David Lametti

[Ethics, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the rule of law in Canada and the course of justice are doing quite well today.

The prosecution service of Canada, acting independently of government, as the director said, and acting independently of influence, including political influence of any kind, made a decision to stay a proceeding after having led a process and after having started that process based on evidence given by another great institution, the RCMP.

The rule of law is functioning as it should in Canada. Justice has been served. I am quite proud of our system.

[Ethics, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as I have stated a number of times in this House today, there are a number of outstanding institutions that did their jobs properly to protect the rule of law in Canada.

The RCMP conducted an investigation, which produced evidence. The prosecution service took that evidence, assessed it, decided to lay charges, decided to proceed with the prosecution and then decided to stay it, all within its independent powers as our prosecution service.

Our government co-operated in producing thousands of documents under third party record application—

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with every single premise in that question. A great institution, the RCMP, led the investigation and produced evidence, which it gave over to the prosecution service. The prosecution service, which operates independently from government, evaluated that evidence and decided to move ahead with laying charges in this case, and then went through the proceedings.

During the proceedings, the Department of Justice co-operated with the court for the production of third party document requests. That is—

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat that the decision to stay charges was made by the director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada alone. As I have repeated many times, we co-operated with the court to produce the documents required for the trial. The director herself said this morning, as she did in February, that there was no political influence in this case.

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of the question.

We fulfilled all our obligations. We co-operated with the court for the production of documents.

The director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada makes decisions independently of government. As she said in February and again today, there was no political interference.

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in French and English, the government fulfilled all of its obligations with respect to documents requested in the proceedings.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada operates independently from the Government of Canada, my office and the Department of Justice. This proves that the rule of law system works very well in Canada.

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I obviously reject the premise of the hon. member's question.

This country is all about the rule of law. This country is about great institutions, like the RCMP, like the Public Prosecution Service, which was a good thing started by the previous Conservative government in order to give independence to the prosecutorial decisions and the governance of prosecution proceedings in Canada.

That system worked well today. Members do not have to just believe me. They can believe the lawyer for Vice-Admiral Norman, who said the rule of law worked.

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the only thing I agree with in the hon. member's statement is that this is about the rule of law in Canada, and indeed the rule of law in Canada functioned very well, from the RCMP in beginning its investigation through to the Public Prosecution Service acting independently and making decisions based on the evidence as it came through.

This Public Prosecution Service operates independently of government. It operated independently of government. It made appropriate decisions. It proves that the rule of law is alive and well in Canada and that the system works well.

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member well knows, the RCMP, which did the initial investigation, operates independently of government. The Public Prosecution Service, which looks at the evidence gathered by the RCMP and decides whether to lay charges, which proceeds with the prosecution if it decides to lay charges and then, in this case, decides to stay the proceedings, also operates independently of government, independently of my office and independently of the Prime Minister's office.

The director of public prosecutions stated today, as she stated in February, that there was no outside—

[Justice, May 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as I have stated a number of times over the course of the last couple of weeks, this government, and my department in particular, fulfilled all of their obligations with respect to documents requested in the proceedings. All the priority documents identified in the month of February had been given over at the point of trial.

This prosecution was directed by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. It is independent of the government and of my department. It proved today that the system works.