There is not much that happens in government without consulting lawyers, because in the silence of the law there are no public authorities. Legal considerations are very, very special. They cannot be weighed against other factors. If the proposed measure is illegal, it is illegal. Lawyers have a very important responsibility that requires them to consider legality and disregard other issues.
A state lawyer is a member of the Bar. There are quite a few obligations that come with that, obligations of honesty, integrity, all those good things. There’s also the fact that… We’re not in private practice, we’re not free agents who can do whatever we want, run our practice however we want. A lawyer of the state is a civil servant, so that comes with all the obligations of a civil servant, which include objectivity, neutrality, and loyalty to the elected government. Not as a partisan, but as a good civil servant.
The Minister of Justice is a constitutional position. You have a law on the Department of Justice, which sets out all the obligations that come with working on behalf of the Minister of Justice. It’s not just about respecting the principle of law but ensuring that public affairs comply with the law. For me, that’s powerful.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the administration of justice was very interesting because the state was not as visible, partly because it was highly decentralized. The ministry’s office in Quebec City was staffed by a handful of civil servants. We are talking here about permanent staff. For example, in 1867, there were three people, and this number gradually increased to 25 in the 1920s. So, we had a very small decision-making or central apparatus.
It is likely that laws were drafted directly by the few lawyers who were part of the permanent staff of the Minister of Justice’s office, if not by the Minister of Justice himself, who put pen to paper to draft bills. It stands to reason that, with the development of legislation, practitioners from the private sector were called upon and entrusted with contracts to draft bills in areas where they may have had particularly extensive experience, making them, in a sense, experts in the field.
At the turn of the 20th century, Quebec City decided to maintain the periodic appointment system, which was based more on political connections, or the famous patronage system, than on merit-based principles.
The head of the department, the head of the ministry, who in this case is the minister, is responsible for everything that is done under his ministerial umbrella. Then, on the other hand, since it is highly politicized, the corridors of power are obviously used to keep informed about what is happening on the ground.
The Minister of Justice has asked me to inform him under what authority Mr. Charles A. Merrill was employed as a temporary worker during the months of April, May, and June of this year. The Minister of Justice has asked me to request that, when you need to hire temporary staff, you consult him on the name of the person to be employed. The name of the person to be employed, according to his own criteria and analysis grid.
Is the minister directly involved in most cases? Yes. He may not say, “Choose this one,” but that’s what will happen when we present him with a choice in a call for contenders, obviously. Well, there may be two friends of the party. So, we’ll choose between two friends of the party, or we won’t even decide, we’ll just say OK, we’ll share the contract.
There is still a balance between competence and favoritism. Just because you engage in favoritism does not mean that you do not necessarily appoint competent people. It is just that you have no guarantee that merit is the only condition, or the cardinal condition, in appointing a public employee or awarding a contract.
Moreover, it is interesting to note that, while at the turn of the 20th century, most Canadian jurisdictions established a civil service commission or public service commission, in Quebec, it was not until the 1930s that Adélard Godbout did so, and then that commission was abolished, or at least greatly reduced, by Maurice Duplessis. Finally, it only really took off in the 1960s with the Quiet Revolution.
In 1916, there were 15,000 vehicles of all kinds here. Now there are 1.5 million crisscrossing Quebec’s 35,000 miles of roads and highways. Quebec entered the industrial age with a bang.
Before 1960, the Quebec government was still in its infancy. It is a state that does not take on all the major missions that we know of in the Quebec state, for example, which did not really follow the evolution, so to speak, of the Western world. So, the world was becoming more complex, and Quebec remained somewhat on the sidelines as a small state.
Perhaps the most striking and interesting image we could use to describe it is that it is actually a very small cabinet. There are not 30 or so ministers, and the only one who is full-time, so to speak, working full-time at the head of the state, is the Premier of Quebec. He is not only prime minister, but also Minister of Justice. I am thinking here of Maurice Duplessis.
The fact that the prime minister was also Minister of Justice, as was the case in 20th-century Quebec, was true of Prime Ministers Gouin, Taschereau, and Duplessis, who were all both Minister of Justice and prime minister for long periods of time. The concepts of political and legal issues, which are now clearly separated, were much more closely intertwined at the time. So, it seemed only natural that the chief minister should deal with both major political affairs and major legal issues.
Jean Lesage had a very ambitious program that he had written by Georges-Émile Lapalme, his right-hand man and former leader of the Liberal Party. Based on this program, they launched reforms that would be immense. It would be gigantic and affect all areas. They wanted to nationalize the major hydroelectric distribution companies in Quebec.
Nationalization simply means returning ownership in Quebec to 5,300,000 shareholders, that is, all of us, the owners of our electricity. With Quebecers, right up to the top, who, finally, for once, after all this time talking about it, would truly be masters in their own house, in all regions of Quebec.
So, they will create the Caisse de dépôt et placement, they will create the Société générale de financement, the Régie des rentes du Québec. They are going to create a Department of Education.
So, we are going to create all these major institutions that are also involved in education and culture, because there will also be the creation of a Department of Cultural Affairs. So, the State will obviously equip itself with a professional civil service with its major missions; we cannot do things arbitrarily or on a contractual basis, as we did in the past.
So, with the creation of this Quebec state, which has developed considerably, came the creation of a large number of state-owned corporations and public bodies, within which lawyers would play a fundamental role, whether in matters of litigation, enforcement, oversight, etc. They are truly at the heart of government action in the broadest sense.
My father, of course, was a role model for me professionally. He is a man who devoted his life to public service. Let’s go back to the early 1960s. Quebec was the first province to have a Department of Justice as such, with deputy ministers, civil servants, etc. The only province in Canada, the first.
If we look back at the time when he became Minister of Justice, the first Minister of Justice, it was in a context where we wanted to adapt justice to the modern world and therefore consider justice as much more than just an instrument of punishment, but to adapt it to the needs of the population. Justice in Quebec needed to be professionalized, with lawyers, for example.
And there was also a question of integrity involved. At that time, the aim was to make justice a tool for transparency as well. We wanted people to understand the Ministry of Justice.
Keen to inform citizens about what they can do when faced with a legal problem, the Quebec Ministry of Justice has made available a series of interviews preceded by short dramas. Whether it’s about the rights and obligations of spouses towards each other or their children, relations between employers and employees, or between landlords and tenants, or consumer law, we asked legal advisors from the Quebec Ministry of Justice questions that are relevant to you.
I joined the department of Justice in 1977 as Deputy Minister of Justice, which at the time included justice and public safety. I experienced the reality of the Department of 65, and it was deemed necessary and useful to expand the scope of the Department of the Minister of Justice, which had been in place since Confederation. That is when the Department became very important and had eight associate deputy ministers who reported to me. So, it was a very busy department at the time.
Today, I believe that former Minister of Justice Marc-André Bédard’s vision of establishing the largest law firm in Quebec has truly come to fruition. We first had legal advisors within the various departments to assist them in their decision-making, lawyers, notaries.
Following that, there was a need for in-house trial lawyers to represent the Minister of Justice in court. Very quickly, we also realized that we needed to develop expertise in certain areas of law, so we created departments that specialized in different fields. And today, this large network practices law and provides legal advice just like any other large law firm, with the distinction that we have developed a very unique expertise.
I have been with the Department of Justice since its creation by the government in 1976, when it decided to have its own lawyers represent the Minister of Justice in civil courts. At that time, the Minister of Justice wrote to all lawyers to inform them of the government’s decision and sent them the documents so that they could apply if they wished.
The idea behind creating the Office of the Prosecutor was to create a strike force. We were looking for lawyers who were experienced in courtroom practice. Before the Office was created, the Minister of Justice was represented by private law firms, and cases were distributed according to the needs of the Department. And, to some extent, I think, according to the political leanings of the government in power.
So, we can say that there was a lack of coordination between the lawyers and the different offices. There was a lack of cohesion in the representation that was provided in the arguments that could be put forward, and I think the most pressing need was to have lawyers who could specialize in certain areas. This was not easily achievable in private practice, and we wanted more immediate services and, at the time, more competent lawyers, I would say, in the art of representing the Minister of Justice. Yes, hello Marie Clouâtre. Hello, I’m calling because our deadline keeps getting pushed back.
Yes. I just wanted to clarify a little bit about the timeframe we’re talking about and then…
Our schedule varies greatly but can sometimes be busy with trials and hearings. So, at that point, we definitely focus on preparation. That means reading and drafting arguments.
This is always the case when working in collaboration with our legal departments within client ministries. This also applies to the Constitutional and Indigenous Law Department, which provides us with ideas and specialized arguments in the constitutional field.
This is important to ensure consistency. Obviously, you can’t argue one thing and then its opposite. Intellectual rigor is fundamental, because judges may expect a higher degree of perfection from a state prosecutor.
So, we really have to be extremely rigorous and make sure that our files are always perfect. We develop a plan, an action strategy, how we are going to anticipate the case, how the evidence will be presented, and we think things through. Obviously, there is a lot of reading involved, there are a lot of discussions involved. We meet with potential witnesses.
Hello! How are you? I’m fine, how are you? Great! I wanted to talk to you about a call I just received.
It’s essential to have a keen intellectual curiosity and good adaptability, because you have to juggle different subjects and specialties, often on a regular basis.
Should we talk to Maxence about it too, since he’s involved in the case? Maybe we could talk to Maxence about it.
It’s true that no two days are ever the same when you work for the Minister of Justice of Quebec. You also have to be able to exercise a certain degree of restraint and discretion, because you have to realize that what you say and do is bigger than yourself. It’s bigger than just a case. It’s really about issues that affect society as a whole. So, our cases necessarily have an impact on society. We need to be aware of that.
So, have you submitted your thesis? Yes, I submitted it on March 14 and received my registration certificate. Can we expect a hearing? I would say in the fall. You think so. It’s not that long. I think it will take three hours in total. At most.
As Minister of Justice, we must take particular care in how we conduct the affairs of state. We don’t have to win at all costs. We must represent the people who have entrusted us with their cases well, and we must prepare thoroughly, leaving no stone unturned. In fact, the secret to completing a case, and often winning it, is essentially preparation. But the other teams that support us are also very, very important. The teams at the Department have become very important collaborators.
The Constitutional Law Branch was created immediately after the creation of the litigation offices in 1978. Henri Brun, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Laval University, was the first director of the Constitutional Law Branch. At that time, the goal was to ensure that decision-making was consistent across ministries, as there were an increasing number of disputes before the courts.
Its role has become more prominent, particularly because Indigenous issues have taken on such great importance. We are called upon to comment on all bills and draft regulations. Once these laws are passed, questions often arise regarding their application. So, in a context like this, when it comes to enforcement, we are there to advise. And if, following the decisions that are made, there is a legal challenge, we are still there to support the trial lawyers.
One of the advantages of our network is that we work on a case from start to finish.
Thank you all for answering the call so quickly. In this case, of course, we anticipated the constitutional challenge, so some work had already been done beforehand when we had discussions with the Legal Affairs Branch of the Department of the Environment.
When it comes to litigation, there are few cases where the legal issues brought before the courts were not anticipated.
Therefore, if you could quickly let us know who the claimants might be in this case, it would allow us to prepare proposals that we could submit to you as soon as possible.
Moreover, Stephanie, I would like to add that during the detailed review and parliamentary stages of the bill, there are still debates that could be relevant. Several matters of public interest were discussed. So, it might be worth looking through the debate log for that. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
So, the role of advisor in a legal affairs department is mainly to answer any legal questions submitted by the department. Our contribution as a team of government lawyers is essential because the advice, we give will have a real impact on the direction or decisions that will be made, and ultimately, those decisions impact citizens in their everyday lives.
We regularly work as a team. When we are asked about new issues, we often try to adopt a team position. So, we consult with each other and seek out the views of different people. We may call on colleagues from other legal departments to adopt a position that is more government-oriented, more common, in order to be consistent in the way we advise the government. There will also be teamwork beyond the legal teams. We will consult with various professionals. The case will begin with an engineer, and we will also have to work with the land surveyor to establish the rights we need to acquire.
Teamwork is essential on a daily basis. Already, the team within the DAJ itself, within our department. So often, there may be two or more of us working on the same case, precisely so that each person can contribute their particular expertise. It is also important to note that despite the name of a department, this does not necessarily mean that the law we are working on only applies to that department. On the contrary, there may be other types of rights involved. So, for example, I work closely with my colleagues who specialize in privacy protection, for example.
So, teamwork is essential at all levels. As state attorneys, we are lawyers who belong first and foremost to the Department of Justice. Then we can say that we are, in a way, loaned to different departments to assist them with their legal needs.
As a state notary, our role is not to advise on the political expediency of a measure. Our role is to advise him on his legal options. Of course, we do this in a context that is often highly political. The issues we deal with are issues that affect the interests of the community, so by their very nature they are political. But our advice is legal advice, so you really have to get it into your head that you play a fundamental role as a legal advisor. Ultimately, however, we are not the ones making the decisions. So, you have to be comfortable with the fact that sometimes our legal advice, due to other concerns, will not necessarily be followed.
I think that, as a notary, we face somewhat the same challenges as all government lawyers. The challenge often lies in the complexity of the issues, but also in the deadlines, which are often quite short. So, you have to stay mentally alert. You also need to be able to synthesize information and quickly understand your clients’ issues in order to help them. And then, if you’re able not only to identify legal issues, but also to provide solutions to your clients so that they can carry out their mission in full compliance with the law, then I think you’re doing a good job in cases like these.
Hello, everyone. Hello! Hello! Today we wanted to talk about a small expropriation case…
The value of a notary in a legal department. Of course, we collaborate in the administration of justice like our lawyer colleagues, but through our experience and training, we have developed quite specialized expertise in real estate law, property law, and notarial law. The decree has not been issued, we only have confirmation that the bridge will be included in… in the inventory, so possibly in the decree. And we have this confirmation from the Department.
We are legal advisors, and we also provide support to the Minister of Justice’s litigators. Some of us act as legal experts. As notaries, we are also public officers. What is a public officer? Essentially, it involves acting as a delegated notary or acting as a notary in accordance with the Notaries Act. Therefore, the Minister of Justice is the notary general. We will receive the signature of the person authorized within a department to represent the minister. We will verify their identity, status, and capacity. Beyond that, we will prepare the notarized deed, draft it, and obtain all the signatures from all parties. That notarized document will be kept in the registry; we keep all notarized documents. Ultimately, that is part of our ethical responsibilities.
I think that the relationships between lawyers working in organizations that have their own legal departments are perhaps a little more similar to what happens in a private company. Nevertheless, I believe that in terms of the substance of their role and functions, it is the same type of work, because, fundamentally, the entire public sector pursues different aspects of a fundamental concept that is the same for everyone: the public interest. So, there may well be legal debates about what is required to pursue a particular aspect of the public interest, but in all cases, it is indeed the public interest that is at stake and, consequently, the underlying logic is the same.
A lawyer who chooses to pursue a career in government must be comfortable with the fact that, in defending these collective interests, their personal opinion will not prevail. I don’t think being a government lawyer or solicitor is for everyone, because you really have to take a governmental stance. Often, in university courses, there is a very, very strong emphasis on the individual rights and freedoms of citizens. When you work for the government, you are more on the side of the collective interest, the public interest.
After Duplessis’ death and the beginning of the Quiet Revolution, a phase began in which the political power, democratically elected by the Quebec government, took control of the legislative tool. Throughout the Quiet Revolution, it used legislation to significantly transform both the institutions and the economic, social, and cultural life of Quebec. This transformation took place largely through legislation.
Louis-Philippe Pigeon was a lawyer in private practice in Quebec City, whom the Ministry asked for a number of legal opinions. When Jean Lesage’s government came to power, Mr. Lesage asked him if he could come in almost full-time to work on legislation. At the time, Louis-Philippe Pigeon drafted and/or coordinated virtually all of Quebec’s laws. No laws were tabled in the National Assembly without Mr. Pigeon’s approval. He was a man of unparalleled efficiency and memory when it came to laws and regulations. It was truly impressive. He knew just about everything.
It is no surprise that Louis-Philippe Pigeon was called upon in 1965 to teach state lawyers and Quebec government lawyers about drafting and interpreting laws. This teaching subsequently had an enormous influence and represented a revival of the intellectual work that had begun in the 1920s and 1930s, in which Pigeon had participated at the time. But after 1960, he was at the helm and largely spearheaded the modernization of technique and standardization, I would say, of Quebec’s legislative technique.
Hi, can I bother you for two minutes? Yes, come on in. Listen, I was wondering something. I’m working on a regulation, and I came across a case involving foster families and local foster families. Can you explain a little bit about the difference between the two? Yes.
There are three phases in a bill: the ministerial phase, the governmental phase, and the parliamentary phase. In the ministerial phase, the Ministry gives the DAJ the mandate to prepare a bill. We try to get the guidelines, clarify them, and prepare the bill. After that, there is the government phase. The bill is entered into a system called DOSSDEC. It will be circulated among the various departments. Then we will receive comments from the departments, particularly to see what impact the bill may have.
When the Cabinet says, “That’s fine, we agree with this bill,” the bill will be printed by the National Assembly and, shortly thereafter, will be tabled in the National Assembly by the minister.
We will study the bill article by article, and the minister will be called upon to provide explanations on what each article does, why it was done, and explain his bill. That is where we may be called upon to intervene as legal experts in the National Assembly, to provide explanations on each of the articles of the bill. Because after that, we have more leeway.
We have to work to gain the minister’s trust. The minister needs to understand our role because, if you ask me, my colleagues who practice law apply the law, and that is true. Then, it’s a bit the same thing in some cases: if I give legal advice to my client, I am bound by the law as it stands. In terms of legislation, we are effectively bound by the law as it stands, and not both at the same time. Because Parliament is sovereign, it can change laws. So, we change the law. So, in a way, there is something fascinating about this that cannot necessarily be compared to what other lawyers do. We are able to change the rules of the game along the way, subject, of course, to supra-legislative laws, such as the Constitution Act, 1867, and the charters. So we can’t stop at the first step and say, “Oh no! We can’t do that. It’s illegal.” In fact, the first step is to say no, we can’t do it because there’s a rule that prevents us from doing so. However, that rule can be changed.
You had sent a question to Mr. Paquin. Are you able to provide an answer, Counsel? To apply the criterion set out in the Charter of the French Language, we proceed on the basis of establishment. That is what 1111.1 clarifies by saying: we are looking at a hypothetical test. If this facility were the only one operated by an institution, would the institution meet the criteria for recognition?
I must say that it was important to me to raise awareness of the role of government lawyers within the government apparatus because, for a long time, government lawyers were often seen by managers as obstacles to progress. The idea was to change that perception and turn them into allies, rather than hindrances. There was, let’s not hide it, an important effort to raise the profile of the profession because, precisely, to break through the sound barrier in relation to what civil service lawyers were at the time compared to 20 years earlier. The fundamental idea behind the first conference of public service lawyers and notaries is to promote them within the public administration and, more broadly, to raise their profile among the general public.
You know, the Ministry of Justice is the most important institution that people never hear about, because we have a duty of confidentiality. We can’t talk about what we do, and we have to keep quiet. And yet we play a crucial role in ensuring the rule of law, but no one hears about it because many decisions are made within the administration that will never go to court.
The fact is that the government made sure before acting that what it was doing was legally sound, and it is the Minister of Justice who ultimately decides on the strategy. As the government’s legal advisor. Professional secrecy has a special flavor because we have access to privileged information. So, we find ourselves having to keep this information confidential, even from our spouses and families. And there are even situations where it’s so sensitive and confidential that even within our network, we’ll keep it confidential within certain teams, and other colleagues won’t be aware that we’re working on a case.
A state should not think like an individual. The state must guarantee the continuity of the community, of society. It must distinguish between individual interests and the general interest.
Because we work for something that is greater than ourselves, something where it is not our personal interest that is put first, but a form of anonymity, I would say, in order to work or be an effective cog in a larger mechanism that normally serves the common good.
Remember that you are part of a historic, hierarchical institution. You work on behalf of the guardian of the rule of law and the public interest.
Having a sense of the state is a very republican expression. I mean republican in the truly etymological and fundamental sense of the term. It describes a political system in which it is believed that there is such a thing as the public interest and that it is therefore necessary to define this public interest and act accordingly. So, it means having a sense of statehood, which basically boils down to having a sense of the public interest.
Working for the public interest on a personal level means feeling like you are contributing to the evolution of society. That’s really what it’s all about. Our cases are constantly in the news, and we have the opportunity to influence the law that deals with major social issues.
I am still working at a fairly advanced age. And why have I had the same job for, I don’t know, 48 years? Well, first of all, I think I chose the right profession, but also because I feel like I am providing a service. I feel like I have represented the state well, respecting my colleagues on the opposing side, but also respecting the parties involved.
In our role, in fact, ultimately, we contribute every day not only to advancing concrete projects that are implemented in everyday life, but also to advancing the right to our… our way.
