In this Dec. 15, 2017, file photo, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Canada’s diplomatic mission in Washington was caught off guard by a high-profile spring trip where a trio of Tory senators met with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other Trump administration officials to discuss cannabis legalization.

Internal emails obtained by iPolitics through Access to Information show Canada’s embassy in Washington, Global Affairs and other officials here at home only learned about the visit through press coverage, and were not contacted in advance for advice or input into the trip.

“The embassy had no visibility on this. We were neither advised nor consulted on the visit,” Adam Barratt, who deals with Canada’s relations with congress at the embassy, wrote to colleagues.

“The first we heard of it was in the La Presse article. At this point, it is a political issue, not a bureaucratic one…I would advise the minister’s office to contact PMO for further information.”

The Prime Minister’s Office and Privy Council Office had also initially asked the embassy whether it knew anything about the surprise meeting.

Conservative senators Claude Carignan, Denise Batters, and Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu travelled to Washington, D.C. in April after complaining that Liberal cabinet ministers and top officials weren’t clear in their committee testimony about how legalizing cannabis would affect border travel. Sessions is also well-known for having staunch prohibitionist views.

The emails show Global Affairs officials then contemplated whether to take a “more proactive communications approach” with the Department of Justice to “clarify Government of Canada positions” — once they figured out what was actually said in the meetings. The documents, however, don’t detail anything they did after-the-fact, other than monitor for U.S. media coverage.

Soon after the trip was announced in April, the government’s representative in the Senate, Peter Harder, charged that the Conservative senators were trying to “undermine” Canada’s “relationship with the American administration” through their “highly unusual” trip.

The Tory senators contested Sen. Harder’s assertion and said it was a fact-finding trip. They also insisted they never spoke for the government. Sen. Carignan said afterward that U.S. officials told them legalizing pot would likely cause problems at the border and could increase wait-times.

Senate Liberals and Independents did not attend the Washington trip, which happened amid the Senate’s study of the Liberal government’s cannabis legislation.

Conservatives and other groups had called for a delay in legalizing, but the government pressed on and passed Bill C-45 in June. Canada will legalize non-medical use of cannabis this fall, on October 17.

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