Government to invoke terror clause

Bid to keep information about the prime minister’s family from public

The federal government will invoke a clause used in terrorism trials on Friday as part of its fight to keep information about the prime minister’s family from being made public.

Federal Justice Department lawyers filed a factum on Wednesday that states they will invoke Section 37 of the Canada Evidence Act in an effort to block media organizations from unsealing documents containing allegations that the RCMP leaked secrets about the prime minister’s family.

The clause, which was used by the government in an effort to close the hearing of Canadian terrorist Momin Khawaja, was made law as part of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001. It allows a judge to order that information be kept secret as part of a “specified public interest.”

In the factum filed by federal justice department lawyer Barney Brucker on Wednesday, the Crown says the sealed documents contain “information that, if released, would compromise the public interest.”

The documents were sealed by Justice Mary Vallee at a closeddoor hearing at Ontario Superior Court in Newmarket, Ontario, in December.

Lawyer Brian MacLeod Rogers will ask Judge Vallee to unseal the documents in Newmarket Friday morning. Rogers is acting for Postmedia News, CBC, Maclean’s and the Toronto Star in this matter. The documents were filed in December by a lawyer acting for Sgt. Peter Merrifield, who is suing the RCMP for harassment and bullying, alleging systematic abuse and coverups by senior Mounties.

Merrifield alleges senior officers sidelined his career after he launched an unsuccessful bid to run for the federal Conservatives in Barrie, Ontario, in 2005. He has been pursuing his case in the courts ever since, repeatedly defeating RCMP attempts to quash it.

When one of Merrifield’s lawyers, John Phillips, entered the affidavit into evidence in December, Judge Vallee expelled journalists from the courtroom and imposed a sealing order.