OTTAWA – MPs and Senators will be back in Ottawa on Thursday for a pair of hearings to discuss and question Quebec judge Nicholas Kasirer, who Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has nominated to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court.
The first meeting is of the House of Commons Justice Committee at 11 a.m., chaired by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather. The witnesses will be Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti and former prime minister Kim Campbell, who is the chair of the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments.
Then, at 2 p.m. hearing is happening across the street from Parliament Hill that will feature the nominee Kasirer.
Dean of the faculty of law at the University of Sherbrooke Genevieve Cartier will moderate that session, where the prospective new Supreme Court justice will take questions from members of both the House Justice Committee and the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Representatives of the three parties not represented on those committees, the Bloc Quebecois, Green Party and People’s Party, will also be able to participate in the question and answer session.
Kasirer will be filling the seat left vacant by the coming September retirement of Justice Clement Gascon, who announced this spring that he’d be leaving Canada’s top court for personal and family reasons. In May he went missing and was later found safe, citing anxiety and depression as reasons behind his disappearance.
It’s possible the opposition Conservatives and New Democrats on the House Justice Committee will look to use Thursday’s special summer meeting to raise what they see as a the contentious return of Gerald Butts to the Liberal fold.
Over the weekend CTV News confirmed that Butts is advising the Liberal party and its senior leadership as they prepare their campaign strategy for the upcoming federal election. Butts resigned as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary amid the SNC-Lavalin scandal, though denied any wrongdoing.
The committee was the epicentre for many of the developments in the scandal. It was there that in late February former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould—now an Independent MP running for reelection— personally spoke to the allegations that senior staff in Prime Minister's Office pressured her to ask federal prosecutors to make a deal in the corruption and fraud case against Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.
