Trudeau defends judicial appointments with personal connections to Dominic LeBlanc

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday defended a string of recent judicial appointments in New Brunswick that involved people with personal connections to Beauséjour Liberal MP and cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc — even as a call was made for the federal conflict of interest and ethics commissioner to investigate the matter.

"We are fully confident that the process — the transparent merit-based process that we've put in place is the right one and we stand by it," Trudeau told reporters when asked directly if he would be reviewing recent appointments in New Brunswick.

Earlier this week, it was reported that three lawyers who were past contributors to LeBlanc's Beauséjour riding association and also helped retire debts from his 2008 leadership bid all won federal appointments to sit as judges in the last year, as did a fourth lawyer married to LeBlanc's brother-in-law. 

In a fifth appointment last month, Justice Tracey Deware was elevated to the position of chief justice of New Brunswick's trial division.  

She and her husband, Jacques Pinet, bought property from LeBlanc in 2013 and moved next door to his summer house in Grande-Digue. Pinet has also donated to LeBlanc's riding association, and he gave money to help retire his 2008 leadership debts.

According to LeBlanc's filings with the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Pinet also paid for LeBlanc to spend three days in 2014 at New Brunswick's Ledges Lodge, which advertises itself as the only 4.5 star hunting and fishing retreat on the Miramichi River.  

According to the declaration, Pinet was acting in his then role as vice-president of Moncton's Assumption Life, and LeBlanc attended the lodge as part of an "annual trip with local business leaders and other elected officials."

'Transparent appointments'

At a news conference in Montreal, Trudeau said the five selections were part of a "transparent appointment system," although much about how the choices were made is unknown.

The Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs will not say how many New Brunswick lawyers applied for the judgeships or whether any unsuccessful candidates scored higher on independent assessments of their abilities to sit on the bench than the ones who were chosen.

In Canada, all candidates for federal judicial appointments are required to submit an application and agree to an assessment by provincial or sub provincial judicial advisory committees.

New Brunswick evaluations for recent appointments were headed by senior New Brunswick Appeal Court Justice Margaret Larlee and included six other committee members made up of lawyers and members of the public.

The committees grade applicants as either recommended, highly recommended or unable to recommend, but none of that information is available, even in redacted form.

According to Philippe Lacasse, executive director for judicial appointments in the commissioner's office, secrecy is required to protect judicial applicants.

"In order to ensure and protect the privacy of candidates and the confidentiality of them having applied to become judges, statistics are provided on a national basis only," Lacasse wrote in an email to CBC News.  

"A provincial or regional breakdown could allow analysis of the data which may lead to identifying individual candidates."

Call for investigation

In Ottawa, Duff Conacher with the group Democracy Watch said the selection process is not transparent, and he's sent a 10-page letter to Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion. 

In the letter, released to the media, Conacher asked for an investigation into whether LeBlanc participated in the "decision-making processes" of the five appointments.

The minister's office has not commented on the appointments. 

LeBlanc, who holds three cabinet portfolios, including Intergovernmental Affairs, did file a declaration of recusal with the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner over the appointment of one of the five judges.  

Marie-Claude Belanger-Richard is married to LeBlanc's brother-in-law and according to LeBlanc's declaration, he withdrew from cabinet consideration of her appointment shortly before it was approved.

"In order to avoid any opportunity to provide preferential treatment or to further the private interests of my relative Ms. Marie-Claude Belanger Richard, I recused myself on November 6, 2018, from all discussions, decisions, debates or votes relating to judicial appointments," reads LeBlanc's declaration.

Belanger-Richard's appointment was announced publicly three days later.

There were no recusals filed in relation to the other four appointments, but it is not clear LeBlanc voted on any of them. LeBlanc has been battling cancer and in April this year announced he had been taking treatments and would be stepping away from cabinet duties temporarily to focus on his health.

The four remaining judicial appointments connected to LeBlanc occurred between March and June this year,  near the period his health problems flared up.

Still, Conacher said the relationship of the successful candidates to LeBlanc requires investigation under provisions of Canada's Conflict of Interest Act.