Bill C-31 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Judges Act

This enactment increases the number of judicial salaries that may be paid under paragraph 24(3)(b) of the Judges Act from thirty to fifty.

Judges Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

The heckling from the other side, Mr. Speaker, was because they really did not want me to explain how a minority government should operate and how in Lester Pearson's time everything was not a confidence motion. By working together to get things done, we passed so much progressive legislation by the former Liberal prime minister, whether it was the Canada pension plan, medicare, employment insurance and so on. It showed what could be done in a minority Parliament and Prime Minister Pearson showed us the way. It is too bad the present Prime Minister would not work cooperatively with the other parties. As my colleague said earlier, the government itself is even filibustering so many committees.

However, I am getting off my topic. The government members on the other side derailed my line of thought, and that is not necessarily a good thing. However, it is a good thing to explain how well Prime Minister Pearson governed and did so many positive things as compared to the current Prime Minister when it is either his way or the highway.

I will get back to Bill C-31. I will use several examples of our worries about the bill. My colleague from York West mentioned some of them, but they are important enough to mention again.

The bill does nothing to address the concerns our party has raised in the past regarding Conservative government attacks on judicial independence. My colleague from York West used an example and I will use another one. The attacks on the judiciary by some ideologically driven folks on the other side even had the Chief Justice feeling that she had reason to criticize the government for its attacks on judicial independence. That should not happen.

First, we have a judicial system in our country because of the good appointments in the past. Because of that strong independence, it is seen as one of the best judicial systems in the world. It is a system that really has not allowed a great deal of politics to enter into it to date. I know there are some efforts on the other side to do that, but we would hope that independence remains.

The second worry is the same Conservative government stacked the judicial advisory councils to ensure the justice minister's chosen representatives would have a majority voice on every provincial judiciary advisory board. When it comes to stacking judiciary advisory councils, then that is leading the appointment process to get those in place. Maybe they are qualified, but maybe they lean in a certain political direction, and that has us worried as well.

Third, this is also the same government that has gone out of its way to make a large number of patronage appointments to Canada's judiciary, including the Prime Minister's former campaign manager in New Brunswick, a former president of the Conservative Party in Quebec and the party's former chief money raiser in Alberta. We sometimes call them bagmen, but in any event he was the chief money raiser in Alberta. It is funny he happened to end up appointed.

Therefore, we do have some worries.

However, I want to come back to the point that in general we have, even with these new appointments, a judicial process that is second to none in the world in terms of qualified people. It is a process that is independent of the political process and the executive branch of government as well. Our judicial process is seen around the world as among the best and included in that is the independence of the judiciary. One of the difficulties with our current court system is the cost.

I remember when I used to be involved in the farm movement and a friend of mine in the United States said of its justice system, “justice is justice, but it is just U.S.”. Only those with the economic ability to pay and political power, “just U.S.” meant them getting fairness under the system.

The previous government put in place the court challenges program, which provided federal government funding to organizations and groups, such as the Status of Women, so they could challenge decisions through the court system and get independent rulings and effective legislation on them. Therefore, those without economic power could get some justice in the system.

The leader of the Liberal Party spoke for a considerable time the other evening on a private member's bill to reintroduce the court challenges program to allow people without economic power to challenge the system. Members opposite were part and parcel of the Conservative government's cancellation of the court challenges program, and that was seen as disgraceful around the world. Many around the world looked at our court challenges program as a model to be emulated elsewhere and Canada was recognized in good stead around the world for it.

I hope those members have now seen the error of their ways, so to speak, and will look at the private member's bill of our leader to bring the court challenges program back. Even with the additional appointments, which are so important, it would make our court system work better and be fairer to all.

Although I agree with increasing the number of judges, as I said earlier, there are other points about which I am worried.

One of the benefits of our system is that if the Prime Minister does not like somebody in the system, he cannot up and fire that individual. We must retain that benefit. We have seen other areas where that has happened. Independent authorities have had highly qualified people fired because the Prime Minister wanted to silence their criticism.

The Conservative government is driven by ideology. I will give the House some examples of critics who have been silenced and fired because they did not allay themselves with the government's policy.

One example would be Adrian Measner, who was the CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board. The government fired Linda Keen, an independent authority in terms of nuclear regulations, who did not agree with the government. The government did it to Kingsley, Shapiro and Reid. Even through the appointments process to the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board, the government managed to do it to a lower level employee, Deanna Allen.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Nonsense.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

The member opposite says “nonsense”, Mr. Speaker. The fact is the firings have happened.

Thank goodness we have the independence of the judiciary and the protection in the judiciary because if they were to ever make a wrong decision, the Prime Minister, by his record, has shown that they probably would be up for firing. There are many examples in that regard.

I would like to give another example that is actually close to my heart in terms of the importance of the judiciary. Adding new judges is important because it will give the judiciary time to make quicker decisions. The example that is used is how the government has tried to get around the law by doing certain things against the law, which has been stopped by the courts. Members opposite should be getting reasonably familiar with the example I will use, which is the whole attempt by the Government of Canada, based on the Prime Minister's ideological position against the Canadian Wheat Board, to make changes to it that really were in violation of the laws of the land.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, I am calling for relevance. It seems to me that if our friends are going to filibuster the least they could do would be to stay on topic. He may be familiar with the Wheat Board because that is his one song that he sings constantly in the House, but surely to goodness he has enough information on this topic to conduct an intelligent filibuster rather than just drifting off into any old topic that he wants.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I would remind the hon. for Malpeque that we are on third reading of Bill C-31, so if he could come back to the point of the main tenets of the bill, the House would appreciate that.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ. My point is all about the independence of the judiciary when adding new judges to the court so that decisions can be made.

The point I wanted to make by example is the fact that when the government tried to break the law, and I can give the judge's name and decision, it is the court that stood up to the ideological drive of the Prime Minister and stopped him down in his tracks. We want to appoint new judges so that there are more of them to take on the government when it tries to get around the laws, as it tried to do in that case.

Just so it is clear on the record, I must point out that in this case, on July 31, it was the last process that Canadian citizens could utilize to stop the government in its tracks and they did. This is the power of the courts and why they need to be entirely independent. I said earlier that there was a need for that independence. Adding more judges to the court and having that independence would certainly be important.

Just so everyone knows it is a fact, I will read Judge Dolores Hansen's ruling against the Government of Canada, which shows how important that independence is. In her conclusion, she stated:

For the above reasons, I conclude that the new Regulation is ultra vires and of no force and effect.

That was her judgment against the Government of Canada. It shows the need for the system and the importance for it to be adequately resourced in terms of individuals.

What makes that decision more scary is that we know, in terms of our political process and Parliament, that the top individual is the leader of the governing party, the Prime Minister. He has the power of the Prime Minister's Office and all those things, so he is very important and there needs to be a vehicle that has the authority and the independence to stand up to that individual.

In fact, within two days of that ruling, the current Prime Minister said that one way or the other the government would get to what it called barley marketing freedom or choice, which is a little spin on the words. What it is really doing is taking away the choice of farmers for collective marketing.

The members opposite can complain if they like but I make all those points because people need to understand that the independence of the judiciary and having it adequately resourced is what is very important as we go down this road.

I want to make a couple of more points on this bill. There needs to be adequate resources. This is moving us ahead somewhat toward getting more human resources to do the job. There are a lot of courts to cover here and a lot of decisions to be made. There are civil cases, criminal cases and family law cases.

I know that the current government is in favour of bilingual judges. I would remind the government that it is extremely important as we go down this road, in terms of the human resources to meet the qualifications of Bill C-31, that there be adequate consideration given to bilingual judges to cover off the courts that need them to do their job.

Our party does support the bill. We believe the amendment to the Judges Act authorizing the appointments of 20 new judges, bringing the total up to 50, is a good move forward.

As I said in my remarks, it certainly is not without some worries, and I have outlined them. A lot of those worries were expressed in the words of the Prime Minister after Judge Hansen made the decision to go against the government. She challenged the government and said that its laws were ultra vires and the Prime Minister reacted immediately.

In fact, the Prime Minister and his Minister of Agriculture went to the appeals court and they were turned down there as well. As members opposite know, they brought a law into this Parliament to find a way around the court's decision. It shows the kind of sneaky business that the government may be up to. If it does not get its way one way, it will certainly try it another.

With those few remarks, I will conclude by saying that we are in support of the legislation but I have outlined my concerns.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that this has been a very humorous afternoon, particularly because the member has been talking about the fact that he does not understand a party that would actually have principle. I can understand that. The Conservatives come to these and many other issues, be they criminal justice, economic reform, things to do with satellites or whatever the issues are, with principles. Of course he would not understand, being a Liberal, because he does not have any principles as it would relate to this issue.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The issue was raised earlier about us sticking to the principles of what we are talking about, so let us stay away from the partisan attacks and stay focused on the issue of Bill C-31.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Implying that another hon. member does not have principles may in fact be unparliamentary so I might ask the hon. parliamentary secretary to withdraw those remarks and continue on with his question.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, out of respect to you and this House, I withdraw those remarks. Unfortunately, I did go over the top.

I must admit, though, that I am somewhat frustrated when we have a bill here that everybody seems to be in agreement with, and the Liberals, for some reason, are doing nothing but filibustering. I find it deeply regrettable because we could be getting on with other House business.

They will go out in front of the House here with Don Newman or Mike Duffy and get on these panels and say that nothing is happening in the House. Of course nothing is happening in the House because the Liberals are filibustering a bill that they happen to agree with.

I wonder if the member could possibly explain that to us. It just seems completely illogical.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, my golly, was the member not listening to my remarks?

I outlined for him that we supported the bill but that we had several worries about the bill. I outlined for the member opposite the things that the Prime Minister said he would do in terms of the appointment process so that there would be absolute independence of the appointments of the judiciary. If the member had been listening, he would understand that we would be concerned about that.

Our remarks are now on the record and we would hope that the Minister of Justice and others on the other side would look at those remarks, take them seriously and maybe start to mend their ways and do what they claim they do.

I accept that the member went a little over the top. That is not unusual in this place. It is a place where emotions run high. However, I do want to make a point on principles because this party is principled.

I will come back to the example of the Canadian Wheat Board that I used. There we have ideology. The Prime Minister claims that he wants to give people choice in marketing when, in effect, what he is really doing is taking away the farmers' right to collective choice, which is where ideology is overruling principles on that side of the House.

Let us be clear. We are the party of medicare, the party of the Canada pension plan and the party of principle in terms of trying to ensure there are economic and social programs for people who really matter in this country. We are not just ideological. We are principled and we will stand by our principles when we get into the next election and do the best that we can for Canadians against what I claim is a very right wing agenda on the other side of the House.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have three questions, but I will ask one at a time to give other people a chance.

It is humorous this afternoon that there has been criticism after criticism of the government on aspects of the judiciary and possible corrections needed to the bill and there has not been any defence of it. The government members just say to get on with it and leave the flaws there. They are not defending themselves, which is very bizarre.

One of the defences for their stonewalling and filibustering was that they felt a decision made by a committee chair was accurate. I want the member to comment on correct procedures. Is it not true that according to the Standing Orders committee chairs get to rule--

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

How is that relevant?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

It was a Conservative member that brought it up, so the member should ask him about relevance.

A committee chair can rule on issues but the chair can be challenged. At that time the chair must call the vote right away. Is that not the procedures of the House of Commons, in particular the procedure that the Conservative chair of the justice committee has broken four times in a row?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I wonder if the hon. member for Malpeque could answer that question by relating it back to Bill C-31.