Harper’s team knew early there could be problems with Supreme Court pick

OTTAWA – Peter MacKay is suggesting the plan to put Marc Nadon on the Supreme Court bench was underway well before he took over the Justice portfolio in a cabinet shuffle last July.

Nadon’s nomination wasn’t announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper until Sept. 30, but MacKay tells a parliamentary committee the nomination was in the works long before he took over the file.

MacKay also declined to refute media reports that Nadon was asked to quit the Federal Court of Appeal and join the Quebec bar in order to secure his eligibility for the high court.

MacKay would only say that he personally did not encourage Nadon to resign.

Just this March, the Supreme Court ruled Nadon ineligible. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin says she tried to alert the government to potential problems last summer after MacKay took over the portfolio.

The Prime Minister’s Office touched off an unprecedented public war of words with the chief justice by openly suggesting her attempts to warn Harper about Nadon’s ineligibility were “inadvisable and inappropriate.”