2017–18 Departmental Results Report
Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do
Raison d’être
The Department of Justice has the mandate to support the dual roles of the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada.
Under Canada’s federal system, the administration of justice is an area of shared jurisdiction between the federal government and the provinces and territories. The Department supports the Minister of Justice’s responsibilities for 53 statutes and areas of federal law by ensuring a bilingual and bijural national legal framework, principally within the following domains: criminal justice (including justice for victims of crime and youth criminal justice), family justice, access to justice, Indigenous justice, public law, and international private law.
The Department also supports the Attorney General as the chief law officer of the Crown, both in terms of the ongoing operations of government and of the development of new policies, programs, and services for Canadians. The Department provides legal advice to the Government and federal government departments and agencies, represents the Crown in civil litigation and before administrative tribunals, and drafts legislation and regulations.
Mandate and role
The Department of Justice was officially established in 1868, when the Department of Justice Act was passed in Parliament. The Act sets out the roles and responsibilities of the Department as well as those of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.
The Department of Justice fulfills three distinctive roles within the Government of Canada. It acts as:
- a policy department with broad responsibilities for overseeing all matters relating to the administration of justice that fall within the federal domain - in this capacity, it strives to ensure a fair, relevant, and accessible Canadian justice system for all Canadians;
- a provider of a range of legal advisory, litigation and legislative services to government departments and agencies; and
- a central agency responsible for supporting the Minister in advising Cabinet on all legal matters.
The Department of Justice has approximately 4,311 dedicated, full-time equivalent employees. Some 59 percent of Justice employees are located in the National Capital Region. The other 41 percent provide a strong national presence through a network of regional offices and sub‑offices positioned across the country.
About half of departmental employees are lawyers. The other half comprises a broad range of professionals: policy analysts, paralegals, social scientists, program managers, communications specialists, administrative services personnel, and financial officers.
For more general information about the Department, see the “Supplementary information” section of this report. For more information on Department of Justice mandate letter commitments, see the Minister’s mandate letter.
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