Michael Wernick (born September 1957) is a Canadian retired public servant who served as the 23rd clerk of the Privy Council for Canada from 2016 to 2019.
[7] His sister is Rachel Wernick, now retired, who was a senior official at Employment and Social Development Canada responsible for skills training and youth programs underlying the WE charity controversy that unfolded in 2020.
He was the Assistant Secretary, Constitutional Affairs at Privy Council Office in the period leading to and including the 1995 Quebec referendum on secession.
[citation needed] In May 2006 Wernick was appointed deputy minister for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, where he remained for eight years until June, 2014.
In the private email exchange which was leaked to the media by one of the Board members, he deplored the tactics as authoritarian, similar to those used by brown shirts and Maoists to intimidate their political opponents by disrupting gatherings and physically preventing the meeting from proceeding.
[13] The article claimed that the Prime Minister's Office had pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould while she was Attorney General of Canada into pursuing a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC-Lavalin.
Wernick appeared before the House of Commons Justice Committee on February 21, 2019, where he disputed the allegations of undue pressure on Wilson-Raybould and stated that The Globe and Mail article contained errors and unfounded speculation.
[20] Wernick appeared at the Justice Committee for a second time on March 6 where he stated in his testimony that he had made no threats and had raised public interest considerations.
[28] Wernick has contributed articles on a range of topics to Policy Options, Canadian Government Executive, Global Government Forum and was interviewed for podcasts and articles by the Globe and Mail, Hill Times, OMNItv, CTV, CBC TV and Radio, TVO, CFRA radio, RadioCanada and Journal de Montreal.