Justice committee  That's correct. That's my understanding. It's also my understanding that it's not possible to come to a final decision until the court process plays out and a verdict is rendered.

Justice committee  I think I have a lot of concerns about this, but I'm not sure I would agree with that characterization. I think it was incumbent upon the people who were trying to put advice and evidence in front of the Attorney General to do so, and I think it was incumbent upon her to hear i

Justice committee  I like to look forward in life, Mr. Ehsassi. We're all human. We all make mistakes all the time. Part of improving your professional life and your personal relationships is to examine the mistakes. On this case, I've looked at it really closely over the last couple of weeks. I f

Justice committee  You mean following the cabinet shuffle?

Justice committee  Yes. I think that part of her characterization of those conversations...and there were at least four or five of them, and they were long and they were personal and they reflected two people trying to deal with a very difficult issue. There was a point where the minister asked m

Justice committee  That's correct.

Justice committee  It was very similar, as it turns out, to the.... As everyone in this committee knows, the splitting of INAC was a royal commission recommendation. When the Prime Minister, through the cabinet shuffle in 2017, I believe, in the summer—I could be wrong about that—created the new

Justice committee  I'm not going to comment on what happened in a meeting I wasn't present for, Mr. Rankin—

Justice committee  —but I do believe, as I said in my statement, that if something this wrong had happened, she had an obligation to at least inform the Prime Minister in writing. Yes, I believe that to be true.

Justice committee  That's not my—

Justice committee  That is not my testimony. My testimony is that, as I said at the outset, I have a very different version of events, and I will say that I am not going to cast aspersions on a former colleague. I think that I tried to explain in—

Justice committee  Let me finish my sentence—

Justice committee  I believe that everything I have said to this committee today is the truth, and I believe I described the events as they happened.

Justice committee  That sounds as if you're asking me to do a technical evaluation based on the meaning of the law. I think a common sense approach to this is that you take all of the input from your colleagues, and if you think that the input isn't appropriate, you tell them it's inappropriate.

Justice committee  I think I covered that in my testimony, Mr. Ehsassi. It's a challenging explanation for the people whose jobs were at stake.