OTTAWA -- The House Justice Committee will not be undertaking a study into leaked reports about years-old tension between Jody Wilson-Raybould and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over her choice of a Supreme Court justice.
At a meeting to discuss the potential of taking on a probe of "unprecedented breaches of confidentiality that have taken place recently in respect of the Supreme Court appointment process," the Liberal MPs on the committee voted against the proposal, much to the chagrin of the opposition Conservatives and NDP.
The motion, put forward by Conservative MP Michael Cooper, was to have the committee sit additional hours to study the "very, very serious" leak of information surrounding the Supreme Court of Canada selection process, and to report back before the end of May.
As CTV News and The Canadian Press reported last month, Wilson-Raybould wanted to appoint Manitoba Justice Glenn D. Joyal in 2017 to not only fill a vacancy on the top court, but also be appointed to the chief justice role. Trudeau rejected her pick and the sources familiar with the matter told CTV News that this years-old disagreement was the point when relations between the two began to fray. The leak came amid the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Shortly after the news broke, Joyal issued a statement confirming he applied for the seat on the court but said he ultimately withdrew his name for personal reasons.
"I fear that someone is using my previous candidacy to the Supreme Court of Canada to further an agenda unrelated to the appointment process. This is wrong," Joyal wrote.
In making his case for the study, Cooper referenced various parliamentarians from all sides, and other legal experts who expressed concern with the leak of this kind of information and questioned the impacts it may have on future court appointment processes.
In their opposition to the probe, Liberal MPs said that while they agreed with the seriousness of the matter, they could not support the idea of asking journalists who reported the news to appear before the committee to discuss the leaks.
The opposition MPs said they never intended for the study to include the journalists who received the leak, rather they wanted to hear from the potential sources of it, citing justice department and PMO officials as examples of the kinds of witnesses they wanted to hear from.
"I want to hear from the officials," said NDP MP Murray Rankin. "Who they leaked it to is irrelevant to me."
The Conservatives initially called on the Federal Judicial Affairs Commissioner to study the leaks, but commissioner Marc Giroux said that while he was "deeply concerned and troubled about the release to the media of any confidential information," his office did not have the ability to launch investigations.
They then suggested that Justice Minister David Lametti should take on investigating the matter. He has said he too was "concerned" by the leaks, but has made no indication that he would further look into the matter.
