2016–17 Departmental Results Report
Minister's Message
I am pleased to present the Department of Justice’s 2016-17 Departmental Results Report, which sets out the details of what it has accomplished in this period.
Over the past year, the Department continued to carry out its mandate to provide high-quality advisory, legislative, and litigation services to the federal government and to ensure that Canada’s justice system is fair, relevant, and accessible for all.
In doing so, the Department helped support many of the Government of Canada’s key priorities, notably in renewing the relationship with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. These included helping to develop a strategy for addressing their overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and supporting the Government’s commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
The Department of Justice also played a prominent role in the ongoing broad review of the criminal justice system, including sentencing, to ensure our laws are up to date and consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Department’s support also helped enable the Government to follow through on the commitments to legalize and strictly regulate cannabis, reform the impaired driving regime and end discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
Ensuring that Canada’s judiciary is robust, highly qualified, diverse, and independent is an important priority for the Government. Justice staff played a central part in developing and implementing new processes for making appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada and to superior courts across Canada.
In supporting my role as Attorney General, the Department did valuable work to develop an approach for reviewing the Government’s litigation strategy, which will ensure that we make the best use of resources in this area.
As part of its broad responsibilities for policy in matters relating to the administration of justice, departmental staff provided extensive support to the Government in meeting its commitment to uphold Canada’s Constitution and the rule of law and in carrying out its policy objectives, on both the domestic and international fronts.
Moreover, throughout this period the Department continued its efforts to modernize its organizational structure to support business and legal excellence, notably by making wider and more efficient use of technology and taking a digital-by-default approach wherever possible.
I would like to thank all Justice employees for the professionalism and expertise they bring to all of their work and for their dedication to public service and improving Canada’s justice system.
Gilakas’la.
The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, Q.C., P.C., M.P.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
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