MLA Mark Wasyliw, who has been practising impaired driving and administrative law while sitting as a backbencher of the Manitoba Legislature since 2019, is an associate with Winnipeg’s Gindin Wiebe Segal Law, where firm partner Gerri Wiebe represents Nygard.
Nygard, a wealthy ex-clothing manufacturer described as a “sexual predator” by the sentencing judge this month, is appealing his 11-year sentence and conviction for four sex crimes.
“I have no connection to this case at all,” Wasyliw told Law360 Canada, calling the premier’s justification for ousting him a “pretext” because of his repeated clashes with Kinew over the years. “I think he’s scared about internal dissent, and I think this is a defensive move on his part to remove strong voices from caucus that may voice their criticism of the direction of the premier and the government,” Wasyliw speculated.
The controversy arose when Moyes, the NDP caucus chair, said in a statement Sept. 16, 2024, that Wasyliw’s association with the law firm representing Nygard fails “to demonstrate good judgment” and does “not align with our caucus principles of mutual respect and trust,” a sentiment publicly echoed by Manitoba’s premier.
“You can be affiliated with the NDP or you can be affiliated with Peter Nygard, but you can’t do both,” Kinew told reporters the day after Wasyliw was ousted.
Requiring Wasyliw to either leave his law firm job or the NDP’s caucus was “the choice that was put to this MLA, and he decided to go with his law practice instead of with the team,” the premier said. “For somebody from our government team to be affiliated with that does not line up with our values as a political operation.”
Since then, Canadian legal communities have pushed back hard, including calling on Kinew to apologize and retract his statements and, in some instances, calling for Wasyliw’s reinstatement in the NDP caucus.
Manitoba’s legal regulator was among the first to speak out. “As the independent regulator of the legal profession, the Law Society of Manitoba is concerned that the governing caucus has removed a member of caucus because of that member’s association with a criminal defence lawyer who is representing an unpopular client,” the law society said in its statement.
“The public interest requires that everyone accused of a crime, no matter how repugnant, receives vigorous legal representation,” the regulator stressed. “The rule of law mandates that lawyers represent such clients without fear of reprisal. For these reasons, it is essential that the legal profession and the regulation of the legal profession remain independent.”
The concerns of the Manitoba legal regulator were shared by FLSC president Erin Kleisinger, who said in a Sept 19, 2024, statement on behalf of the umbrella group for the country’s 14 legal regulators that “it is a central feature of a free and democratic society that lawyers be able to fulfill their professional role without fear of reprisal or being equated with the clients they represent. It is essential for public confidence in our system of justice that this core principle of the Rule of Law not be eroded in any way.”
The Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys (MACA) condemned the NDP’s expressed rationale that Wasyliw was expelled for his link to Nygard’s defence counsel.
“Though our prosecutors may normally stand opposed to them in our adversarial system, we fully support the essential role of criminal defence counsel in representing accused persons in order to enforce the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and uphold the ideals of a free and democratic society,” the Crowns’ association said.
“No accused person is beneath the scope of those fundamental protections. It is imperative that all political parties respect this system in word and deed. Many current members of MACA are former criminal defence counsel who have brought invaluable skills to our department as a result of their experience. We find the implications of this conduct to be troubling.”
Paul Moreau, Moreau Law Edmonton
Moreau said, “I think the message we’d like to send is this, first, ‘Don’t conflate the lawyer with the client.’ Secondly, it’s an important part of the constitutional and legal structure of our country that everyone’s entitled to a defence, and that goes for the guilty as well as the innocent, for the well-regarded and those who are reviled by society.”
Moreau pointed to the long history of eminent citizens serving as criminal defence counsel in their careers, including prime ministers John Diefenbaker and Wilfrid Laurier.
“Defence counsel work every day to prevent wrongful convictions, to counteract systemic racism and to advocate for the disadvantaged, and this is important and noble work and Premier Kinew better get an understanding of that,” Moreau said.
He said the premier’s and caucus chair’s actions hurt the reputation of the defence bar, whose members frequently contend in their professional and personal lives with the public’s misconceptions and unfounded negative perceptions about who they are, what they do and why they do it.
“Of course, defence lawyers are never popular with the public, particularly when they’re acting for people who are widely reviled,” Moreau observed. “Peter Nygard probably falls into that category. So I suppose there might be some cheap political points to be made, but it comes at the cost of denigrating the most fundamental legal and constitutional principles of our country.”
The CTLA’s public statement, which “condemns” the premier’s “actions in ejecting” Wasyliw from the government caucus, underscores that “a lawyer acting for a client is not ‘affiliated’ with that client.”
The Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba (CDLAM), said it “condemns the rationale” provided by NDP caucus chair Moyes for removing from caucus the MLA for Fort Garry. (Wasyliw now sits as an independent.)
“The CDLAM disagrees that representing an accused person in a professional capacity is grounds for removal from caucus,” the association said in a statement.
The decision to eject Wasyliw on the basis of his connection to the law firm defending a notorious client “sends the message that anyone who practices criminal defence need not seek to participate in our democratic system or its structures,” CDLAM said. “To criticize Mr. Wasyliw, or any lawyer, for their continued advocacy on behalf of accused persons is inappropriate. To suggest that Mr. Wasyliw’s continued involvement in this profession somehow suggests a problem with ‘mutual respect and trust’ is plainly wrong and should be condemned.”
The Criminal Defence Advocacy Society in British Columbia also weighed in on Sept. 18, 2024, calling on the Manitoba NDP caucus to reconsider Wasyliw’s ejection from caucus and for an apology to him and his constituents. “One might expect that a political party, whose leader is no stranger to the criminal justice system, might appreciate the importance of legal representation for all accused,” the group said, alluding to Kinew’s decades-old convictions related to impaired driving and assault for which he received record suspensions.
The Calgary Criminal Defence Lawyers Association called on Kinew to apologize and reinstate Wasyliw “immediately.”
“Taking on unpopular clients is part of the important work done by criminal defence lawyers, as is encouraging empathy when people make mistakes,” the group said on the X social media platform. “Criminal defence lawyers deserve the respect of @WabKinew for our role in maintaining justice and freedom. As leader of a party that claims to fight for equality, @WabKinew should support people who take on that fight every day in our criminal courts.”
Wasyliw said he has been “overwhelmed” with support from his constituents, other NDP MLAs, as well as from the individual lawyers and organized bar groups who spoke out about the dangers of politicians publicly tarring defence counsel with the crimes for which their clients are convicted or accused.
“I’ve gotten numerous texts, emails and calls today from the legal community saying they support me, and that’s humbling,” he said in an interview on Sept. 18.
As for Kinew’s assertion that Wasyliw is “affiliated” to Nygard via the law firm where Wasyliw is an associate, “that’s a wholly ignorant statement, and he knows it’s ignorant because I’ve spoken to his chief of staff about this and explained that I had no role,” Wasyliw said. “Knowing that, he still made those remarks … It shows that the government is weak, that they don’t have any advisors around him that would counsel him from making these kind of ignorant and thoughtless comments and counselling … him what the impacts would be on the justice system.”
Wasyliw opined that the premier should withdraw his comments and apologize to all defence lawyers for besmirching their essential role in the justice system.
“He needs to apologize publicly for his remarks, explain why they were wrong, explain why the government stays out of these type of criminal justice issues,” he said. “He needs to repair his damage to the legal community. Prosecutors are just as mad in Manitoba as defence lawyers, and I think all lawyers should be because he’s demonizing our profession, and he’s playing on mythologies and stereotypes, which, quite frankly, makes us less safe to do our jobs because it gives licence to very strange people to do whatever they can to a lawyer because we’re obviously ‘bad’ people.”
In a media availability, Moyes told reporters that “the caucus leadership has been working diligently to ensure that Mark was a good teammate and, unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way, and it’s come to a head where we’re at now.”
Being an MLA “is a full-time job,” Moyes said. “Our constituents deserve our total attention. This job is a privilege and a public service. It’s not a side hustle.”
The latest attention to Wasyliw’s law practice “was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said. “Caucus leadership, with myself as chair leading the process, met with Mark repeatedly to discuss our concerns. We offered a clear path forward: ‘Leave your law practice or leave caucus.’ He made his choice.”
Moyes added that “everyone deserves a defence. We believe that. We understand that. Caucus leadership understands that. However … like the premier said yesterday, not everyone … deserves or has a right to have an MLA defend them, and so [Wasyliw] had a choice to make, and he made that choice.”
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