Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
minister responsible for the Department of Justice and is also Attorney General of Canada
The minister of justice and attorney general of Canada (French: ministre de la justice et procureur général du Canada) is a dual-role portfolio in the Canadian Cabinet.
The officeholder in the role of Minister of Justice (Ministre de la Justice) serves as the minister of the Crown responsible for the Department of Justice and the justice portfolio, and in the role of Attorney General (Procureur général), litigates on behalf of the Crown and serves as the chief legal advisor to the Government of Canada. (Though most prosecution functions of the attorney general have been assigned to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. The attorney general is supported in this role by the director of public prosecutions, who acts as deputy attorney general for the purpose of these functions.)
Attorney General of Canada
The role was created in 1867 to replace the attorney general of Canada West and attorney general of Canada East.
As the top prosecuting officer in Canada, 'attorney general' is a separate title held by the minister of justice—a member of the Cabinet. The minister of justice is concerned with questions of policy and their relationship to the justice system. In their role as attorney general, they are the chief law officer of the Crown. The roles have been connected since confederation. As a result of controversy, following the SNC-Lavalin affair, Anne McLellan was appointed to review the roles and prepare a report on whether they should be separated. She recommended the positions remain combined.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada” is minister responsible for the Department of Justice and is also Attorney General of Canada. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Minister, Justice and Attorney, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “minister responsible for the Department of Justice and is also Attorney General of Canada” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3315120. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1867.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.