Legal Services

The Departmental Legal Services Unit provides legal services to the Department of Health. These include legal policy advice, opinions, development of legislative proposals, litigation support and assistance to the Minister, Deputy Minister and to senior managers as well as to working levels managers and officers. The Unit is headed by a Senior General Counsel (Irit Weiser) and employs 50 lawyers.

The Legal Services Unit reports to the Department of Justice on an organizational, functional and professional basis. The Unit is the conduit through which the specialized services of the Department of Justice are made available to Health Canada. These include legal advisory services (access to information and privacy law, administrative law, constitutional law, criminal law, etc.), legislation and regulations drafting and the services of litigators in respect to proceedings involving the Department of Health.