Calls for Stephen Horsman's resignation met by no clear standards

As Liberal Justice Minister Stephen Horsman faces calls for his resignation, there's no clear precedent he can rely on.

The standard for a minister to quit his position has shifted over time, with some of the shifting done by the Progressive Conservatives now calling for Horsman to go.

Jody Carr, one of the PC MLA's leading the charge against Horsman, refused in 2013 to quit over a privacy violation by his staff, even though three other cabinet ministers had quit on privacy issues between 2005 and 2010.

"There is no comparison" with the Horsman case, Carr said Wednesday, explaining why his situation was different.

And that's why there's no clear, objective criteria for whether Horsman should quit: every case really is different.

While two federal cabinet ministers have quit in the past over conversations with judges, Horsman says he will "absolutely not" resign.

Horsman acknowledged last week that Court of Queen's Bench justices have talked to him about the controversial Bill 21, though he offered two different versions about how those conversations took place.

Horsman's first version came in question period on Friday when he said, "I have had many judges call me and tell me personally" they support Bill 21 "because they did not want to be moved."

The legislation, which Court of Queen's Bench Chief Justice David Smith opposes, would give Horsman and future justice ministers a veto over Smith's relocating of justices from court to court.

The PCs say such a veto would violate the independence of the courts. Horsman talking about the bill to judges also violates it, they say.

Within hours of his statement in the legislature, Horsman contacted CBC News to retract what he said. "No one's actually personally calling me," he said.

Instead, he said he ran into judges "at functions" who were telling him that they liked that Bill 21 would require individual justices to be consulted about being moved.

"They come up to me and state, 'Thanks for including judges in the whole process,'" he said, "because right now they're not."

Regardless of how the conversations happened, interim PC Leader Bruce Fitch says they could still affect judicial independence.

A minister should only speak to chief justices about court administration issues, Fitch said.

2 ex-federal ministers discussed court cases

Ministers have resigned in the past over conversations with judges. In 1990, then-federal PC sports minister Jean Charest quit after calling a Quebec Superior Court judge who was about to rule in a case involving the Canadian Track and Field Association.

And federal Liberal cabinet minister John Munro resigned in 1978 for calling a judge to vouch for a constituent who was about to be sentenced on an assault conviction. Both federal ministers later returned to cabinet.

But Horsman's case is different. In both his first and second version of his description of conversations with judges, he didn't initiate the exchanges. They did.

And Horsman wasn't discussing a pending ruling, but rather a bill that affects court administration.

Still, Fitch says there's a second reason Horsman should resign: his changing story.

The PC leader says the minister's subsequent clarification that he was approached at events amounts to a "confession" that he lied to the legislature about getting calls from justices.

Horsman, who often mangles his words, says he merely misspoke, and Premier Brian Gallant backed him up.

Coming up with quick answers in question period "is not always the easiest thing to do, so at times you say it the wrong way," Gallant said.

Carr faced calls for his own resignation in 2013, when he was the Tory Education minister, after one of his political staffers, his brother Jeff Carr, sent out a Fredericton-area student's exam mark.

The province's privacy commissioner ruled it was a breach of privacy legislation. Carr apologized to the student's family.

On Wednesday, Carr said "there is no comparison" between his case and Horsman's, because the release of the exam mark "was unintentional and by accident as a result of carelessness by my staff."

Carr noted he notified the commissioner of the incident himself.

Threshold varies among parties, colleagues

In calling for Carr to quit in 2013, the Liberals pointed to their own precedent: the 2010 resignation of then-Justice minister Bernard LeBlanc after personal information was sent out in an email bearing his signature.

At the time, LeBlanc cited the long-time principle that a minister is accountable for everything that happens in his or her department.

"I am of the view that this breach falls within the principle of ministerial responsibility," he said at the time.

"This is a question of accountability, responsibility, and honour. For me, this is a matter of principle."

Two ministers in the Bernard Lord government also resigned over privacy violations, but they went about it differently.

Local Government Minister Brenda Fowlie refused at first, to quit in 2005 over revealing property tax information about a Liberal MLA. She resigned only after a ruling by the privacy commissioner that she broke the law.

Later the same year, Family and Community Services Minister Tony Huntjens stepped down within days after revealing personal information about someone in the care of his department to a newspaper reporter.

The two departures — one slow and forced, the other quick and voluntary — were another illustration that the threshold for a ministerial resignation can vary not just from government to opposition, or from PC to Liberal, but from one cabinet colleague to another.