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Legal Accountability
How the Department of Justice Lost Its Way and Created the Context for Dysfunctional Regulation-Making
From: Corporate Rules
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In this chapter, Edgar Schmidt examines the evolution of the Federal Department of Justice (DOJ) in Canada. Schmidt argues that, in the past, there was an understanding that when Parliament authorized the making of regulations, the people tasked with the duty would make regulations they honestly and reasonably believed to be authorized and otherwise lawful. However, in recent decades these ideas have begun to shift as the loyalties and interests of those in power have moved from the people to their own interests. This shift had led to the belief that decisions made by the people’s elected representatives ought to be respected above the personal or political preferences of any public servant or minister. The latter (and still current) sees the preferences and political interests of ministers as higher priorities than the decisions of the legislature. In doing so, it downgrades the public interest and instead fosters politically motivated state actions, including the making of regulations that serve industries or business entities with political connections or influence. This shift, which fails to respect the decisions of the democratic legislature, was, for a long time, largely concealed from the people of Canada and their elected representatives.
