Canadian Judicial Council depended solely on the word of Chief Justice Isaac who told them among other things that he never discussed Judge Jerome recusing himself from the cases, although the justice documents say exactly the opposite.
Yesterday the Supreme Court of Canada, although dismissing the stay of proceedings motion, clearly stated that both Chief Justice Isaac and Associate Chief Justice Jerome were tainted by this affair and should have nothing further to do with these cases.
What are Canadians to think when they witness this type of conduct from our justice officials and our judges, the very people entrusted to protect our rights and freedoms and who are to uphold the rule of law to the very highest standards? What are they to think when they see pertinent information being withheld from the Canadian Judicial Council, the one body entrusted to ensure that courts and judges remain independent of outside pressures so citizens can rely on the fact that they will receive fair and impartial hearings? What are they to think when they hear and see this kind of conduct on the part of these officials? What are Canadians to think when they hear all the damning evidence which clearly points to such inappropriate conduct? And there is more.
In a secret memo to John Sims, the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, dated December 14, 1995, Chris Amerasinghe states this:
I am appalled at the irresponsible manner in which the associate chief justice, who is responsible for the proper functioning of the federal court trial division conducts the business of the court. It is a travesty of justice that these cases proceed at a snail's pace and that Jerome acquiesces in every attempt by counsel for the respondents to delay them rather than pushing counsel to deal with them speedily. He does not seem to care what happens. Apparently the Chief Justice of the Federal Court either has no power to influence the conduct of the Associate Chief Justice or does not wish to do so.
Mr. Amerasinghe attributed the associate chief justice's behaviour to the state of his health. I quote from the same memo:
He appeared to be misled as to the nature to the privilege which we were claiming—the rather disjointed manner in which he spoke caused me serious concern as to the state of his health. More disturbing was the fact that he did not appear to appreciate that Bayne was misleading him as to the law.
These comments are not only in contempt of Judge Jerome and his court, they are designed to spread this contempt into the minds of anyone who read them, including the Assistant Deputy Attorney General of Canada, John Sims. So bitter was Amerasinghe's attack on Judge Jerome that John Sims blacked out those portions of Amerasinghe's memo before he passed it on to the members of the litigation committee.
If Mr. Amerasinghe had justification for his attack on Judge Jerome, the proper body to take it before was the Judicial Council of Canada, instead of sowing seeds of contempt in the minds of his superiors within the Department of Justice and yet that is exactly what he did. It is outrageous and unacceptable that this has happened within the highest levels of the justice department.
In the words of a defence counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Department of Justice, the former minister of justice and the Hon. Charles Dubin exacerbated Ted Thompson's flagrant breach of judicial independence with their “concerted pattern of lack of candour and outright deception”.
On May the 29, 1996 the former justice minister stood in this House and stated:
I want to note at the outset that as soon as the department became aware that Mr. Thompson and Chief Justice Isaac had met, and as soon as the correspondence came to light, the department provided copies of that correspondence to the lawyers acting for the three persons involved in the revocation cases pending before the Federal Court.
The minister's statement was wrong and is wrong. Counsel for the applicants received copies of the correspondence on March 7, 1996. Yet we know from Mr. Amerasinghe's diary notes and from an e-mail dated March 1, 1996 addressed to Mr. John Sims from Mr. Amerasinghe both these men knew of Thompson's letter six days before it was forwarded to counsel.
I phoned Ted Thompson's office and was told by his secretary that he had written to Julius Isaac. I have no doubt he will advise you.
The contents of faxed messages between Mr. Amerasinghe, Mr. John Sims and the deputy attorney general clearly reveal that these officials were aware of this issue or problem days before the letters were sent to defence counsel and is a direct contradiction to what the former justice minister stated in this House.
The former justice minister not only submitted information that mislead the House of the facts of this case, he also withheld information for almost three months regarding this matter.
Ted Thompson committed this breach of judicial independence on March 1, 1996 and yet it was not brought to the floor of the House until the end of May of that same year. Why was this matter not reported the moment the minister knew of it? Why did he wait until the matter became a subject of public interest in the media before he notified the House of what was happening within his department? That is unacceptable and is shameful. It is shameful that the former minister stood in this House on more that one occasion and stated:
From the moment that it came to the attention of the justice officials that Ted Thompson had been to see the chief justice, steps were taken to find out exactly what happened, to get copies of the correspondence and put them in the hands of the lawyers involved in the three cases.
Yet we waited for three months before he notified us of what was going on within his department. It is unacceptable that the former justice minister refused to remove Ted Thompson for his professional and unethical misconduct despite Reform urging him to do so. It was the only proper course of action to clear the air and assure Canadians that the justice department is not staffed by individuals who will violate the judicial independence of our courts. Instead the minister turned the matter over to the former chief justice of Ontario, Charles Dubin, a person, and I quote the minister, “whose experience and integrity in such matters is beyond question”.
On October 1, 1996 the minister publicly embraced Mr. Dubin's findings when he stated “We took the trouble to have a person of unquestioned reputation look carefully through all the facts of this matter. He took the trouble to look through all the facts carefully, speak to the people involved, examine the documents and consider them carefully in accordance with appropriate principles. He concluded there was no basis to fire Ted Thompson”. I say nonsense. Absolute nonsense.
If the former justice minister believed this, why did he order a new investigation into this issue when the contents of the secret documents filed with the Supreme Court of Canada were made public during the last week of the federal election? Those were the very documents Mr. Dubin had access to during his investigation.
The confidential documents clearly call into question Mr. Dubin's findings and suggest an enormous deficiency in his conclusions and in his recommendation that left Ted Thompson within the justice department.
In my opinion, Mr. Dubin's report was a whitewash. He completely ignored or glossed over the facts and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, maintained that Mr. Thompson's conduct although inappropriate was properly motivated and within his jurisdiction. Throughout his report he maintains the charade that Mr. Thompson's meeting was to discuss general administrative matters involving 12 pending revocation cases and that three current cases were mentioned inadvertently. This is a false story and a cover-up described within Mr. Amerasinghe's internal documents to his superiors.
Ted Thompson and Chief Justice Isaac committed one of the most serious breaches of judicial interference ever experienced in this country. The true facts surrounding this enormous violation have been ignored and some say covered up and have just been revealed recently.
In the words of defence counsel quoting Lord Denning, “Had this occurred in England, it would have brought down the government”. But not in Canada because in Canada political interference in the judicial process has become a way of life and the hallmark of the Liberal government.
We witnessed political interference in the Airbus affair and in the Krever inquiry. Can we imagine setting up an inquiry such as the Krever inquiry and then creating legal roadblocks, as it has done, interfering with Krever's mandate.
Then there was the Pearson airport contract. A bill was rammed through the House which denied the injured people due process to file a grievance within our justice system.
In the Somalia inquiry not only was there interference, it stopped the inquiry completely. There was not only political interference, the judicial process was stopped completely and Canadians were denied the full facts and truth about the horrible wrongdoing and cover-up within the Canadian military.
Is it any wonder that over 50% of Canadians have lost faith in our courts and in our justice system after witnessing the arrogant attitude that tampering with justice and the rule of law is acceptable. And if you get caught, nothing happens.
In the case of Mr. Thompson, he was transferred to somewhere else in the department. The Prime Minister moved the former justice minister out of justice and into health and this House cannot hold him accountable for the scandal which he has left in the justice department.
In summation of this scandalous affair, it is clear that this all occurred because these people did not want to suffer the embarrassment of a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada. They chose instead to violate the independence and the impartiality of the courts and betray the faith and trust of Canadians.
These people have to go. They do not belong in our justice system. They have proven by their actions that they are unworthy of belonging in our justice system.
In view of this terrible government interference which runs like a current through our justice system on a regular basis, I have forwarded a complaint to the Law Society of Upper Canada asking for an immediate investigation into the conduct of Ted Thompson, John Sims and Chris Amerasinghe. In the light of yesterday's Supreme Court remarks regarding Isaac and Jerome, I have also written to the Canadian Judicial Council requesting a more thorough review of Chief Justice Isaac's actions as well as an examination of the conduct of Associate Chief Justice Jerome as referenced in the justice department documents filed in the Supreme Court of Canada.