House debate  Madam Chair, I am proud of the RCMP, an institution that is able to conduct investigations and that has a long history in Canada. I am also proud of the Public Prosecution Service, a new institution created by the former Conservative government that is working very well. Lastly,

House debate  Madam Chair, as I said earlier this evening, I met informally with Mathieu Bouchard and Elder Marques during my first cabinet meeting, but I never spoke with Mr. Butts.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I said, it was a breakfast meeting where we discussed a number of legal issues.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I said, it was a breakfast meeting, and we discussed several issues.

House debate  Madam Chair, I have nothing to offer the hon. member on that.

House debate  Madam Chair, I thank the hon. member for his work on the justice committee and, indeed, for Bill C-417, which our government supported. It is one of the first things I did when I became the newly appointed minister of justice to make sure that we supported that bill, with the sup

House debate  Madam Chair, it is my understanding that the majority of members on the justice committee felt they had heard enough. There were competing narratives and competing interpretations of the Shawcross principle. I know that the Ethics Commissioner is enquiring into the matter. We h

House debate  Madam Chair, while what the hon. member said is true to an extent, the Ethics Commissioner does have significant powers to shed light on this matter. We had testimony before the justice committee that gave competing versions of events. As I said earlier this evening, it is quite

House debate  Madam Chair, the hon. member is a lawyer who will understand that when I say, as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, that I will not make any pronouncement about my own interpretation in that regard, it is simply because there is ongoing litigation. There is an appeal p

House debate  Madam Chair, I do not give advice to Parliament as such. I will note that there were different interpretations of the Shawcross principle that were given at committee, and he can read those opinions and form an opinion on his own.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I said in answer to an earlier question, I will not comment on the nature of the process with respect to SNC-Lavalin and DPAs because there is an ongoing appellate procedure, and anything I can say or do might be interpreted as having taken a stance in that matter

House debate  Madam Chair, again, I will not elaborate on either the powers in this particular instance of the DPP or the powers in this particular instance of the attorney general, as elaborated in the law, simply because anything I can say might be interpreted and used in the course of the a

House debate  Madam Chair, again, I will not agree or disagree in this kind of proceeding, because anything that I can say might be used in the course of litigation. I will remind the hon. member that there were various interpretations of the Shawcross principle, and that was one of them.

House debate  Madam Chair, I thank the hon. member for his question and I thank him for shifting gears as well. I will say that he is well aware, with respect to the first part of his intervention, that the powers that are held by the director of public prosecutions with respect to deferred p

House debate  Madam Chair, I cannot speak in any informed manner to any of the basic premises of that question because I was not party to the various conversations and circumstances that are leading the hon. member to draw certain conclusions. I would say that the government has conducted itse