Justice Committee on Nov. 27th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

The ruling is—and the chair was accurate—that this is substantially different enough that it can be a separate motion at a different time, if she wishes to do so.

And she will do the 48-hour notice, just as we got from Mr. Casey. Madame Boivin can do that. The difficulty would be that we can't deal with the same thing twice. But hers is significantly changing what is being proposed at the present time

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So it's your intention to do that at another time?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Exactly.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay. We'll just talk about Mr. Casey's motion.

I agree with Madam Boivin that it's bizarre, to say the least, that the Liberal Party is proposing that this committee adopt the dissenting report of the Conservative Party from May 2004, a report dissenting to the report of the committee of the day, which was dominated by the majority Liberal members under the chairmanship of Mr. Lee, who was at the time a Liberal MP from Scarborough—Rouge River. I understand that it was substantially different from what his party and the former Liberal justice minister actually decided to do in terms of appointing members to the Supreme Court.

I note that in that committee report there were eight recommendations made by the committee to the government of the day about how it would select the members of the Supreme Court. In fact, it didn't follow the majority of those recommendations.

I don't know, but he could go and speak to some of his former colleagues, including the Honourable Stéphane Dion, the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, the Honourable Hedy Fry, and the Honourable John McKay, who are all currently in his caucus. In addition, there is Marlene Jennings, who was his predecessor as Liberal justice critic, and the Honourable Andy Scott, who was a member of cabinet at one time. All these people disagreed with what he is now proposing.

It's interesting to note that a significant number of the members of his current caucus disagreed in May of 2004 with what he is currently proposing, so he's apparently adopting a dissenting report that was voted down over 10 years ago by his own colleagues and is now presenting that as his party's suggestion on how the Supreme Court justices should be selected.

I can go through some of the recommendations, but one of them was that an advisory committee made up of one member of each of the parties would compile the list of candidates to be considered for the Supreme Court. I'm pretty sure that Mr. Cotler never did that, nor did any other justice minister that I'm aware of.

I find it bizarre. It's strange. It's certainly the first time in my history of serving as a member of the House of Commons that a member of another party has gone back into history, has dug out something that their own party turned down, something that was actually proposed in the past by some of my colleagues, and has then put it forward as something that the government of today should adopt going forward.

I think we heard from the minister his concern about what happened in the Nadon process. I was part of the process when Madam Justice Karakatsanis and Mr. Justice Moldaver were selected. That process went very well. Everyone signed a confidentiality agreement, everyone complied with it, and there were no leaks of any of the names. I agree with Madam Boivin that it's a real problem if the names are leaked, as we saw in The Globe and Mail.

I was quite shocked, personally, when I saw that list in The Globe and Mail. I remember from the time when I served on the committee how we were all admonished that we had to be extremely careful with everything we did, to make sure that in no way would any of those names be leaked, because clearly, first of all, it's like applying for any job. If you have a current job and are applying for another job, you don't necessarily want your current colleagues to know you're doing that.

Many of the people on the list are currently serving on other levels of court. Some of them are serving in law firms and in other places. The committee speaks to a wide range of people in the legal and judicial systems in Canada to get their views on each of those candidates. It obviously would compromise the advice the committee or the government would get from those it seeks advice from if they knew that the advice they were giving on these people would become public knowledge.

For all those reasons, I agree with Madam Boivin and I agree with the minister that this motion should be defeated. I think it is one of the strangest motions I have ever seen in my time here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I think Madame Boivin very ably set out all of the reasons that the Liberal Party of the time decided to go in another direction and we'll be most interested to see whether the Conservative party today agrees with the Conservative party of 2004 when they put this forward.

So we're ready to vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Madame Péclet.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I thank my colleague, Mr. Casey, for introducing this motion, but, with respect, I should tell him that it is moving a little too fast.

This matter is extremely important and fundamental for our institutions of justice. We must not adopt a model of this kind right away without studying it and without hearing from witnesses on the matter. I am sure that my colleague could suggest experts who could come before the committee to speak for or against a public model. I think that he wants the same thing as we do, to adopt a process that is as transparent as possible. However, respecting judges' privacy must be one of the principles of that process.

It would be premature to adopt a ready-made model without hearing from experts and having studied the question in a little more depth. Adopting this motion would prevent us from consulting experts and groups who have been looking at the matter for a number of years. Instead, we should adopt the motion that my colleague from Gatineau is going to introduce. It will allow us to hear from witnesses who have studied the matter and then put our heads together to consider the best model to adopt.

My colleague is as hesitant as I am with the idea that the government would like an open model. I understand that. Nevertheless, we still have to let experts come before the committee to give us their opinions on the process of appointing judges.

My thanks to everyone for listening to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I have no further speakers.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Can we have a recorded division, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You certainly can.

(Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 1)

So there you go, and I think you can expect a motion coming out from our clerk.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Can you consider...? Do I have to represent...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

No, the clerk said he can read your writing. You submitted it—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Excellent. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

And I don't know how he reads your writing but he says he read it.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I'm insulted that you can't read my writing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

So we're back to you. We're back to our meeting.

I've put myself in this next slot. Is that okay? No? Good.

No, it's an easy one. Look, Justice didn't even make the top 10 in these supplementary (B)s.

They put the ones that are most significant...50 million bucks or whatever it is, $51 million. But let me just be quick about it.

On the horizontal item, which I'm never excited about, horizontal items, it's the funding for comprehensive claims and self-government negotiations across Canada, and if I look at it, the justice committee is the number one funder in the supplementary (B)s.

Are we the number one funder overall?

[A voice]

I wouldn't think that we would be but I don't have the exact answer.

[William F. Pentney]

Given that it's a horizontal item primarily under...this is in support of negotiations. Aboriginal Affairs is paying for the negotiations. We're paying for the legal support. But I don't have those figures for other elements of the horizontal, I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That's fine.

When I look at the supplementary estimates (B) on the horizontal piece, we are at $2.6 million. It's only $6.7 million to start with. It's a $95-million item, but you're telling me that Indian affairs is in charge, not Justice. Is that correct?

[William F. Pentney]

That's right. This is legal support to comprehensive claims and self-government negotiations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

When I see that number of $2.6 million, and you say legal support, is that cash or is that bodies?

[William F. Pentney]

That's bodies, primarily.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That is bodies.

[William F. Pentney]

Well, bodies, operating, travel, but—