David Lametti

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, I point out that with respect to these documents, the judge upheld the claim of solicitor-client privilege. They are privileged documents.

I dispute the premise the hon. member stated that we are not taking this seriously. I as minister take this matter very seriously. The department takes it seriously. The government takes it seriously.

We put together a very strong process, which again, exceptionally, put the final decision, including decisions on cabinet confidence, in the hands of a judge and not in the hands of the clerk of the privy council.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, as I have stated, I received a briefing in the course of events at which I was assured that we were taking all steps to meet our third party records application responsibilities. I am satisfied.

I have offered to read a description of what the process was that was set up. I am satisfied, and the court complimented us at the end of the case, that we took an extraordinary number of documents with extraordinary complexity, and we managed to put them through a process in which a judge would have the final say as to whether they would be produced or not and whether they would be redacted or not.

I am very satisfied that we in the Department of Justice fulfilled our responsibilities.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, if you give me 10 minutes, I am willing to read the note that describes the whole process for the documents.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, I was referring to a briefing earlier on, and I want to correct the record, as it is being misconstrued in this regard.

As I have said a number of times, this was an extraordinarily complex set of third-party documents that was requested, a large number, many of which would be covered by different kinds of privilege. We set up a process that would work, and we did a great deal of work within six months. We did better than in many private litigation cases that can go on for years.

I am quite happy with the performance of the Department of Justice in this matter. It put together a process that was fair and a process that worked, and indeed, the judge complimented us at the end of the case.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, I will not comment on specific allegations or their veracity.

What I can say is that the process we did set up was meant to include potentially all kinds of documents, including those contained on devices.

I will also point out that the judge thanked us at the conclusion of the trial for our hard work in producing documents.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, again, I am not going to comment on the veracity of any allegations that are made or the sources they came from. What I can say is that the process we envisaged and used in the justice department included email, personal devices and that sort of thing for those potentially relevant documents.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, the comment was taken completely out of context. I have no way of commenting on it, nor should I.

The prosecution service and counsel on each side are going to undertake to defend their clients as best they can in the ordinary course of proceedings, requesting documents, defending against those requests, etc.

The role of the Department of Justice, as I have made clear, was in the production of third-party document requests. We set up a process in response to the defence counsel, in particular, in that case. We set up a process that was fair and took into account the quantity and complexity of the documentation as well as the fact that there would be solicitor-client cabinet confidence and litigation privilege attached to a number of those documents.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, once again I will not comment about the various back-and-forth details about the case. That was managed by the director of public prosecutions and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, independently of the Government of Canada. Both the director of public prosecutions, on at least two occasions, as well as the prosecutor in question have stated that.

The Department of Justice had a role to play in the production of documents. As I said, 144,000 documents were identified as being potentially relevant. That number had to be assessed and analyzed, and it was boiled down to 8,000. Ultimately, those documents were in the process to go to a judge to be evaluated for privilege and that sort of thing. The Department of Justice has fulfilled its obligations in this case.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, as I have stated, I am not going to make comments about the actual proceedings of the case in the past tense. It would be inappropriate for me to do that. There are always a lot of strategic moves that are made throughout the course of a trial.

What I can say is that the justice department's role in this matter was in fulfillment of third party document requests, for which my department specifically set up a process. That process was followed because of the complexity and the sheer number of the documents requested. The process was set up to evaluate the requests and to then decide whether those documents were covered by some sort of privilege or confidence.

Again, it is a complex process, and we delegated the final decision-making authority to a judge.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Chair, it is critically important that we co-operate. The administration of justice is, in a sense, a shared responsibility. For example, we name judges, while the provinces have the responsibility for administering the court system.

It is the same thing with legal aid across Canada, as another example. We share responsibility and financial responsibility with the provinces. The provinces furnish legal aid services, and we provide part of the funding.

Obviously cuts across Canada do concern me. We are studying the impact of cuts very carefully.