Federal Justice Minister David Lametti is publicly musing about whether Canada should consider separating the offices of its attorney general and its minister of justice in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin controversy, an idea that has backing from others who know the job intimately.
The woman at the centre of the political storm has herself called for this separation to be studied. As part of her explosive testimony to the House of Commons justice committee earlier this week, Jody Wilson-Raybould said she believes there is merit in the committee studying splitting the roles of attorney general and justice minister.
In her testimony Wednesday, Wilson-Raybould pointed to the United Kingdom, where the roles are separate. Both offices are held by politicians but the attorney general doesn't sit in cabinet. The "Shawcross Doctrine," the principle that limits how much an attorney general can be asked to consider politics, is named for a British attorney general of the 1950s.
Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick told the committee last month those discussions were perfectly legal and didn't cross the line into improper pressure on the attorney general, whom he noted was repeatedly assured by Trudeau that a final decision on the matter was hers. Wilson-Raybould disagreed, saying she found the pressure inappropriate, if legal.
"There are challenges and you have to try to distinguish your hats and knowing when you're wearing your minister-of-justice hat or knowing when you have to put on your attorney-general hat," he said. "There are good arguments to split it." "I was of the opinion, when I was there for six-and-a-half years, that it was a good fit. That there was a complete separation between the two," he told reporters in Ottawa. "But maybe we should have a look it at when you see this kind of abuse taking place."
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