{"id":210571,"date":"2019-04-18T22:53:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T02:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=210571"},"modified":"2019-04-18T22:53:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T02:53:55","slug":"trudeau-ignores-tory-complaints-launches-search-for-next-supreme-court-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/18\/trudeau-ignores-tory-complaints-launches-search-for-next-supreme-court-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau ignores Tory complaints, launches search for next Supreme Court justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trudeau says former prime minister Kim Campbell will once again lead the search as the head of an advisory panel whose members have not yet been named. (File Photo<\/a>: Justin Trudeau\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially launched the selection process to replace Supreme Court Justice Clement Gascon today, ignoring calls from the federal Conservatives to delay it.<\/p>\n

The 59-year-old Gascon, who is from Quebec, announced on Monday that he will step down from the country’s top court for personal and family reasons in September.<\/p>\n

Trudeau says former prime minister Kim Campbell will once again lead the search as the head of an advisory panel whose members have not yet been named.<\/p>\n

The panel will be responsible for drawing up a short list of between three and five potential candidates, all of whom must be trained in civil law and hail from Quebec.<\/p>\n

The decision to launch the search to replace Gascon likely means the next justice will be appointed before this fall’s federal election.<\/p>\n

It also comes against the wishes of the Opposition Conservatives who asked Trudeau to put the appointment on hold and conduct an investigation into who leaked information about a dispute between Trudeau and former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould over who should be chief justice of Canada’s top court.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press and CTV reported last month that Wilson-Raybould recommended Glenn Joyal, chief justice of Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench, as the new chief justice of Canada.<\/p>\n

According to sources, Trudeau was concerned about her choice because he believed Joyal has a conservative, restrictive approach to interpreting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<\/p>\n

Trudeau ultimately named sitting Supreme Court Justice Richard Wagner to replace Beverley McLachlin, who retired as chief justice in December 2017.<\/p>\n

He also appointed Alberta judge Sheilah Martin to fill western Canada’s seat on the bench.<\/p>\n

The leaks, which Trudeau says did not come from his office, landed in the midst of a furor over Wilson-Raybould’s contention that she was improperly pressured last fall to stop the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on foreign bribery charges.<\/p>\n

The reports suggested Trudeau had reasons unrelated to the Montreal engineering giant to move Wilson-Raybould out of the prestigious justice portfolio to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle.<\/p>\n

Wilson-Raybould believes the move was punishment for her refusal to halt the prosecution. She resigned from cabinet a month after the shuffle and was removed from the Liberal caucus in early April.<\/p>\n

Gascon officially retires Sept. 15, which is after the official start of the fall election.<\/p>\n

If the House of Commons is to have a chance to hear about the decision and ask questions of the new judge before the election, the advisory committee and Trudeau will have to make a decision before the end of June.<\/p>\n

Trudeau is not required to select a judge recommended by the advisory panel.<\/p>\n

Trudeau set May 17 as the deadline for interested to candidates to submit an application package.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially launched the selection process to replace Supreme Court Justice Clement Gascon today, ignoring …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":210312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210572,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210571\/revisions\/210572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}