House of Commons photoLost her last election, in 2019, with 36% of the vote.
Mr. Chair, moving on to issues from this afternoon, in question period today the Prime Minister indicated, “We continue to respect the independence of the judiciary. We always will. Measures were brought forward against the vice-admiral at the direction of the chief of the defence staff.”
Could the minister let us know whether the chief of the defence staff ordered the RCMP to lay charges?
Mr. Chair, I am asking the minister whether he or a member of his staff or any members of the Prime Minister's Office, now or in the future, have ever told anybody who works with or for SNC-Lavalin that it will get a deferred prosecution agreement eventually, more specifically, before the election?
Mr. Chair, have any of the minister's staff members provided any employee of SNC-Lavalin with assurances that he ensured it would receive a deferred prosecution agreement prior to the election, yes or no?
Mr. Chair, has the minister begun the process to issue a directive under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act to override the decision of the director of public prosecutions in this matter?
Mr. Chair, I will be using my entire 15 minutes on questions to the minister.
Has the minister brought a proposal to cabinet to give a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin, yes or no?
Points of Order May 14th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties, and I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That the House recognize Vice-Admiral Mark Norman for his decades of loyal service to Canada, express regret for the personal and professional hardships he endured as a result of his failed prosecution, and apologize to him and his family for what they experienced during their legal conflict with the government.
Justice May 14th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, all the minister does is bring up even more questions and answers we simply do not have. Perhaps we should go back to what the counsel for Vice-Admiral Norman said at the press conference:
No person in this country should ever walk into a courtroom and feel like they are fighting their elected government.
Vice-Admiral Norman himself said:
There are lots of questions that need to be asked and answered about this whole process. I think some people that have been involved in this need to reflect on what happened and why it happened, and their role in that.
What does the Minister of Justice think about his role in this cover-up?
Justice May 14th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice has stood here in the House and indicated that the government handed over all the documents it was asked for. That is patently untrue, and I have proof.
The counsel for Vice-Admiral Norman said, “It took six months to get documents, and as we sit here today, and as we walked out of that courtroom, we still did not have all of them.” She said there were thousands of documents they had not received.
She went on to say, “I want to make it very clear that we, the defence, had to bring this motion, at great expense to Vice-Admiral Norman, to get at those records.” She said only the government had access, and that it was obviously the government that was “standing in the way of that full disclosure”.
Justice May 8th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, what is absurd is the fact that these cabinet ministers are being sent out with such flimsy lines and actually do not address the matter. The matter, simply put, is that Vice-Admiral Mark Norman had to spend the last two and a half years scraping and fighting and defending himself while the government sat back and let it happen. It did not produce the documents it was supposed to. In fact, the Prime Minister, on two occasions, said that this matter would end up in court even before the RCMP laid the charge.
What is the government afraid of?
Justice May 8th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, this was said today in the press: “I have an important story to tell that Canadians will want and need to hear.”
We have had documents withheld, we have had witnesses silenced and we have seen a personal attack on the reputation of a revered public servant. I am not talking about SNC-Lavalin. What I am talking about is the trial of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.
Will the Prime Minister do the right thing and apologize?