The lawyer for former Alberta justice minister Kaycee Madu told a Law Society of Alberta sanction hearing Monday that his client had already been subjected to significant consequences, and public opprobrium, for his ill-considered call to Edmonton’s police chief over a traffic ticket.
To spare Madu “the perpetual punishment of the internet,” lawyer Perry Mack asked the tribunal to issue essentially a lesser form of reprimand that simply stated he had been reprimanded, with no further detailed criticism that would forever shame his client online.
The panel rejected Mack’s argument. While it accepted a joint submission from the law society counsel and Mack for a reprimand, it issued a scathing rebuke of Madu’s poor judgment.
Panel chair Tamela Coates told Madu that at the time of the March 12, 2021, incident he was one of highest-profile lawyers in Alberta, and in Canada, with a “great deal of authority to be exercised appropriately and cautiously.”
Madu’s call to Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee after he received a ticket for distracted driving “undermined respect for the administration of justice and is conduct deserving of sanction.”
“You have failed in your commitment and obligations as a lawyer,” Coates told Madu during Monday’s online hearing.
Madu’s failure was “even more egregious” given that he was justice minister at the time.
“The committee considers your failure to discharge your duties and responsibilities as a lawyer to be of utmost seriousness,” Coates said, adding that the formal reprimand “should not be taken lightly” by the legal profession, the public and especially not by Madu.
“Your conduct has been found markedly wanting, and this reprimand is intended to convey the strongest possible message to you.”
The panel also levied costs of nearly $39,000 but Madu is appealing the original finding of professional misconduct and the panel ordered the costs be stayed until that appeal is decided.
Despite stating that the reprimand was extremely serious, the tribunal decided not to issue a formal notice to the profession.
It also chose not to refer the matter to the attorney general — perhaps because the RCMP, as first reported by The Tyee, began a criminal investigation 31 months ago. The RCMP recently declined to say when the investigation might be completed.
Madu is the first justice minister in the province’s history to be criminally investigated for his conduct while in office. He was also Alberta’s first Black justice minister and solicitor general.
‘Simply not believable’
After CBC broke the story about the traffic ticket, then premier Jason Kenney ordered a review by a retired judge that found Madu had attempted to interfere with the administration of justice. Kenney shuffled Madu from the justice portfolio to labour and immigration.
Madu subsequently lost his Edmonton-South West riding, the only United Conservative Party riding in Edmonton, in the May 2023 provincial election and has since set up a sole-practitioner law practice.
During his hearing in June 2024, Madu undermined his own credibility and that of his defence through rambling testimony that was often repetitive, confusing and contradictory.
Madu claimed he called McFee almost immediately after receiving the $300 ticket not about the ticket, but instead to seek assurance that he had not been targeted as former NDP environment minister Shannon Phillips had been by Lethbridge police, or because he had been racially profiled as a Black man.
In a statement made Monday after the law society issued the reprimand, Madu again maintained his innocence and explained the reasoning behind his appeal.
Madu noted this is the first time in Canadian history that an attorney general has been investigated, prosecuted and sanctioned for conduct while in office.
As he did in his law society hearing, Madu again asserted that he had called McFee because of what he said were the extraordinary political circumstances that preceded the traffic stop.
Madu said he was stopped a minute and 58 seconds after he left his home for being on his phone while driving. Except, Madu said, phone records for all three phones he was carrying at the time of the stop show he was not on his phone.
“My phone records, which were provided to all investigators at all stages of this matter, including the Law Society of Alberta hearing, confirmed there was no activity on my phone before the traffic stop — no phone call in or out and no text in or out on my phone, not even data usage,” the statement says. “The evidence at the hearings bears this out as well.”
The Tyee obtained those phone records and they confirm there was no activity on the phones at that time. It is possible that Madu may have intended to make a call but did not. However, he insisted during his testimony that he never removed the phones from where they were stored in his truck’s centre console and his suit jacket.
The officer who stopped Madu testified that he drove up beside Madu’s truck in a police car and was able to not only see the phone, but identify its maker — Apple. This would have required the officer to look across the width of his car and up into Madu’s half-ton truck, which would be a distance of at least three metres, while travelling at about 30 kilometres an hour, since they were in a school zone.
In his statement, Madu reiterated that at that time, in his role as justice minister, he was dealing with the improper surveillance by Lethbridge police of Phillips and he was considering banning the practice of carding by police services.
These “sensitive matters,” Madu said, “made me wonder as to whether I had been racially profiled, or more troubling, the subject of an unlawful police surveillance.”
Madu said that while he has acknowledged how a phone call to the police chief after a traffic stop “might be construed differently, I want to be clear that contrary to the media narrative and the perception that seems to be furthered in this decision, I never asked for the ticket issued by the police officer to be cancelled.”
He said he only raised “a reasonable concern” about two issues — racial profiling and police surveillance — which he said was confirmed by the chief’s testimony.
It is not known when Madu’s appeal will be heard by another law society panel.
In its ruling issued in October 2024, the three-person, all-white tribunal found that while many of the facts were not in dispute, “there were key points on which the evidence called by the parties differed.” The tribunal said it preferred the testimony of the other witnesses over Madu’s testimony.
“In short, the committee finds that Mr. Madu’s account of several points key to these proceedings, including the reason he made the call [to McFee], was simply not believable.”
Mack provided the tribunal with a recent Edmonton Journal story about the appointment of Madu’s wife, Emem Madu, to the Alberta Court of Justice, to illustrate why no further critical reprimand was necessary.
The Journal article, Mack said, covered not only the judicial appointment process but also Emem Madu’s practice history.
“Sadly, it ended with a reference to this matter, and it quoted language from the hearing report which found parts of Mr. Madu’s testimony quote, simply not believable, close quote,” Mack said.
“So those words have been amplified and repeated throughout the media. Further reprimand serves no practical purpose,” Mack said, adding that the panel has to decide whether the continual repeating of this criticism “becomes more than is required,” particularly given that the panel’s decision is under appeal.
Madu was the third former Alberta justice minister to appear before Alberta’s law society in an 18-month period.
In July 2024, a law society tribunal found former UCP justice minister Tyler Shandro not guilty of unprofessional conduct in all three citations related to his behaviour toward several citizens while he was Alberta’s health minister.
In December 2024, a tribunal reprimanded and fined former Conservative party justice minister Jonathan Denis after it found him guilty of two instances of professional misconduct.
If you have any information for this story, or information for another story, please contact Charles Rusnell in confidence via email.
Read more: Rights + Justice, Politics, Alberta
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