Ethics  Mr. Speaker, as I have said a number of times today, the Department of Justice co-operated with the court and fulfilled its obligations for the production of third party documents. There were thousands of documents. Yes, it took time, but we fulfilled our obligation to the court.

Ethics  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.

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the rule of law in Canada and the course of justice is 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.

Justice  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  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.

Justice  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.

Justice  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  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.

Justice  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.

Justice  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.

Justice  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.

Justice  Mr. Speaker, the government did not play any role in the prosecution of Vice-Admiral Norman. My office did not play a role and neither did the PMO. This decision falls to the director of public prosecutions alone. Today, she said, as she indicated in February, that there was no outside influence in the proceedings.

Justice  Mr. Speaker, the director of public prosecutions stated today, as she stated in February, that there was no contact or influence, including political influence, from outside the PPSC, either at the step of the initial decision to prosecute or the decision to stay the charge. On this side of the House, we believe in our judicial institutions and we believe in our prosecutorial institutions, unlike the previous government, which had a record of interfering with the courts.

Justice  Mr. Speaker, the director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada did say today, as she did in February, that there was no outside interference in either the initial decision to prosecute Vice-Admiral Norman, or during the trial, or in the decision to stay the charge today.

Justice  Mr. Speaker, in February the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said that there was no influence in this case and it reiterated that today. By claiming the opposite, the opposition is raising doubts about our justice system and our legal institutions. We are very proud that the system worked as it should.