Status of Women committee  I'll just conclude with this. Some people have called some of the provisions of the bill an attempt to have a “name and shame” provision; and I think there could be a real issue with trying to identify which judges take which courses at which time, to then criticize their decisions on that basis.

Status of Women committee  I think that's one of the objectives we want to achieve, but we, the CJC, believe there could be an issue of independence if you try to then link that with the results of the decisions of judges. So, yes...a curriculum for judges, number of courses, number of judges.... I'm very pleased to say that for this current fiscal year, the CJC has approved attendance for about 907 federally appointed judges to educational programs, and when we know there are 1,100 judges across the country, that's a pretty high participation rate.

Status of Women committee  I'd say the short answer is absolutely yes. The proposal that I mentioned in my opening remarks, which we'll make to the minister shortly, that candidates be required to make an undertaking that they will abide by CJC policies on judicial education and tell us more about their training is very important.

Status of Women committee  I'll leave the government of the day to answer. There are issues of judicial independence that arise from some of the provisions of the bill. I don't want to beat around the bush. It's clear, and I heard the sponsor of the bill say that, essentially, there may be an attempt to do indirectly what you cannot do directly, so we have to be careful with that.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much. Madam Chair, members of the committee, on behalf of the members of the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), I sincerely thank you for your invitation. The Council was created in 1971 to ensure better administration of justice, to exercise clear authority in overseeing judicial conduct and to assume explicit responsibility with respect to the continuing education of judges.