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No criminal activity occurred. The former attorney-general said this herself. However, I also believe that public officials should be held to a higher standard. Public servants should always act in the best interests of those who elected them or those they serve and should be held to a high standard of ethics.

It is hard to determine if behaviour is ethical when rules are ambiguous. In this case, the law is unclear. It is based on a 1951 speech in the House of Lords where the then attorney-general of England and Wales set out his view of what is or is not appropriate in interaction between the attorney-general and other officials.

We heard from witnesses who participated in the same conversations and come close to agreeing on the facts, but differ completely on their interpretation of those facts. The former attorney-general made a cogent case for why the line was crossed and excessive pressure put on her. Other witnesses also provided cogent testimony explaining why they believed they and their colleagues acted entirely appropriately in conversations with the former attorney-general. In the end result, because the rules are so unclear, different people of good faith can have a contrary interpretation of the events.

What Canadians should be most concerned about is clarifying this for the future. We need to make sure that everyone is clear on what one can and cannot say to the attorney-general in the context of a prosecution, and in particular the decision on whether or not to enter into a remediation agreement, which is an entirely new concept in Canadian law.