MPs Vote Not to Launch Investigation of ‘Potential Obstruction of Justice’ Against Mendicino

Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino speaks at a news conference in Ottawa on Sept. 26, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

MPs on the immigration and citizenship committee voted Wednesday not to launch an investigation into allegations that then-Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino’s department backdated government documents in 2020.

“I think it looks like a waste of time,” said Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe during an immigration committee meeting on Oct. 12. “And I don’t really see a scandal in here.”

The committee voted 6–5 against a motion that would’ve launched a study into “allegations of potential obstruction of justice” against Mendicino’s immigration department in November 2020.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, who obtained the internal emails through Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) legislation, Mendicino’s former department misled a federal judge hearing a trademark infringement case to believe that the “College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act” came into effect on Nov. 20 rather than its actual date of coming into force on Dec. 9.

The trademark infringement case arose when a private British Columbia firm called “Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council” took the federal government to court over the title of the “College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act,” claiming it already owned and trademarked the name.

On Nov. 20, 2020, Crown lawyers attended a federal court injunction for the trademark infringement case. On the same day, the Privy Council Office declared publically on its website that the legislation had already come into effect and the same information was passed on to the federal court.

Six days later, Mendicino also declared in a press conference that the legislation had come into effect.

Both Blacklock’s and The Canadian Press reported that Mendicino refused to comment on allegations that the backdating was purposeful.

‘No Fault Here’

MPs during the immigration committee meeting on Oct. 12 said the staff in Mendicino’s immigration department made a “good faith” mistake in backdating the documents.

“There is no fault here on the part of civil servants,” said Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi. “They were doing their utmost best and as diligently as possible.”

Deputy Minister of Immigration Christiane Fox sent a letter to the committee prior to its Oct. 12 meeting in which she called the backdated documents a result of “human error.”

“All appropriate steps were taken in order to correct the error of the coming-into-force date once it had been discovered,” Fox wrote, as the committee’s chair Salma Zahid read aloud.

“To me, it’s very clear that this was a human error on public servants’ part,” said Liberal MP Shafqat Ali, adding, “I think it’s a waste of our resources and time.”

Conservative MPs Garnett Genuis and Brad Redekopp advocated for an investigation into the allegations, with Genuis saying “multiple different problems” are evident in the allegations and that they should be studied closer.

“I’m not here to say definitively what did or didn’t happen. I think this is why we’ve put forward a study motion,” Genuis said.

Redekopp added it should be questioned whether or not lawyers “were instructed by someone in cabinet to say something that actually hadn’t happened yet.”

“Forgive me if I’m not too willing to put all my eggs into the basket of a representative of the government coming to this committee meeting and reading some emails to say, ‘There’s nothing to see here. Everything’s fine. Let’s move on and do something else,’” he said.

“This is, to me, not a good enough way to study this issue.”

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.