‘AXE TO GRIND’: New Attorney General shrugs off criticism

Attorney General Sean Fraser following Wednesday’s cabinet meeting dismissed questions regarding his competence — criticism “doesn’t bother me too much,” he said.

Tory leader Pierre Poilievre after Fraser’s new roles as justice minister and Attorney General of Canada were announced Tuesday, depicted Fraser as a serial bungler who mismanaged two previous portfolios, housing and immigration, who has become “the master of failing upward.”

“I am going to focus on the work that we get to do, not what my opponents may have to say to pursue their own political agenda,” said Fraser, per Blacklock's Reporter.

“Mr. Poilievre says you epitomize failing upward,” said a reporter.

“It’s fascinating. He spends an awful lot of time on me,” replied Fraser.

“Does he not have a point?” asked a reporter.

“From my perspective it’s clearly motivated by some axe he has to grind against me personally,” replied Fraser.

“But it really doesn’t bother me too much.”

Poilievre on Tuesday expressed astonishment that Fraser remained in cabinet.

“Sean Fraser was the immigration minister who caused the immigration crisis, the housing minister who gave us the housing crisis, and now he’s the minister responsible for addressing the Liberal crime crisis,” he said.

“It seems like he is the master at failing upward.”

Fraser as minister of immigration in 2022 suspended regulations to grant 1,040,985 foreign students unlimited access to the Canadian workforce, calling it “a great day for the economy.”

Cabinet withdrew the order in 2024 after data showed it caused unemployment for Canadian students.

As housing minister in 2024 Fraser set construction targets that home builders dismissed as implausible.

“Not a chance,” Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, testified last May 27 at the Commons Human Resources Committee.

Fraser on December 16 abruptly announced he was leaving federal politics and wanted to go home.

“I made this decision for myself a few months ago when I was home recovering from surgery that took place in early September,” he said.

“I got a few extra weeks spending time with my kids at home. It felt like I was supposed to be.”

“You are leaving without completing the job,” said a reporter.

“I am extremely proud of the work we have gotten done,” replied Fraser.

The MP at the time said he had no private sector prospects in mind, then subsequently sought re-election.

“I will remain open to different professional opportunities,” he said.

Opposition members repeatedly dismissed Fraser as a bungler.

“I wish the housing minister well in his new endeavours,” Conservative MP Arnold Viersen told the Commons last December 16.

“I hope he is more successful in those endeavours than he was as minister of immigration and then housing. He seemed to have been a total failure.”