Mr. Chair, the prosecution has been stayed by the director of public prosecutions. I will say no more than that. The hon. member is an attorney and he knows what that means.
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Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, the prosecution has been stayed by the director of public prosecutions. I will say no more than that. The hon. member is an attorney and he knows what that means.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, once again, I would point out that the director of public prosecutions has said that there has been no political interference in this trial. I am confident in the institutions, like the RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, and, ultimately, very confident in our trial process.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, within the process, documents were turned over to PCO in order to determine whether they were covered by privilege, whether it be solicitor-client or cabinet privilege. This was a normal part of this process. I would point out that the clerk of the Privy Council delegated the ultimate authority to make the decision on whether documents had to be produced or redacted to the judge, which is highly exceptional and, I think, evidence of our good faith in this matter.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, I am obviously not going to comment on trial strategies of whatever party is involved in a trial. It would be absurd for me to do that.
What I will say is that the director of the prosecution service has stated on at least two occasions that there was no political interference, including for the staying of the decision. The prosecutor herself stated that there was no political interference.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, again, I do not accept the premise of the question. I point the hon. member to the statement by the director of public prosecutions herself. On at least two occasions she said there was no political interference in the case, and the prosecutor in the case also said that.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, as I described in a previous line of questioning, the Department of Justice set up a procedure with the court in order to fulfill its obligations with respect to third party records. That is all the Department of Justice was doing in this case. We identified over 140,000 potentially relevant documents in a variety of different places. That number was boiled down to 8,000 and then ultimately a judge, working through a civil servant and the PCO, was going to determine both the relevance of the documents and whether they would be subject to privilege of any sort, be it solicitor-client, cabinet confidence or other.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, I am not prepared to accept the premise of that question. I have no comment on it.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, my understanding is that all lawyers in the justice department are, but not all lawyers in the government.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, I believe that lawyer is part of the legal team for the Privy Council Office, which serves the Prime Minister.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2019
Mr. Chair, that is true, as Attorney General of Canada.