QUESTION PERIOD — Justice
Judicial Appointments
June 10, 2021
My question again is for the government leader. Leader, through media reports today, we’ve learned that the Trudeau government has stopped using Liberalist, the Liberal Party’s database of donors and supporters, to vet judicial appointments. Liberalist was used not only to see that judicial nominees had given money to the party, but who had participated in party activities, for example, or put up the Liberals’ election signs.
Last fall a former aide in Minister Lametti’s office publicly raised concerns about the extent of partisan influence in the Trudeau government’s judicial appointments and potential for scandal. The Canadian Bar Association said the government was eroding public confidence in the fairness of the justice system.
Leader, when exactly did your government stop using Liberalist to vet judicial appointments? Given that your government forcefully defended this practice when it was first revealed, why did you end it?
Thank you for your question. I don’t know the precise date at which it was stopped. The media attention to which you referred is well-known. The government remains committed to ensuring that its appointments are merit-based and not influenced by extraneous factors. As the government has explained in the past, candidates are vetted in a number of ways. Given the scrutiny — and properly so — that is placed upon government appointees to the judiciary and otherwise, vetting is done to make sure that the government is in a position to ask questions when they are posed. Again, this government is proud of the appointment process it put into place and approximately, if not more than, 400 outstanding jurists have been appointed under this government’s process.
In May 2019, the Prime Minister’s Office also confirmed that they are using the Liberalist party database to screen potential nominees for the Senate of Canada.
I want to make it clear, it’s fine for a government to appoint senators who will advance the government’s agenda, but be honest with Canadians about what you’re doing. Publicly claiming Senate appointments are independent while secretly checking a party database to confirm whether that individual will support your agenda is anything but honest.
Leader, does the Trudeau government still use Liberalist to vet Senate appointments? If so, why is that practice still in use when you stopped it for judicial appointments? If you stopped vetting Senate appointments against the Liberalist database, when did it end?
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I cannot accept the premise that lies behind it. The government’s approach has been clear, it’s been open, it’s been transparent — much more so than previous processes in the past.
I know of at least one case where a senator was appointed under this government notwithstanding the fact that he had made donations to the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP in addition to the Liberal Party. The fact is, as is the case with the judiciary, it is the case here in the Senate. This government is proud of the diversity of experienced and talented people who have been appointed to the Senate and stands by the process that it put into place.
