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

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

moved that bill be read the third time and passed.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to stand today in support of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act.

The amendment proposed in this bill would authorize the appointment of 20 new judges to the provincial superior trial courts, which will allow us to respond to an urgent need for more judges to handle increasing caseloads and mounting delays in a number of jurisdictions across the country. We have heard that in every corner of the country.

This amendment would support the effective and expeditious resolution of specific claims through the newly proposed specific claims tribunal.

As provided in Bill C-30, the specific claims tribunal act, the members of the specific claims tribunal are to be appointed among sitting Superior Court judges and six of the new appointments to be authorized under the bill are intended to help the Superior Courts to free up experienced judges to take on the new work of the tribunal.

The establishment of this tribunal represents the cornerstone of this government's reform of the specific claims resolution process. The remaining 14 appointments will be allocated among the 6 jurisdictions that have previously submitted compelling requests for more judges.

Each one of those jurisdictions of Nunavik, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and my home province of New Brunswick have provided detailed submissions to support their requests, and there is no doubt that these six provinces have an immediate need for these new appointments.

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights gave careful consideration to this bill and approved it without amendment, which is key. All parties in this House support this bill because we recognize that there is a real and pressing need for new judicial resources within our trial courts, and so do our chief justices, our judges, members of the bar and, most important, Canadians who are involved in our judicial system.

As well, the first nations communities look forward to having access to the effective and independent process offered by the specific claims tribunal. We certainly do not expect that this amendment is the answer, because it is not the answer to all future requirements of the courts. However, it does respond to the clear needs of the six affected provinces at this time. Our government has made it very clear that we are open to considering future requests for additional judges in due course and when that need is clearly demonstrated, as it has been in this case. When that occurs, the government will respond appropriately.

Before I close, I want to make one final important point about playing politics with our courts and the judges who preside over our courts.

This week in New Brunswick, we have seen the potential harm and danger that such political games can cause. We saw the member for Beauséjour try to score partisan points by claiming that our government was not appointing enough bilingual judges. Even the facts show otherwise. The member for Beauséjour simply refused to do his homework. Either that or he simply did not know or purposely ignored the fact that three of the six judges who we have appointed in New Brunswick are bilingual. Of course that is in a province where francophones make up 30% of the province's population.

I do not need to remind members that New Brunswickers are proud of our place in Canada's only officially bilingual province. We are proud of our linguistic duality. We are proud of how francophones and anglophones work every day, shoulder to shoulder, for a better future, a stronger province and a greater country, and our government supports that vision.

We will not let the political games being played by the member for Beauséjour divide New Brunswick or sidetrack our province in its steady progress. We are very proud of our province and the progress made by all governments, past and present, of the province of New Brunswick.

In that spirit, Bill C-31 represents an important step toward improving access to justice in Canada.

I wish to thank all hon. members for their recognition, the advancement of this significant bill and their support for its speedy passage. It is very much appreciated.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister of Veterans Affairs for his comments. He spoke about how proud he is of New Brunswick, which he feels offers suitable legal services in French. I am happy to see how proud he is of his province.

I urge him to extend that pride to the other maritime provinces, particularly Nova Scotia. There were three bilingual Federal Court judges in that province. Two of them are retiring: Justice Boudreau and Justice Batiot. They will be replaced by anglophones. For the entire province of Nova Scotia, from Cape Breton to southwestern Nova Scotia, including the provincial capital, there will be only one bilingual judge. That is completely unacceptable. It is unthinkable that we would move down to one judge from three.

Of the judges I mentioned, Justice Boudreau was appointed by Mr. Mulroney some time ago. Mr. Chrétien appointed a number of bilingual judges in Nova Scotia. Now, this government is replacing two francophones with two anglophones. In just two years of this government, French-language legal services in Nova Scotia have dropped by 66%.

The minister spoke about his pride in the bilingual legal services in the Maritimes, but will he extend that pride to the Acadians and francophones of Nova Scotia?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I was speaking specifically about New Brunswick. I will admit that I do not know the details in Nova Scotia. I am sure the Minister of Justice or the parliamentary secretary would have more knowledge and more background to respond. However, when I do speak it is on what I know has happened in the province of New Brunswick. I also know that the member supports what we have done in New Brunswick.

We have had six appointments: three who are fully bilingual, two who are francophones and one who is anglophone. It is typical of New Brunswick, which is completely and fully bilingual, something I wish I were.

This speaks to the generosity of New Brunswick. When I travel to northern New Brunswick as a unilingual anglophone, I am received as I would be in any part of this country. Some of us do not have the ability to speak both languages. I wish I did but I cannot, not like the member opposite. However, it is a real testament to the generosity of this country that when we go there, the people fully appreciate that we are working on their behalf as best we can.

It is a credit to this country and to my home province of New Brunswick that a unilingual francophone or anglophone can be successful and achieve high office in government and in our court system. However, we are very sensitive to the fact that when people go before the court, we need to have a bilingual capability within our court system, and we have worked very hard to achieve that.

I want to point out for the member opposite that the member for Beauséjour was being disingenuous when he spoke. A point I made when I responded to the newspaper, the Telegraph Journal in New Brunswick, the paper ran what I considered to be a very one-sided story that did not actually represent the facts. One of the judges, who we appointed to what we call the military judges compensation committee, is the father-in-law of the member for Beauséjour. The reason he was appointed was that he is very qualified. His name is Guy A. Richard and, as I mentioned, he is the father-in-law of the member for Beauséjour who stood and suggested that we did not honour bilingualism in the province of New Brunswick. That is totally disingenuous.

In addition to appointing the judges I have mentioned to the superior court, we appointed the hon. member for Beauséjour's father-in-law, and he should consider that and be very cognizant of it when he next speaks in the House of Commons.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, judges are important to us in the Northwest Territories because we have a high rate of criminal charges. We appreciate the work they do.

However, the government is engaged in a cost reduction program. The plan of the Conservative government would salary judges, but how would it ensure that we have the kind of resources required to take on extra judges, given that we have to sometimes fly them and their court staff to locations thousands of miles away from their courthouse?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, we responded in a very positive way to a need across the country. I am not sure the member's constituents would be really pleased to hear him suggest that there is a high rate of crime in that area.

There is almost complete agreement on what the Government of Canada is doing, and we all know that seldom happens in this place. We are responding to a real need with the legislation. I am proud of what we are doing. The agreement we see in the House clearly indicates that Parliament supports exactly what the minister has done.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister of Justice for bringing the bill forward. I also like to thank my colleague the Minister of Veterans Affairs for speaking to it today. I am a member of the justice committee and I remember discussing this bill briefly.

My question for the minister has to do with the increase in the number of superior court judges from 30 to a pool of about 50.

There are first nations reserves in my riding as there are across Canada. We have a huge backlog of land claims that need to be worked through. Could he minister could provide the House with some more information in regard to how the appointment of these judges will improve the efficiency of the land claims tribunal process and land claims and provide good value to Canadian taxpayers in moving that file forward?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Wetaskiwin for the hard work he has done on the justice committee. I had the privilege of visiting his beautiful riding.

I will get more specifically to his point. The land claims issue is a big issue. Again, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development could speak with more authority than I. This legislation is a direct response to some of the needs up there, to free up the court to proceed with some of these land claims.

The member is being much too modest himself in terms of his contribution to the justice committee and the very positive role he has played in bringing the legislation forward. All members should applaud his hard work.

I am quite convinced the bill will reflect the real need in some of the specific areas that he mentioned.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-31. It has now been through the justice committee and has returned to the House unamended.

It is a very short bill, but its amends a number change in the Judges Act, paragraph 24(3)(b), and thus creates the authority to authorize the appointment of 20 new judges for the provincial and territorial superior trial courts.

We know these judges are needed to deal with the increasing backlogs in the superior court system. In particular, superior courts in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Nunavut continue to experience delays and backlogs.

In a former parliamentary life, when the Liberal government was in power, I was a parliamentary secretary to the then minister of justice. I travelled through Nunavut and experienced the fact that unlike the rest of Canada, where we can travel by vehicle from one city to another, there were 26 different fly-in communities. It takes time and there are delays to which we must attend.

I remember at that time we also were starting to introduce our crime prevention programs. That is the other end of the justice system, from the trial and judgment to the prevention of crime. There needs to be a full emphasis on this aspect. It helps reduce criminal activity when people are actively engaged in different crime prevention activities. I wanted to make that point at this time.

Even in the other provinces, those that I did not mention, we are aware that there is a strain with simply population growth, especially stresses that could happen with the family court systems. In a family court system we cannot afford time delays. Children grow up and those issues have to be resolved sooner rather than later.

We also have the issues of mega-trials in the criminal law area. We know a lot of the criminal law is taken care of at the provincial court level, but there are those mega-trials and people can opt to go into the higher court level. The mega-trials are very complex and lengthy and consume a lot of justice system resources.

I know this is important to all Canadians. The introduction and background to Bill C-31 talks about the fact that we now have a specific claims tribunal, which will have the authority to make binding decisions where specific claims brought forward by first nations are rejected for negotiation or where negotiations fail. It is estimated by the government that this tribunal will require the equivalent of six full time judges to manage the caseloads of these types of claims.

The chief justices, I am sure, will have consultations with the minister or his designates to talk about the allocation of these judges. I know that B.C. and Ontario will need these resources, as well as some of the other jurisdictions, because specific claims should be settled.

It is important to have access to justice for all Canadians. It is true that justice delayed can be justice denied. In criminal law, the Askov case reminded us, very bluntly, of the importance of reasonable time limits and reasonable access to the court system. We do not want to have cases thrown out of court just because the delays have been too lengthy.

Apart from the judges needed for the tribunal work, these judges will work in the area of civil law, civil litigation, family law and criminal fields of law. They are expected to perform all their work for us with the independence and impartiality that I think Canadians expect from their justice system.

Judges apply the law to the facts at each case. They do so without imposing any of their own personal bias. Increasingly, as I have said, cases are complex and trials can become very lengthy. Delay is not wanted by Canadians. Canadians want to have justice delivered in their own language, be it English or French. This reflects the linguistic duality of our country.

It is important, and this is not a political or partisan point, that both French speaking and English speaking justices are needed in our courts. In fact, there is often interpretation provided for other languages. Some people before the Canadian justice system speak neither of these languages, but that is not the point with respect to the appointment of judges.

I have great respect for our judicial system in our country. We have an amazingly fair and independent system. I do not want to see that change in any way. I have respect for the judges who do that work. These people are somewhat limited in their association with the rest of Canadian society. There is an expected distancing so they can maintain that impartiality to do their work properly.

These increases for the number of judges have been needed for some time, and we expected the bill sooner. I will go forward. As of yesterday, March 13, even without this bill, 25 judicial vacancies were waiting to be filled. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is responsible for filling those. In other words, these new positions are in addition to the existing vacancies that have to be filled. This is an ongoing situation. I know we should be encouraging the filling of all positions because it is important for our system to work efficiently and properly.

As many in the House will recall, the new Conservative government stacked the judicial advisory committee to ensure that the justice minister's chosen representatives would have a majority on every provincial judicial advisory board. I will not go in to this too much at this time because it takes away from the most important discussion and subject matter of this bill, but I do note it.

It is important to keep the judicial independence in our country. I remember the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court making comment on this point. It is also important that the positions be filled and that there not be a great delay. Both of those points are important.

With respect to this short bill, we can agree in the House that it should move forward. I know my colleagues and our party want the smooth functioning of the justice system. This is one, but only one, aspect that can be assisted by this House. We must remember that there will not be a smooth functioning system if there are not enough prosecutors and if there are insufficient dollars for legal aid for people who need that assistance before the courts. We need all of the system to work cohesively, and the judges are one part of it. However, it is the full functioning of the court system that has to be brought to bear before justice is actually delivered to Canadians in a timely and effective manner.

I ask fellow members of the House to support this legislation so it can move rapidly to the other house and become law after their deliberations. This is one bill that the House can believe will be good for the country and good for the citizens. We need the expertise and the impartial judicial system in our country, which we all deserve.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish you a happy Friday, and happy Easter to you and your family.

First, I would like to tell my colleague from London West that I have wonderful memories of the time we spent working together on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

We all know that the government's record when it comes to its relationship with judges has not always been a good one. We also know that the idea of appointing police officers to various selection committees created quite a stir. And we know that would have subjected the judge selection process to an ideologically negative bias. This is something I would remind the House of, but that is not what my question is about.

I believe that our colleague from London West has a background in law, and I am sure she studied, or at least knows about, a ruling handed down a few years ago in Ontario, the province she represents. I am talking about the ruling in R. v. Askov, which nearly invalidated dozens of cases in Ontario on the grounds that they had not been ruled on, that the justice system had not been diligent enough, and that it was not compatible with the charter provision stating that everyone has the right to a fair and just trial.

Now, the appointment of some 20 judges has corrected that situation, but I would like the member to comment on the ruling in R. v. Askov and to explain why we need a diligent justice system.

I would also ask that she share her thoughts on the attitude of the committee chair, who has refused to call a meeting of the committee because he does not want anyone looking into the ethical issues surrounding the Cadman affair.

I would like the member to take a good five or six minutes to answer these questions.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for many years I sat with this colleague on the justice committee and found that he worked quite diligently on the aspects of criminal law and the bills. We worked well together in that committee.

He is also correct in that I did practise law for 15 years. I did some teaching of law, both at the bar class and at the university part-time continuing education level. Some of us with that training do understand an important decision like Askov.

The Askov decision impacted the criminal courts. In my province of Ontario, some people who were charged were let go without the continuation of those charges. Why? Because of delay. To have fairness in a justice system, we must have timely hearings, which means that we cannot keep putting off court dates. Witnesses disappear. They forget. We must have that court system functioning in a timely fashion so that the court functions at its optimal level.

In those cases, Askov had a great impact. It put a real chill on the system. It took us back. People who did not have their trials completed were let go because the system was not providing the systemic fairness that comes with timely work. That is very important. That criminal law case now applies everywhere in the criminal justice system. There is no case saying that in family law or civil litigation, but the principles are there, which is that both sides get procedural fairness. Timeliness is one very important aspect.

I have another comment. When I was in the justice committee, we always had our meetings. In fact, we had many meetings. I can remember that back in 1995 we were meeting all the time with pieces of legislation, sometimes until late into the night. But I believe there are two or three justice committee meetings now where the chair has refused to do his duty as the procedural chair of the committee and sit and take the votes. He has left the committee, leaving I think two vice-chairs, but this changes the numbers for voting systems. We in this House know that a procedural manual has been given to members of the government, which tells committee chairs how to operate, how to delay and how to get favourable witnesses.

I have chaired the finance committee, for example, three times in former parliaments. I made sure that the system was fair to all. I made sure that everyone could bring forth the witnesses they wanted to and that both sides of the argument were there. In fact, the chair's job was not to do a partisan job but to ensure that the procedural rules were followed.

I think most of us in the House can do that and I am surprised at what is happening in the justice committee. This is a committee that needs to work. This is a committee that has a high volume of legislation. I know that members sitting opposite were with me when we did hard work in that committee. We may disagree on our points of view and the way we want something to come out of the committee, but I also know that there has been a very strong history of everybody working hard in the committee. I think it is a shame that it is not continuing.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand up and share with you the position of my party, the great force of national liberation that is the Bloc Québécois, on Bill C-31. This bill may seem to be rather technical, but it has to do with the workings of the justice system. Bill C-31, which has been called for by people who play a role before or after the court system, is a short bill with only two clauses that will enable the federal government to appoint superior court judges.

At present, the federal government can appoint 30 judges, and there is a definite backlog in the court system. In the administration of justice, it is not uncommon for a year and a half, two years, two and half years, or three years to go by between the time legal proceedings start and the time a judge or a judge and jury hand down a decision. Obviously, we are not talking about the Supreme Court of Canada. We are talking about superior courts, which hear cases involving common offences under the Criminal Code. They do not rule on technical points of law, like appeal courts. And they certainly do not hand down decisions that speak to our values or clarify the constitutionality or validity of legal provisions, as the Supreme Court of Canada does. Superior courts deal with the cases that should be the least contentious possible.

Bill C-31 proposes to add 20 supernumerary judges, bringing to 50 the number of judges who could be appointed to the various superior courts. With your permission, I would like to take a few moments to explain to my colleagues in this House why trial courts should not be confused with superior courts.

Quebec will one day be a country that will enjoy all the elements of sovereignty, you can rest assured. For us as sovereigntists, when we talk about our plans, sovereignty means three things: keeping our own tax dollars, repatriating all powers to Quebec and, of course, deciding on our foreign policy.

As an aside, yesterday, I confirmed something with our research staff. It is estimated that in 2008, Quebeckers will pay $50 billion in taxes to Ottawa. Imagine how things would be different if the National Assembly could keep those tax dollars. Obviously, we would do some things differently. From the information gathered by our research staff—an excellent and very dedicated staff—I read that the National Defence budget will increase from $9 billion to $19 billion in the 2010s. Can you imagine? The military budget will double, primarily because of military procurement.

Do you think that a sovereign Quebec would have made the same decision? As my colleagues will agree, a sovereign Quebec would have placed much greater emphasis on international cooperation and development assistance. We would have been much more present in Africa, especially francophone Africa, and in Haiti, and we would have developed the cooperation practices that seem to be lacking in this government.

Accordingly, a sovereign Quebec would of course enjoy all the attributes of a separate state. However, that is not the case at this time. That is why everyone listening must understand that Quebec, the National Assembly and the Quebec justice minister appoint judges to municipal courts and the Court of Quebec. The Court of Quebec has two divisions: the civil division and the youth division.

By the way, I find it distressing that a bill will soon be before us, but we in the Bloc Québécois will not be supporting it. As I told the steering committee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights the day before last, gone are the days when there was at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights a climate of frank camaraderie whereby members would give each other a friendly slap on the back or ask one another how they were doing, and there was the notion of caring about one another.

We know that the climate has deteriorated at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We have a chair who refuses to take his responsibilities and preside over the committee. How did we get to this point of no return?

It is like in a couple when it is obvious that a domestic spat will escalate to a point of no return. Of course, I am not speaking of myself. My home life is totally free from any stormy dispute because I am so blissfully in love.

At any rate, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has not been meeting because the member for Beauséjour introduced a motion inviting the committee to look into allegations made in the Cadman affair and conduct an investigation under section 119 of the Criminal Code. Naturally, that is within the purview of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Is it not our duty—and this question is for all my colleagues—to ensure that at all times, institutions and those who keep them running, parliamentarians, are above any suspicion when the media and a book raise allegations of corruption? Whether these allegations are founded or not is up to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to decide. Other committees could have addressed this issue, but for reasons I do not want to get into again, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics was unable to.

The hon. member for Beauséjour, a generally respectable man with great self-control, did his job as a parliamentarian by tabling this motion in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which the Bloc obviously supported. When the chair of the committee deemed the motion out of order, we challenged the chair's decision, in accordance with the House of Commons Standing Orders. However, the chair refused to hold a vote to determine whether the motion would be challenged and he left the chair, leaving a terrible void that prevented the committee from functioning.

That said, I do not want to get off topic. Let us come back to Bill C-31.

The National Assembly of Quebec oversees appointments to municipal courts and the Court of Quebec. The Court of Quebec has two divisions: the civil division and the youth division. I dreaded the thought of having to deal with Bill C-25, which is a very bad bill.

Bill C-25 deals with the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Before the five-year review of the bill has even taken place, the government wants to amend two provisions. The Bloc Québécois maintains that—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Order, please. A member has pointed out that there is a problem because the hon. member for Hochelaga is not speaking about the bill currently before this House, which is an act to amend the Judges Act.

He should perhaps return to the matter at hand, debate on Bill C-31 at third reading, rather than discussing all other bills the government has introduced pertaining to the Department of Justice.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised by your comments because Bill C-31 pertains to justice and judges. I believe that there are links to be made between other bills and I know you will allow me to establish these links.

Bill C-31 before us deals with the appointment of judges. The Bloc Québécois supports this bill, but I was saying how disappointed we are that we did not wait for the Youth Criminal Justice Act to be fully reviewed before introducing a bill which deals with only two provisions. You will recall that, under your tenure as Speaker of the House of Commons, the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, one of the best members ever of this House, tabled 2,700 amendments. That led you to make a ruling—and this is not a criticism—that tightened the criteria for introducing amendments.

Coming back to Bill C-31, I will be mentioning the Askov case. There are constitutional guarantees in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is not a legal instrument that the National Assembly finds desirable, of course. In 1982, the National Assembly almost unanimously passed a motion opposing the unilateral patriation of the Constitution. Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberals at the time disregarded the will of the National Assembly. Even Claude Ryan, the leader of the official opposition in the National Assembly at that time, agreed with René Lévesque.

In any case, this Constitution, which was patriated against the wishes of the National Assembly, contains a charter setting out legal guarantees. We are familiar with the major legal guarantees in the charter. Freedom must be inviolable: the freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom of expression are protected. The will is expressed that trials be fair and equitable and concern is shown for the manner evidence is obtained. There is a provision in section 24 that allows evidence to be excluded if the manner it was obtained is unconstitutional.

Among the legal guarantees listed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms patriated against the will of Quebec, there is the right to a fair and equitable trial. For a trial to be fair and reasonable, it has to take place within a reasonable time. Obviously, if a year and half, two years, two years and half or three years go by between the time when proceedings are initiated by prosecutors and the time when a judge, or a judge and jury, makes a decision, that violates this constitutional guarantee.

The Bloc Québécois supports the bill before us because it provides for the appointment of 20 new judges who will help unclog the judicial system and ensure that justice is rendered within much a more reasonable time, more expeditiously and more diligently. With respect to these 20 judges, we do not know the details yet about how many there will be for Quebec, Ontario or Newfoundland.

However, there is something I must tell the House, on behalf of my colleague, the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, a friend of aboriginal peoples. He is a man of the law and a dedicated attorney, who has always maintained the balance between defending people who are in the system, and fulfilling the Crown's obligation to sentence individuals if necessary. It was a pleasure to have the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue attend the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. This was at the time when the committee was meeting and the government accepted the fact that there was work to be done in this committee. This is no longer the case, since the Conservative chair refuses to convene the Standing Committee on Justice.

This is very difficult for me because I love my job. I am very happy with my life. I enjoy speaking at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, but first I have to have a chance to do so. During the last three sittings I have not had that opportunity.

That said, the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue spoke. He accompanied me to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to talk to us about aboriginal law. When I studied law at the University of Ottawa, I took a course on aboriginal law, and I become aware of how valuable it is.

As we know, one judge who currently sits on the Ontario Court of Appeal will very likely be appointed to the new aboriginal reconciliation tribunal. This means that the Ontario Court of Appeal will be short one judge. Obviously, we expect that in the arbitration, appointment, provision or allocation of the new resources provided for in Bill C-31, the federal government will take into consideration this potential appointment of an Ontario Court of Appeal judge to the reconciliation tribunal.

Being a vigilant person, the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, who is a friend of aboriginal peoples, asked a question in this House when the Conservative government refused to sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, setting us back 20 years. Yet all the opposition parties—the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Liberals—were calling for the ratification of this instrument. Only the archaic, backward-looking, old-fashioned Conservative government refused to ratify this agreement. The member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue was good enough to make us aware of this legal tool that the first nations were calling for.

We all know how important the reconciliation commission will be. This historic commission will shed light on the abuse and injustices suffered by the first nations, our founding peoples. The government of René Lévesque recognized the first nations in 1985. When Lévesque was premier, he recognized the 11 first nations in the National Assembly. Hon. members will also recall that Jacques Parizeau's referendum plan, which was distributed door to door in 1995, recognized aboriginal peoples, just as it recognized the historic contribution made by anglophone Quebeckers to Quebec.

I do not want to stray from the issue we are debating. I do want to make it clear that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-31. We worked hard in committee to deliver this bill to the government as quickly as possible. This very short bill will mean that justice can be administered much more quickly. Everyone remembers the ruling in R. v. Askov, where the Ontario Court of Appeal released some accused persons because they had not been able to stand trial within a reasonable time. The case caused a stir in the justice community.

Since then, governments have been under pressure to appoint more judges to the various appeal courts. Every year, there are more trials, and they are often very complex. As well, stalling tactics are used to delay proceedings. We all know what happens in a court of justice. We should therefore applaud the fact that there will be another 20 judges. As I said earlier, we do not know how many there will be for Quebec. We hope that there will be at least three more, but we will wait for confirmation of this.

In conclusion, I repeat that the Bloc Québécois will support this bill. I will be happy to answer any questions my colleagues may have. I hope to again have the opportunity to attend a meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, just like in the good old days.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When debate resumes, 10 minutes will be allotted for questions and comments on the presentation by the hon. member for Hochelaga.

The House resumed from March 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-31. It is a very short bill. It is a government bill that will have the effect of increasing the number of judges at our superior court levels across the country, from 30 currently to 50.

We have roughly 900 judges at that level across the country. These particular appointments are in a special category and they are as a result of an agreement that the federal government made with the provinces a number of years ago, which allowed us to manoeuvre around what was a constitutional problem and allowed for these appointments to be made at the request of the provinces.

That is what has happened in this case. A number of provinces have come forward and made requests to increase the number of judges, with the current federal government recommending to Parliament, in the form of this legislation, that the number be increased from 30 to 50.

It is important to note that we are at third reading and that we have had committee hearings in the justice committee. This is the committee that is no longer functioning, but it was at the time this bill went to it. We did take some hearings on it. They were quite brief because, as I said, the issue is a very narrow one.

Before we get to what happened at committee, I want to put in context what has happened with the workload of our judiciary at the superior court level across the country. That workload has been increasing dramatically as a result of a number of factors.

First, we simply have a growth in population. The last time the number of judges was increased across the country was almost 25 years ago. Therefore, in that period of time, we have had a substantial increase in our population, resulting inevitably in an increase in the number of cases coming before the courts.

I want to make the point that this level of court is not the court that deals with most of our criminal cases. Roughly 95% of all criminal cases and charges in the country are dealt with at the provincial court level and by judges appointed by provinces. However, what does happen at this level and what has happened more and more often is the number of trials that run on for extended periods of time have increased dramatically.

We have seen this under regular charges and the more serious charges under the Criminal Code. However, where we have particularly seen it, has been in the area of drug charges. Oftentimes there is an element of organized crime involved and the trials go on with multiple accused for extended periods of time, literally in some cases, for more than a year, but often for three to six months. This is almost becoming the norm when there are multiple defendants in these areas because of the amount of evidence to be put forward by the prosecutor and then the response from the defence. The length of the trials has increased dramatically therefore putting a burden on our courts in that regard.

The area where the workload has gone up dramatically has been in family law. Without any doubt, I think any observer of our courts would accept this is the reality, that the biggest workload increase by our judges at this level of courts has been in the family law area. It takes the form in two ways: huge increase in the number of motions brought prior to trial, which most of our judges at the superior court level sit on and try these motions; and then the actual trials.

Again, in the family law area well over 90% of all matrimonial breakdowns that result in any kind of litigation never gets to trial, but a good deal of it does get dealt with at the motions level, and those numbers have gone up dramatically.

There were a series of articles in the Toronto area at the end of last year, early part of this year, showing the number of times cases at the motion level had to be adjourned simply because there were not enough judges available to hear them. This makes it much more expensive for the claimants in those cases, whether they are the plaintiffs or the defendants. Lawyers attend, wait for their turn on the motions and then, at the end of the day, time runs out and they have to come back another day. They end up charging their clients for their time in court even though they were not able to argue the case.

This happens repeatedly. I certainly know in my home community of Windsor that it is happening. I know it is happening in Toronto because of those articles. It is my understanding it is happening across the country in greater numbers.

Because of the costs, we find more claimants who end up in front of the courts at the trial stage unrepresented. This puts an additional heavy burden on our judiciary to ensure the trial is conducted properly and fairly for both sides. Even when one side is not represented by counsel, it requires additional time for the judge to ensure there is a fair trial, thereby lengthening the trial. Therefore, that has increased the workload and the time allocated.

We can look as well in the civil litigation area around personal injuries files. I can remember when I first started to practise a long time ago, those trials would take on average two to three days. Now, often two to three weeks is pretty well the average, and it is not usual for them to take over a month's time. Again, for most of that period of time, the number of judges in Canada has not been increased at all.

Having set that context, I want move to what happened at the committee. I had expressed in my speech at second reading, as did other members of the House, concern as to whether the increase in the number of judges, from 30 to 50, would be adequate to meet the growth in demand for services by our judiciary.

I want to then put in context and make it clear what came out of the committee, and I think a number of us knew in any event. The way the system works is the additional judges who will be appointed will be paid out of funds from the federal level of government. However, all the services that go with the additional judicial appointments are paid out of provincial funds, and that is all the staff. For those people who have not been in court very often, that is a very significant number of people. There are court reporters. There are usually one or two people providing security. On average, at this level of court, between six and ten people have to be there for that courtroom to function. In addition, there is the capital outlay for the building space so there are sufficient courtrooms available for the judiciary to perform their functions.

Therefore, the tab, if I can use that colloquialism, at the provincial level is substantially higher than the wages of the judicial person on a ratio of about 3:1 people, on average, across the country.

During the course of the committee hearings, there was a strong feeling that additional judges were needed, and we heard this from the bar associations, the law societies, the judicial councils, the senior judges who provide the administration for our courts. However, and I do not want to overplay this evidence, it was quite clear, from what we heard from the justice minister, that there would have been, if it had been left up to the judicial councils, the bar associations and the law societies, a significantly greater number of judges, on top of the 20 judges, being sought by the provinces. However, because the provinces were not in a financial position to cover those added expenses, this was in effect to what they agreed.

Even the wealthier provinces like Ontario were not prepared to seek additional judicial appointments at this time because of the costs that were attended thereto.

With regard to the bill, I have to think that sometime in the next few years we will again be faced with another request from the provincial level to make additional appointments. I believe this simply will not be sufficient.

I want to make one final point that came out in the course of our debate around the bill. Of the 20 judges, 6 judges' time will be allocated to the land claims tribunal. All of that other work that needs to be done, whether it is in the criminal law area, the family law area, the area of personal injury or other general civil litigation, we are only getting the time of 14 additional judges, not 20.

We also heard a concern from a number of the first nations communities as to whether the six judges appointed to the tribunal on a periodic basis would be sufficient, in addition to the ones who were already allocated. We may, in the next few years, be hearing from the first nations community, which is dealing with a huge number of land claim applications, that it may require additional judicial appointment time in order to get through a huge backlog in that area.

I want to make the point that all political parties and all sectors of the community are adamant that we deal fairly but in an expeditious way with those claims. However, we will not be able to do that without having a sufficient number of judges. I expect that at some point in the next few years there will be a request for additional judges to cover this off and another government will be back asking for additional appointments.

Although we have grave concerns about the adequacy, there is no doubt that we need at least these 20 judges and probably many more. The NDP will be supporting the legislation on third reading but with the caution that at some point in the near future we will probably be back before the House asking for additional judges.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his always wise input to brief but important legislation.

I took the opportunity to look at the government's representations with regard to Bill C-31 before it went to committee. It laid out very clearly many of the facts of which the member had advised the House in his speech, particularly about the concentration of the family issues in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, as well as the pressures in the aboriginal communities.

One of the things I do not hear is that the case was made that these were existing and projected demands on the judicial system.

Second reading of Bill C-31 started on January 28, two years after the government took office. It makes me wonder where the accountability is of appointing sufficient judges to ensure we do not run into a situation where someone could say that justice delayed is justice denied. From a lay perspective, if we cannot have our courts operating in an efficient fashion there will be consequential implications to that.

I do recall what we went through in the first session when a myriad of bills were thrown at the justice committee. I think there were 10 or 12 bills at one point in time. The government was saying that somebody was delaying these things but Bill C-31 was not among them.

When we came back in the second session, rather than reintroduce most of those bills at the same point in the legislative process, many of them were rolled into an omnibus bill, which meant that we had to restart most of the work on a lot of these bill that already had been done.

Accountability is the concern I want to raise with the member. This is a very straightforward priority. The justice department was clearly aware of it and it briefed the government and the minister at the outset. However, the government did not get the job done.

I wonder if the member could help us understand why it is that we are faced with a significant and tragic backlog at a time when the government had the opportunity to address it very quickly in a straightforward bill.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there were two points to which I want to respond.

First, there is no doubt in my mind, from watching the government function, both in the public safety arena and in the justice arena, that it is not paying significant attention to the consequences of some of the criminal laws and amendments that are being passed as it affects the provincial level of government. We have seen that with some of the criminal law bills, one of which, I am proud to say, we were able to fix to such a degree that it would not have a major economic consequence on the provinces, which would have been the result had the bill gone through as first drafted by the government.

However, when both those ministers were in front of the justice committee and when I was sitting on the public safety committee, there is no doubt that the government does not do an analysis of the consequences of its legislation, whether it is on the judiciary, the police services or the prosecutors. It is not doing that analysis and it is being dumped over onto the provinces.

Second, when the provinces come back to say that they have these needs, they are not given any kind of affirmative response from the government in saying that it will figure out some way, in the transfer of payments or in some other fashion, to provide them with the necessary resources. We are seeing that with regards to not getting enough police officers on the street, not getting enough prosecutors into our court and, as we are seeing now in this bill, not getting enough judges into our courts.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is helpful to know the two areas. It is easy to make laws at the federal level but when they need to be enforced and applied at the provincial and territorial levels and they do not have the resources to enforce them, then we have a situation where the laws are ineffective. In fact, there may be some unintended consequences.

The question I want to ask the hon. member has to do with a concern I have with regard to the independence of the judiciary. This has come up from time to time. We now have a situation where the bill would provide additional salaries for up to 20 more judges. However, there has been some evidence of partisan appointments. Even the Supreme Court justice had expressed some concern about claims matters at the tribunal.

I would ask the hon. member for his opinion. How do parliamentarians approach this? When we make the argument in this place about the need that we are fulfilling on behalf of Canadians in the judiciary, the police, et cetera, how do we do it in a way that is open, transparent and does not involve the appointment of people who have some connection or political involvement that may undermine the independence of the judiciary?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, from the comments made to me by the Law Society's Bar Association and the legal profession generally, there is no doubt that since the Conservatives took power the judiciary has a great deal of concern over their drive to ideologically frame the courts.

I have worked, as have a number of other members, on various committees that have been attempting to review appointments. I was involved in some of the Supreme Court of Canada appointments and came forward with suggestions on how the appointment system should be changed to not only make it as accountable and transparent as possible, but to guarantee that there will not be a partisan nature to those appointments in terms of absolute party politics. The criteria should always be the most qualified person to fill the opening.

We continue to have that problem. We saw the government change the committees that screen the appointments at the provincial level, which had nothing to do with merit. I think the number of committees was up to 15 across the country. The government changed the composition of that, which was clearly an attempt to ideologically imprint a Conservative bent on the appointment.

I do not think it will work. I have much more respect for our police officers who were added. I do not think they will fall into that trap set by the government. We badly need a process that is much more transparent and much clearer, where the only criteria for our judicial appointments has nothing to do with what political party one belongs to or the political spectrum one is on. It must be the absolute best candidate for that position available at the time.

A lot of work has been done on this internationally. I have sat on committees where we have reviewed all of that, but the government, since it has been in power, has not done anything about changing the appointment process, except that one change to the current committees, which was clearly to imprint a right wing ideology on our judges.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-31. Members will know that this bill is simply a one paragraph bill to amend the Judges Act.

Yet after reading the debates at second reading and hearing about the discussions at justice committee, as well as hearing the member who just spoke, it is clear that the bill would have some fundamental implications for all Canadians with regard to providing the kinds of services we require in our judicial system at both the federal and provincial levels.

As well, there was some discussion about the federal government making new laws that have to be in force at the provincial and territorial levels, but we have not taken into account the resources necessary for the provinces and territories to be able to enforce those laws. Passing laws that cannot be properly enforced across the country is a bit of a nil process. We have heard this time and time again.

I want to reflect on some of the comments made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice when this bill was first debated on January 28, about two years after the government took office.

It would be a tough sell to convince Canadians of this significant, emerging and terrible situation that we have with not enough judges to hear the various cases in various jurisdictions. If this is such a priority, what happened during the last two years?

Members will recall that the member for Windsor—Tecumseh referred to the activity within the justice committee. Members also may recall that during the first session of this Parliament there were 10 or 12 bills, all pretty well straightforward, all pretty well involving many of the same witnesses, and yet those bills were not introduced as is normally the case. Normally where there is a broad range or potpourri of items to amend the Criminal Code, they all would be included in an omnibus bill which we would then be able to deal with in a more productive fashion. Many of those bills were very straightforward and, quite frankly, were not contested by anybody in this place.

However, this process dragged on for a bit. As a matter of fact, instead of using an omnibus bill, the government introduced each bill one at a time. It was done that way for political purposes. The government was trying to paint a picture. It was trying to say that because somebody else had done a bad job many changes needed to be made to the Criminal Code. The Conservatives said they were going to be tough on crime. All that really did was delay the processing of important legislation.

The justice committee is one of the busiest committees, if not the busiest, and cannot deal with 10 bills all at once. It has to deal with them one at a time. The committee has to decide the priorities. If the committee streams to them sequentially, it is very difficult to do anything other than the next one coming at it.

The House also may recall that when the parliamentary session came to an end a number of those bills were at various stages. I think one or two were already in the Senate. After the throne speech, when the second session started, the government reinstated some of those bills at the same point they were at when the House was prorogued, but most of them were then put into an omnibus bill and we had to start right at the very beginning again.

Again, I suggest that this had to do more with trying to get political points for reintroducing or repackaging legislation that had already been in the House for over a year, simply for the government to be able to say, “Look at how busy we are on justice issues and there are a lot of things we have to change”. All that it really did was delay the passage of important legislation and amendments to the Criminal Code.

When I saw the timeline on Bill C-31 and read the speech of the parliamentary secretary from January 28, it laid out a case that clearly there was a problem, that there were not enough judges to handle the cases in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, particularly in family law cases, and in the north, aboriginal land claims items were being delayed.

One starts asking oneself questions if a backlog has been built up, if there are projections of population increases that are going to require certain things, and if more and more people have less and less money to be able to defend themselves and hire lawyers. People are going to court without being represented by counsel, which means that suddenly judges have longer trials. It was well laid out by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

Is it not a priority? If it was a priority and if it is a priority today, and I think it is, why was it not introduced earlier in Parliament? We are talking about two years after a government takes office. The justice department clearly is aware of it, because it is the continuity. Politicians come and go, but the people in the various departments are the continuity and they know what the priorities are.

Why is this so? The member for Windsor—Tecumseh had some thoughts about it, and it had to do with basically setting up some things for appointments of judges. This is another area of concern. I do not think there is a party that is going to oppose this bill with regard to providing the legislation that is necessary to amend the Judges Act to pay salaries for up to 20 additional judges.

There are two issues that remain. First, how are we going to prevent the same circumstances from occurring in the future? The country is growing. The litigious nature of our population is increasing. The courts are backlogged. This is going to continue. What is the plan to make sure that we do not find ourselves in the same situation of the courts not being able to respond, where instead of the average case taking three to six months, it is taking a year? Suddenly that involves a lot more time, a lot more money, a lot more delay and a lot less justice. There has to be a commitment.

Second, the other point raised by both the parliamentary secretary and the previous speaker in questioning was with regard to the independence of the judiciary. The previous speaker was very diplomatic in suggesting that the questioning of judicial independence was a cloak for ideological preferences for people. However, there is some evidence that what has happened already has in fact shown that there can be some partisan influence, which I do not think is very appropriate. As has been stated, it causes some concern to the Law Society, the Bar Association and those who have a stake in making sure the judicial system operates efficiently and effectively.

There have been such cases. For instance, the Prime Minister's former campaign manager in New Brunswick was appointed as a judge, a former president of the Conservative Party in Quebec was appointed as a judge, and the party's former chief money raiser in Alberta was appointed as a judge. I do not know what signal that gives to people, but I am not sure that it is a good signal to be giving to Canadians.

With regard to ideological side, even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada has had reason to be critical of the government for its attacks on judicial independence. We have seen a number of examples of that as well.

Thus, the bill may be only a paragraph long, but it is a proxy for looking at the bigger picture with regard to the condition the courts are in, why they are in that shape, and why the government has not been accountable and responsible for making sure that this situation was not exacerbated. Delaying the appointment of qualified, properly recruited judges for our various levels of the courts is an ongoing and very important process, and it was ignored. I think that speaks volumes.

As has been indicated, the bill amends one paragraph, paragraph 24(3)(b), of the Judges Act. It authorizes salaries to be paid for up to an additional 20 new judges in provincial and territorial superior trial courts.

I found it interesting to hear about the demographics and the needs of Ontario and Atlantic Canada, particularly in the family court side, and the fact that 90% of these cases never do get to trial. In fact, now we have this other operation, where trials are pending and suddenly go to motions, and the judges are more engaged now in this.

The whole nature of the operation of the judicial system is starting to morph itself into something a little different than Canadians might realize. It is taking our judges a lot longer to do cases simply because they are more complex. As was laid out in debate, we have a lot of cases that have more serious problems to deal with, such as issues of drugs, organized crime or gang violence, and so on.

As this changes, Canadians need to have the assurance from the government that when we deal with legislation like this there is in fact an accountability as to the progress being made. Have we taken sufficient steps to make sure that not only can these backlogs be dealt with but so can the projected growth? Have we ensured that we have a mechanism and a plan in place so the courts continue to be responsive to the needs of our judicial system?

The other important part has to do with some of the other legislation and the consequences of passing federal legislation when the responsibility for the enforcement is at the provincial level. If we do not have the resources at the policing levels to enforce the laws that the federal government passes, there really is a question that comes up. How effective are our laws if they cannot be enforced? What about plea bargains and the number of cases that are just not heard in time so charges are dropped and justice is not seen to be done?

These are the kinds of questions that lay people ask. The lawyers can deal with the details and some of the more profession-specific issues, but I wanted to speak on this simply from the standpoint of a lay Canadian. In terms of the Canadian justice system, the operation of the courts, my observations, what I hear from debate and what I hear from the bar associations or the legal community itself, is that there are some concerns. There is a lack of confidence in the ability of the federal government to be responsive to the needs of Canadians and to make sure that the judicial system is operating efficiently.

Those are significant indictments of our federal system: to make laws but not have the resources to follow them. It is easy to do laws, but where is that partnership in terms of making sure that we have the enforcement side of the equation taken care of?

This is where it would be good to see the Government of Canada coming to this better arrangement with the provinces and the territories to ensure that those resources are going to be there. There has to be a proper analysis of the implications of our federal legislation.

From time to time there is gender analysis that is required in certain cases, but in this particular case, what we are talking about is to demonstrate that if we do this, here are the consequences, to say we understand what the consequences are going to be. We understand where the financial burden is going to be and we understand there is a plan to make it happen.

Parliamentarians ought to know whether there is a plan, whether there is that certitude that if we were to pass a law, that it would really happen, that it would be enforced, it would do the right things, it would deal with backlogs, and would ensure that the increasing demands on our judicial system would be met in a timely manner.

Those things have not happened. Parliamentarians have not been given those assurances by the government. We have just simply been told there is a backlog and so we have to have 20 more judges, but that is only a small part of it. I just cannot imagine why we cannot have a responsible government being open and transparent with Parliament and with Canadians, because that is who we represent, to say we have done the work, we know what has happened.

Those were the two concerns I wanted to raise today. First, that I did not see the analysis of the implications of passing this legislation to the consequences of those who must enforce the legislation. The second one has to do with the plan to ensure that, at the federal level, we continue to monitor this and that the priorities are there. It was clear to me, by reading the speeches and from the committee work, that the priority is clear and uncontested, and this bill will be supported by all parties.

However, the problem is it took two years before a one paragraph bill came before this place. That is unacceptable to Canadians. It is unacceptable to Parliament. I ask the government to ensure that these kinds of priorities are not simply put off to the side only from the standpoint that they are not as spicy and interesting to the public for partisan purposes. The real implications are that the courts are backlogged; the courts are jammed. They are affecting people's lives and delaying justice, and that means that justice is denied.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to the debate on Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act, at third reading.

Bill C-31, if passed as is, would make it possible to appoint more judges to the provincial superior courts. This would mean 20 judges more than the current limit.

The purpose of increasing the number of judges is to improve the flexibility of the legal system so that superior courts can handle the many cases for which they are responsible, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Moreover, it would allow judges from superior courts to be assigned to the new specific claims tribunal, which was created by the Specific Claims Tribunal Act.

Bill C-31 is necessary because the number of judges provided for under the Judges Act has not changed for years. Accordingly, the act does not take into account the population increase and the resulting new social realities, including divorce, and the increasing complexity of some cases. These factors have caused delays in the legal system that penalize citizens.

This bill is a necessary update to accelerate and improve provincial legal systems. It makes sense, which is why this bill was recommended without amendment by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

That being said, beyond good intentions, it is important to point out that Bill C-31 will never successfully cover up two major problems concerning justice that are of grave concern to me, that is, the judicial appointment process and the elimination of the court challenges program. Any citizen who cares about having an impartial, efficient judicial system deserves to know about this government's questionable intentions on these two issues.

Regarding my first concern, I would like to emphasize the subjective nature of the judicial appointment process. I have talked about it on several occasions during past speeches. It is such a major problem that it could compromise the desired effects of Bill C-31. I would remind the House that, since being elected, this government has always said it would rather get tough on crime than prevent it. Bill C-31 is nothing more than a slight blip in an ideology that advocates penalizing and imprisoning as many people as possible as the only way to reduce crime.

First of all, I will provide some context by saying that judges are appointed by the government from a list made by a judicial advisory committee whose members voted for the candidate they deem best qualified.

Before the changes made by the Conservatives, the advisory committees had seven members. Out of seven evaluators, four members were politically independent, in other words, there was a representative from the Canadian Bar Association, another from the bar of the province concerned, a representative of the provincial department and, finally, someone to represent the judges. The three other members, appointed by the federal Department of Justice, came from the public. These individuals frequently subscribed to the ideas of the government of the day.

It is important to realize that, as it turned out, the federal government was in the minority on that committee and therefore could not impose a candidate. Nevertheless, the Conservative government was not happy about this situation because it would have had a hard time passing its political “law and order” agenda for justice. So without consulting the legal community, this government unilaterally decided to change the makeup of the advisory committees in the following manner.

First, in addition to the three members of the public, it decided to appoint a police officer, thereby ensuring that four members would be government supporters. Then the judges' representative was denied the right to vote except to break a tie. This means that the government has a majority on these committees and is able to impose its repressive law and order ideology with ease. I believe this is blatant disregard for the entire legal community and clearly shows a shocking lack of faith in the judicial system and the recognized professionalism of judges.

I would like to draw to my distinguished colleagues' attention to the results of The Globe and Mail 's investigation into the matter, published on February 12, 2007, which showed that, apart from the police officers, no fewer than 16 of the 33 individuals appointed to 12 advisory committees were connected in some way to the Conservative Party. This is not a mistake; we are talking about half the candidates. Coincidence? Unlikely. The newspaper revealed a number of cases where the connection was extremely clear.

The members of the Bloc have been saying for a long time that we can hardly wait for the day when partisanship no longer plays a role in judicial appointments and independent committees will choose the most competent judges.

As for my second concern, the government used the excuse of budget cuts to government operations—even though they had a $10 billion surplus—to eliminate the court challenges program, which was cherished by minorities that wished to defend their fundamental rights. That program was created to put individuals and citizens' groups on a level playing field when going to court against a government they felt was is interfering with one or several of their constitutional rights.

When citizens must take the government to court to seek justice, the latter has a slew of lawyers at its service, while ordinary citizens must use their own savings to defend themselves. Since court costs are huge, these people could rely on the court challenges program to balance things out.

With this completely unjustifiable budget cut, the government is showing us, yet again, that its vision on legal matters is narrow and shortsighted and has nothing to do with the word “efficiency”. One thing is certain: the abolition of the court challenges program violates at least five laws or provisions of the Constitution. Before making such a huge decision, the federal government should have consulted with the interested parties, the minorities affected.

But, as is the case with the judicial appointment process, the Conservative government did not consult anyone before shamefully eliminating a program that had proven effective, all to save a mere $5.6 million out of an annual budget of $283 billion. Many organizations have harshly criticized this cut, and rightfully so.

It is clear that the court challenges program was abolished for purely ideological reasons. I think that the Conservatives do not care one bit about minority rights. I feel strongly about this because I am a staunch defender of human rights, as shown by my Bill C-384, which will soon be debated in this House.

It seems as though the Conservatives are discomfited by minority groups such as disabled persons and gays, and by immigrants' rights organizations, women's rights organizations, and all organizations that defend minority groups.

I stated that the court challenges program has proven its effectiveness not only by defending minority rights, but also in the context of common law, by providing jurisprudence. I will provide a recent example of its effectiveness so that everyone will understand how important this program is.

On April 11, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Marie-Claire Paulin and the Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick, stating that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police must offer its services in both official languages across the entire province of New Brunswick. The RCMP, as a federal institution, was only required to provide services in the minority language in areas where numbers warrant. In her comments about her lawsuit, which has taken eight years, Mrs. Paulin clearly stated that she would not have been able to take her case all the way to the Supreme Court without the help of the court challenges program.

This is the program that the Conservatives have eliminated. Without this opportunity, this woman would have had to have been content with unilingual English service in her own province. This is the sad vision being offered to us today, which greatly concerns me. But the people can always rely on the vigilance and efforts of the Bloc Québécois to make the government understand that this situation is wrong and that they should reverse their decision.

I would like to conclude by saying that if one puts the aforementioned concerns into perspective—the political machinations involved in appointing judges and the elimination of a program as important to minorities as the court challenges program—one cannot help but question this government's real intentions when it comes to justice.

Exactly how will Bill C-31 be able to meet the demand when the intent is to punish rather than prevent? On the one hand, we can expect the legal system to become overburdened very quickly. On the other hand, having more judges will not make a difference if citizens do not have the means to exercise their rights. In my opinion, Bill C-31 is nothing but a drop of good intention and effort in an ocean of ill-conceived punitive approaches.

Nevertheless, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-31 so that it can go through the legislative process. All the same, the problem remains: partisanship will always play a major role in the selection of judges regardless of the total number of judges on a superior court.

The Bloc Québécois will always continue the fight to eliminate partisan appointments to the bench. It will do all it can to help the people get truly independent committees whose judge appointment processes ensure that the most competent people are chosen. The Bloc Québécois has also always been extremely supportive of the court challenges program. The government's lack of sensitivity on this issue is inconceivable, as is the fact that it is so out of touch with the needs of our community.

We will do everything in our power to ensure that the government understands that when it comes to justice, it is headed the wrong way. It is even contradicting Quebec's approach, which has often put the lie to the Conservatives' ideological shortcuts and preconceived notions.

We will always be there for Quebec.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to address the act to amend our Judges Act, proposed by the hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

From the outset, I would certainly put on the record that our party supports efforts to appoint additional judges to deal with the increasing backlog in our superior court system. As we have heard many times today, justice delayed is justice denied, and we see examples of this all too frequently.

When there is a backlog, judges' schedules are overcrowded and they also suffer from the stress of the overcrowding, as do their staffs. It is not only the litigants to the process who are concerned and are impacted, but the judges themselves, and all that that means. Sometimes certain judges may become ill as a result, and that only compounds the necessity of increasing the number of appointments.

This bill, however, does nothing to address our party's concerns about the Conservative government's attack on judicial independence. This is so important and at the same time, the Conservative government, I respectfully suggest, has stacked the Judicial Advisory Committee to ensure that the justice minister's chosen representatives have a majority voice on every provincial judiciary advisory board.

This partisan tone certainly will not fare well in the future and I think we need independent individuals who are not swayed by a certain political ideology in order to improve and preserve the independence of our judiciary.

Actually, this is the same government that went out of its way to make a large number of patronage appointments to Canada's judiciary, including the Prime Minister's own former campaign manager in New Brunswick, the former president of the Conservative Party in Quebec, and the party's former chief money-raiser in Alberta.

There was much to-do in the previous Parliament about partisanship and when the members opposite were in opposition, they were vehement in their opposition with such suggestions of partisanship. What happens when they get in the government? They ignore that.

I would also point out that even the chief justices of the Supreme Court, like Beverley McLachlin, have also had a reason to criticize the government for its attacks on judicial independence.

The Conservative government claims that this legislation is being introduced to help alleviate the backlog in the provincial superior court system and to help provide justices to the independent tribunals which are being set up to adjudicate first nations specific land claims. Certainly, this has not been addressed for a considerable period of time, and we need additional judges to deal with some of these land claims that have existed for too long. It is important to move forward with additional judges to help get these out of the way.

The bill amends paragraph 24(3)(b) of the Judges Act to create the authority to appoint 20 new judges to the provincial and territorial superior trial courts. In particular, the superior courts in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Nunavut are experiencing serious and growing backlogs and delays. Nunavut, in particular, faces severe challenges in providing access to justice for its aboriginal communities. Certainly, we look forward to more aboriginal judges too in our territories.

The remaining provinces are experiencing significant strains, particularly in the family court branches of the courts, as a result of population growth. As of January of this year, there were currently 31 judicial vacancies that the Minister of Justice is responsible for filling, so if we add that 31 with the additional 20, we still have a significant backlog in judicial vacancies. There are also 10 vacancies in the provincial Court of Appeal and the provincial Supreme Court.

The specific claims tribunal, which I mentioned briefly, will have the authority to make binding decisions where specific claims brought forward by first nations are rejected for negotiation, or where negotiations failed. Based on the federal government's analysis of the specific claims workload, it has been estimated that the new tribunal will require the equivalent of six full time judges to manage approximately 40 claims per year. These claims are dispersed across the country, some in my area of Ontario, with the greatest number arising in British Columbia, and some of the most complex cases originate in Ontario and Quebec.

It is anticipated that six new judges will be appointed to the superior court of these provinces in proportion to their respective share of the specific claims caseload. It is intended that this infusion of new judicial resources will allow a number of the superior courts to free up their experienced judges, so that they may be appointed to a specific claims tribunal roster.

The roster will consist of up to 18 judges who will be appointed as tribunal members by the governor in council on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice. These judges would be assigned, likely on a part-time basis to specific matters by the tribunal chairs in consultation with the chief justice of the affected court.

To support these additional requests for judges, the provincial and territorial courts have provided the federal government with detailed proposals containing statistical data and information on relevant geographical and cultural factors that impact judicial resource needs.

They have made their case and it is time to proceed with this legislation with all due dispatch. As I indicated, the government and courts of the jurisdictions provided statistical data and information with respect to the average sitting hours or days per judge, evidence of trends in case volumes, backlogs and delays, and information on relevant geographical and cultural factors that impact judicial resource needs.

There is a perception that perhaps the judiciary is a position that people would aspire to because of perhaps an easy workload. I suggest this is very wrong. Our judiciary is very diligent and it works very hard, has long hours and certainly is most deserving of the compensation it receives.

There is currently no authority under the Judges Act to appoint new judges to any of the provincial superior trial courts and this amendment would provide the government with that flexibility, to respond to objectively substantiated requests for new provincial superior trial court judges at present. It would also address the new demands of the specific claims tribunal.

I suppose my only complaint is that we should have moved forward on these some time ago, months ago, perhaps as soon as the new government took office. In the previous Parliament similar legislation was before the House and when the House fell of course, because of the intervening election call, the legislation died. It could have been immediately introduced and it could have in fact been law today.

We have been well aware of the backlog and the government should certainly have moved forward much sooner to respond to it. The delay has not only exacerbated the situation of backlogs, but also it has exacerbated the conflicting situations of the trials and the litigants who are in the system waiting for their day in court.

In moving forward with the appointments, I urge the government to be aware of the need for francophone judges who are fluently bilingual. This would be especially important in my region of Niagara, in Ontario and certainly in my constituency of Welland.

The appointments process will no doubt come under scrutiny and perhaps the partisan flavour of appointments may become a concern once again. In the previous Parliament, and at the urging of the members opposite who were then in opposition, the appointments process was certainly reviewed and alternative suggestions were made. In fact, there was a review of the proposed applicants. This was done to advance the idea that capable, qualified applicants be considered for these positions.

Heretofore, the vast majority of our judicial appointments have been excellent with men and women, I would say, of the highest quality. In fact, Canada is known throughout the world for the quality and expertise of its judiciary and we hope this phenomenon, this policy and practice will continue.

I did question the inclusion of police officers in the evaluation of applicants when the Conservatives introduced some new changes. It certainly feeds into their law and order agenda, but it takes away from the independence and impartiality of the selection board. I would encourage my friends opposite to revisit that situation. Certainly, judicial appointments should be independent of any type of influence and made objectively of the highest quality individuals.

Soon we will also have to deal with the question of compensation for our judges. I respect it is just as important that they be well compensated and earn good salaries for the very serious work they do, the long hours they put in and the importance of making impartial judgments. It is a difficult task and they should be compensated for the hours that they put in.

That is about the end of my comments on the Judges Act. I would hope that we move forward on this legislation and pass it. It is important and necessary, and it is needed now. I would hope that there would be all party support for this; I would see no reason why there would not be. I certainly will be standing in favour of this bill.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to see Bill C-31 move forward. I listened to my colleague's comments on the various issues of concern that he has. I have to ask why he thinks it has taken so long to deal with an issue of such importance as ensuring we have sufficient judges across the land to deal with the variety of issues that are currently out there. Is there any particular reason he thinks that this has taken a while for this to come forward?

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the answer lies in the agenda of the justice minister as to which legislation he wanted to bring forward. This would have been very simple to reintroduce and get through the House. As I indicated in my address, this bill could be law today and we could be addressing the backlog. This has not happened and it is disappointing. What can I say? We are here now. It is disappointing that we did not do this two years ago, but it could now move forward quickly and become law.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are 31 judicial vacancies to be filled. British Columbia currently has the highest number of vacancies, with 10 vacancies between the provincial Court of Appeal and the provincial Supreme Court. We are only dealing with 20 vacancies.

Does the member have any comments as to why he thinks the government has decided to deal with only 20 vacancies rather than the 31, given the fact that it seems to take quite a long time to get these bills prepared and forwarded and given, we also understand, the amount of legislation the justice minister has been responsible for?

As the member said, there are only so many things that can be dealt with at a particular time, but there are 31 vacancies. Does he have any suggestion as to why we are not dealing with 31 vacancies rather than the 20 vacancies that are currently part of the bill?

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, those 31 vacancies exist today and the 20 new positions that we are creating would be in addition to them. If my understanding is correct, that would give us a total of 51 vacancies that would have to be addressed. Those positions are not filled at the snap of a finger. People apply for the positions. The applications are vetted. It is a long process. It will take the government some time to fill not only the existing vacancies but certainly the additional positions that are being created by this law.

The member's concerns are compounded by the situation. The sooner we address this, the better.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to say a few words on this legislation.

I will be supporting the bill. In my view it is not controversial. It raises by the number of 20, the judges the government is authorized to appoint at the trial level. This is a good move. It is beneficial to our justice system, specifically for those vulnerable to injustice and especially aboriginal populations in certain areas of this country.

I support the legislation as it will provide increased support for jurisdictions which I consider to be presently under-represented. There is no guarantee, and there never is any guarantee that anything will happen, but hopefully it will resolve some of the specific claims that have been kicking around for generations involving aboriginal populations. Also, it will hopefully decrease some of the backlog that has been experienced in our court system in certain areas of the country.

This is an extremely important issue. There is nothing more fundamental to a properly run democracy than access to an efficient and equitable justice system. It is the right of all Canadians.

I should point out that there have been tremendous improvements over the last 15 to 20 years in the management of our judicial system, mainly in the area of case management. It was felt the system did not lend itself to management and it was basically up to the litigants and their lawyers to manage when the case came before the court. There were all types of delays and confusion in some of the pleadings.

Now there seems to be a much more aggressive stand taken by court administrators and judges in bringing these things forward. They make sure that the lawyers comply with the time limits and the rules of court, and that there is early and full disclosure of documents and other testimony both in civil and criminal cases. At the earliest opportunity the parties are brought before a judge, but not the judge hearing the case, to try and resolve how things are going, where they are going, if it is moving on a timely basis and also to encourage, in some cases aggressively, people to settle a case so that it does not add to the backlog in the judicial system.

There have been substantial improvements in the system over the last 15 or 20 years. Also, there have been improvements in the specialty of law, whether it is family, criminal, or commercial. Some of the commercial cases are extremely complex. There is a specialization within the system which has helped tremendously in the administration of justice.

It has been pointed out that we are debating the authorization to appoint 20 additional judges. Right now there are 31 vacancies. Those could be filled tomorrow, assuming the proper preliminary procedures had been done, but they are not being filled. One wonders why that is the case. The government will have authorization to appoint up to 50 new judges once this bill becomes legislation. Having said that, I do support this particular piece of legislation.

With respect to the judicial advisory councils, there has been what I consider to be fundamental changes made to the provincial judicial advisory councils over the past year or two. It is my understanding that the Minister of Justice makes the majority of appointments to these judicial councils.

It just defeats the very principle upon which these judicial councils were established in the first place, to take away not only patronage, but the perception of patronage. Sometimes highly qualified people are appointed as judges, but if they happen to be close to one particular party, they get stamped with a judicial advisory council, they get appointed by the judge, and sometimes people just shake their heads as to how the system operates. The changes that were made in the provincial judicial councils, I submit, were a step in the wrong direction.

I do hope that the new members of the court, whether they are filling one of the 31 vacancies or one of the 20 additional spaces, will study and analyze exactly why there is a backlog and what is causing it. Is it a certain particular case? Is it a certain particular group of lawyers? Is it a specialty? Some of the commercial cases go on for six to eight months. Are they causing some problems?

I understand from some of the reading I have been doing that the backlogs are concentrated in central Canada, Quebec and Ontario, and some of the Atlantic Canada provinces, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There is also a situation in Nunavut that requires some attention from the judicial system, probably judges who come from that area who can speak the local language and of course are familiar with the local culture. We hope with the new judges some of those issues can be resolved and we can move forward.

Other members spoke of the court challenges program. I cannot overstate how important that was to the efficient and equitable operation of the justice system right across the country.

In my own province of Prince Edward Island we had an issue regarding the funding of French language schooling. Because of budgetary constraints, this request from the francophone population in our province was denied and denied and denied. Some of the parents, to their great credit, took the matter to court and a decision was rendered. It set parameters as to when and under what circumstances a group of parents would have access to French language education for their children.

Let me say that those parents, and there was not a great number but they did show leadership, did not have the resources to take this matter to the Supreme Court of Canada. They sought and were successful in receiving funding from the court challenges program. That case served as a precedent for other provinces to set the parameters and guidelines as to when a certain community within Canada should have education for children who come from French Canadian families. If that funding had not been available under the court challenges program, that case would not have seen the light of day. It would not have gone anywhere. It would not have gone to court and we would have been a lesser country as a result of that particular situation.

Sometimes there are abuses. Sometimes there are problems, but when we see how important cases like that are to this country, we have to shake our heads and wonder why that particular program was totally eliminated by this particular government--

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My apologies, but I have been listening to the member for quite a while and he is speaking about the court challenges program. I wonder if the member could be reminded that we are not dealing with that program right now, that according to the orders of the House, we are dealing with Bill C-31.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I thank the hon. member for his point of order. Perhaps the hon. member for Charlottetown could make his way back to the bill before the House.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I think they are very much related. We are talking about the administration of the judicial system in Canada, the number of judges, where they are placed and the other tools that are available to judges so that we have an equitable functioning judicial system. That was just one point that I raised, one among many.

We need to bear in mind that this all comes back to the basic statement that access to justice is a right of all Canadians, regardless of where they live or the type of people they are, and we cannot just use one particular tool.

Even if we had 1,000 new judges, there will be certain situations where those judges will not help a particular situation. It depends where we put these judges. Of course the court challengers program is very much, I submit, related to the discussion that the chamber is having today.

I hope that with the new judges, if they are directed in a certain manner, it will help to resolve the situation that we now see in Nunavut. This is a complex situation. It is an extremely large area. I certainly do not stand here today and suggest that I have all the answers. I probably do not have any of the answers but I hope, from what I read in the legislation and in some of the background material, that it is somewhat directed to that particular issue. I hope that it resolves itself, which will not be immediately but over time.

In this legislation, I hope we are seeing some steps with a commitment to resolving specific claims with the aboriginal communities. One branch of these judges, I believe it is six, would be designated for that particular purpose. It is needed and I hope it works. I hope these judges will be sufficiently trained and committed to this particular process. I hope we see some progress in resolving some of these disputes that have been unresolved for generations now.

Above and beyond the appointment of the 20 new judges, I also hope the government sees fit to provide the resources. I am talking about this specific tribunal. It is one thing to have the six or seven new judges but we need administrators, court managers, administrative staff, research staff and a whole host of other resources to see that this issue gets off the ground in the right manner and hopefully we will see the results coming forward.

On this side of the House, we are hoping that those judges appointed to that particular tribunal, which will not be an easy challenge, will have sufficient background on aboriginal history and be sensitive to the unique understanding that will be required of them when they take their positions. We all hope to see that happen. I think it is a step in the right direction but it probably will not be resolved overnight. However, I do support the way it is going.

As I said when I started, I will be supporting the legislation and I hope it passes the House as soon as possible and is enacted into law.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I found it quite interesting to hear the comments from my hon. colleague, in particular, the ones on the issue of the court challenges program. The importance of the program has been discussed a lot in the House and it is sad that we no longer have that program to offer to Canadians.

I want to ask the hon. member specifically about the claims tribunal that would have the authority to make binding decisions where there are specific claims brought forward by first nations and that have been rejected when it comes to the whole issue of negotiation.

Based on the government's analysis of the specific claims workload, it has been estimated that the new tribunal will require the equivalent of 6 full time judges to manage the approximately 40 claims per year. Quite clearly, these are very complex issues that will require judges and individuals to have a lot of knowledge of the cultural challenges facing specific communities in the aboriginal community specifically.

Could the hon. member comment on what he sees as the challenges for these judges and just what he thinks they will need to do to resolve some of the outstanding issues?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it is my submission that this is a step in the right direction. The member stated that this was a very complex issue. She is quite right. I do not know whether six or eight judges will be sufficient but I will point out that the judges alone are not the total answer. A whole host of back office resources will be required to operate this tribunal efficiently so that it functions.

Some of the narrative dealing with this act talks about trying to appoint judges who are culturally sensitive to the area and maybe speak the language. Again, that may be a very simple statement, but whether judges are available and meet the minimum qualifications for the Superior Court remains to be seen.

This is a situation that is very much a step in the right direction and I support it, but it probably will not happen overnight.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. The Government of Canada can pass legislation but if it does not have the resources behind it, then the effectiveness of legislation comes into question.

My question has to do with preparing for tomorrow. It has been laid out by all speakers, I believe, that there has been a trend line that has put greater demands on the judiciary and that it has been a long time since there have been increases. However, we did not see any analysis come out of all of this work about the projections for how many judges will be needed down the road.

What are the criteria? What is the timeline? The member will know that it has taken two years since the government took office before it even brought this bill forward for debate in the House. It does not seem to be a priority to the government and yet we need to ensure the backlog in the courts is dealt with and the land claims, the family law claims, the drug and organized crime cases are dealt with on a timely basis. If they are not, justice is delayed, which the member knows is justice denied.

I wonder if the member knows how we determine the capacity that we will need to meet in the future, what criteria we might want to expect from the government and the Department of Justice to alert us so that we do not get into the same problem in the future and also to ensure that the resources will be available downstream to enforce this legislation.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a good point. I have never seen anything come from the government or the Department of Justice regarding projections into the future as to where we are going or what sorts of caseloads are increasing or decreasing. We have had no analysis as to what we may be looking at five or ten years down the road, whether we are talking about commercial law, family law or criminal law.

I know in certain areas of the country litigation is actually going down, and there is no question about that. The courts are doing a better job of managing their caseloads and are having cases settled at an earlier time. That is probably in the civil end of it. In criminal law, there is more pretrial disclosure. It is not trial by ambush any more. Some good steps have been taken. This has not happened in the last year or two but over the last twenty years.

I have seen no projections as to exactly where we are going nor have I seen projections on what the judicial system may look like five or ten years down the road.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to comment on the government's treatment of judges in general. Being a lawyer, I think he has seen some unprecedented actions, which I will comment on later. I know he has a lot of experience in the area of the cutting of judges' wages, the reduction of their powers and the political appointment process of them, all tremendous steps backward.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there is no shortage of lawyers who want to be judges, so we are not at that stage at all.

By and large, my biggest concern is about some of the changes that were made to the Canadian provincial and judicial councils. It is my belief that they are driven by ideology and that it is a step in the wrong direction.

However, having said that, Canada and the people who live here are well-served by the judges we have right across the country. They are, by and large, well-trained, hard-working and they do a good job.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the many comments, including some from that member's colleagues on the other side, about the government's move forward on a number of different programs. It is a great thing for Canadians to see progress on the justice file.

I wonder if the member would comment on the fact that sometimes it takes a little while to research and find qualified individuals who will serve Canadians properly. It has taken a while to get this legislation forward because sometimes it takes time to find good qualified people.

I noticed that an agreement was reached among parties that since this legislation was agreed upon only one speaker would be put up by the Liberal Party and then we could move forward on this initiative. However, I see that a number of members on the opposite side want to get up and speak. That, in itself, is fodder for that party as those members continue to delay things.

I wonder if the member could comment on why the Liberals are delaying this legislation.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, neither I nor anyone else is delaying this legislation. I wanted to speak to it and I am speaking to it. I am privileged to have been given the opportunity to speak to it. If the member across does not want to speak to the legislation that is his prerogative.

The member talked about it taking a long period of time to find qualified individuals but he is not quite correct in that assertion. The way the system works is that each province has a standing provincial judicial appointments commission. At one time there were appointments from the Canadian Bar Association and other interested groups, such as provincial attorneys general and the federal minister of justice who would bring forward to the minister of justice the names of individuals who were qualified to be a Superior Federal Court judge.

The Conservative government changed that system. There has been a change in the focus of the composition of each provincial judicial council. Different individuals are there now.

This is an ever-evolving process. People who want to apply can apply. Their resume and their application is adjudicated upon reasonably quickly by these councils. There are always names of qualified applicants available for disposal by the Minister of Justice. Therefore, there really is no reason for any type of delay and certainly no reason for having 31 vacancies presently in our Superior Courts right across Canada.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for being late. I wanted to be here earlier to speak in this debate but I was attending an emergency meeting about rice prices having gone up three times and that over the next two months people in Burmese refugee camps will be starving unless we come up with a solution. I had to attend that important meeting.

I did want to speak to this bill in support of more judges. More judges are needed in family court, youth court and for the specific claims tribunal, which I will talk to at length when we get to the specific claims tribunal.

As I mentioned in my question to the previous member, there have been all sorts of problems in the treatment of judges, reducing their pay, making the way we choose them more political and reducing their options for sentencing. All of these things happened in this Parliament.

However, because this bill is specifically about increasing the number of judges for the tribunal and for family courts, with which I think everyone agrees, I move that the bill be now passed.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

[An. hon. member]

Agreed.

No.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to congratulate the member for attempting to move a motion even though it is not parliamentary procedure to do such a thing.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I do not want to interrupt the hon. member for Cambridge, but the hon. member does have the ability to finish his speech within his time slot. If he has more to say on the subject, I will allow him to finish and then we will move on to questions and comments afterward.

The hon. member for Yukon.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow that member to have the first question.

I would like to talk about the treatment of judges in general in Parliament, which has been totally unfair. I will go into the specifics of the bill and talk about a number of items that I support, but I have some questions about its implementation.

First, as people know, the last Parliament judges were afforded a pay raise. The final signatures had not come through. As part of a very unfair and backward treatment of judges, that pay raise was denied by the government and was not allowed to go forward.

The next item was the change in the selection of judges. In our system the fundamental basis of our democratic system is the general separation of the judiciary, the executive branch and Parliament. The people are convinced there is a good separation and that there is a good process for the recommendation of judges. The executive branch still has the authority and approves the actual judges. However, the judicial councils, which have various expertise from the various groups on them, had suggested that they should make recommendations to the government, although the government could still decide who it wanted.

The minister added another government member to that body, which was a horrendous change. Now there is a majority of government members on that selection committee. Not only does the minister get to make the final decision, but he also gets to have a majority of people appointed on the committee that makes the recommendations to him. What faith will people have that the judges appointed are independent? This has already led to some very questionable appointments, which I might get to later.

I also want to comment on a third backward step in treating our judiciary. The government has taken away the discretion of judges in a number of the bills brought before Parliament. Judges have a lifetime of expertise. The judges see all the evidence, hear all the cases and sit through the entire procedure. They have research and all the precedents to make the most reasonable decisions on the punishment someone should receive and the type of remediation so society will be as safe as possible and the person is least likely to reoffend.

People are different and different punishment and rehabilitation would apply. However, unfortunately, we have been presented with a number of bills that would reduce the discretion of judges, and not to increase the maximum penalties, which people might want, to deal with offenders, which could make them more safe.

A perfect example was Bill C-23, which would have reduced a whole number of relatively successful remedies. To a large extent, the criminal justice system has failed for the last thousand years. Huge numbers of criminals who go to prison come out and reoffend.

A number of community type justices, as the chief police of Ottawa can tell us, have a much better success rate than what has been done traditionally. Up to only 30% or 40% of youth going through those types of rehabilitation are likely to reoffend, as opposed to 50%, 60% or 70% under the traditional system.

We had an innovative, successful type of approach in some cases and we had a bill that would take away from the judges their ability to use that type of tool. Fortunately the opposition parties fixed that bill and reinstated those successful remedies in a vast majority of cases.

I want to compliment the minister on looking at a point related to judge. It was related to the chief justices in the three territories. By an anomaly of the system, back in history there was a reason, because of function, to separate the title of the chief justices of the territories. I believe they were called head judges. Now the judicial councils and everyone who deals with judges understand that their roles are identical to chief justices in the provinces and therefore the names should change.

I appreciate the minister looking into that for the last six months or so. Hopefully he will soon provide me a written outline of what the exact issue is, if there is still an issue, or if the government could make that change. I know there were some thoughts that it might be different responsibilities, but the Judicial Council basically has said that they are identical.

The last point in the whole area of the background for the bill is related to the lack of analysis done and the unpreparedness of the justice system for the huge agenda. As I think everyone in Parliament knows, there has been a massive agenda on justice. There have been more bills through the justice committee than probably all the other committees put together, which is fine if work needs to be done there. However, an analysis of the repercussions has to been if those bills are to become law. What effect will they have on government? What effect will they have on prisons? What effect will they have on the budgets of the provincial and territorial governments? On the bill before us, what effect will it have on judges?

Time and time again in committee we asked about the analyses and about the preparation that had been done. It was very limited, if any. No planning had been done on the effects on an already overcrowded jail system. More important, on the resources in that jail system, the teachers, the anger managers, all the supports that go with the jail system and the parole system, no analysis had been done on the extra cost to the provincial governments or who would pay for them. No analysis had been done on the extra procedures that police may have had to undertake or whether it would take more time for them to go through these procedures and therefore more time in the courts.

Therefore, it is surprising that if there were these new types of increases in the justice system, that there would not be a need for more judges to deal with these situations, especially in the sense where it becomes harder to get a rehabilitative sentence and someone has to face a sentence that could be far longer and more severe than actually a natural justice would suggest. Therefore, it may not even stand up to a constitutional challenge. However, because of these limited stiffer sentences, then more defendants would have to go to court. They would not have the other options where they could make a deal, where they could get rehabilitation, which would make them less dangerous to society. Therefore, this would increase the number of people in the system, the court time and the number of court cases, and therefore the need for judges.

We may get this bill through and have to do another bill right away. We are so far behind because there has not been any analysis done in this area. I hope the government has listened to this and does an analysis of the whole system and the ramifications of the many bills that we have passed in Parliament and the impact they would have on the rest of the justice system.

With regard to this bill, as I said earlier, it involves increasing the number of judges by 20 judges, of who 6 equivalent full time judges would be for the specific claims process, which I will comment on a bit later.

These additional judges would deal with the increasing backlogs in the superior court system in six particular areas of the country, including Nunavut and New Brunswick. About four or five other jurisdictions have outlined their backlogs, especially in family court and youth related matters.

When cases come forward related to child custody cases or different types of family court cases, they have to be dealt with quickly. They usually involve serious issues, such as the conditions under which a child might live, or the parent with whom the child might live and there has been a crisis, as can be seen lately.

Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are other areas where there have been delays. Nunavut, in particular, has problem providing justices to their far-flung aboriginal communities. As we know, it is very difficult to get anywhere in Nunavut. On a per capita basis, we certainly need a good number of judges. New Brunswick has had problems recently about the appointment of unilingual judges who replace bilingual judges when they retire. They are unable to carry the same workload or cover the same number of people with whom they need to deal.

As of January 24, there are currently 31 judicial vacancies that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is responsible for filling. Even by filling the existing vacancies, the minister could appoint more judges than this entire bill would allow. The largest number of vacancies is in British Columbia between the provincial Court of Appeal of and the provincial Supreme Court.

We support the increase in the number of judges and we strongly support any appropriate amendments made by the committee related to the specific claims tribunals, which we worked on when we were in government. These are much needed changes, although there are questions about exactly how that and the appointments would work, et cetera. I will talk about that in a moment.

Yet, unfortunately, the government continues to put forward measures that are unsuitable and insufficient. Even though I agree that Bill C-31 should pass and that we need to increase the number of judges, I do not approve of the implementation of this bill. Perhaps this is because I worked so much in the field and saw first hand that there are not enough judges, especially in New Brunswick, as I said earlier.

Just before I get on to the specific claims tribunals, I want to talk about what the government was questioned on previously relating to the bill. I hope that there is a plan in place and that it is related to the regional distribution of the judges.

There are some very distinct challenges in New Brunswick, Nunavut, Quebec and Ontario related to language as well as getting judges out to difficult locations. I wonder if the government has indeed, based on questions from the opposition, come up with a plan for that type of distribution.

Just so that there is no misunderstanding, I want to say once again how hard-working, experienced, thoughtful and independent the judges are and we certainly appreciate them.

In relation to the specific claims tribunal, how is the government going to ensure that the judges are fully knowledgeable about aboriginal affairs? The aboriginal people want to ensure that they certainly have a full and fair hearing. What is a little worrisome is that there is no way for appeals. There are very few things in our society where there is not a possibility of appeal.

I am very supportive of items in the bill, but I am not so happy with the way judges have been treated throughout this Parliament in other ways.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the member's support for the government's agenda, particularly on the crime initiatives and the jurisdiction of justice.

I have listened all morning to a number of members opposite. They continually say that they support the bill and that the government maybe should move a little faster on it. I want to thank the members for their support, but my question actually leads to what happened a few minutes ago.

I asked if there was consensus that only one speaker by the Liberals would be put up and we could move on with this issue. They have put up a number of speakers and when the member himself put forward a motion to have the bill now passed, members from his own party ran out and said no. Is this a flip-flop or just a lack of communication on the part of the opposition?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is going to be sad that he asked about democratic procedures and the small little point he is making about an extra speaker when the government has been so bad, anti-democratic and so disastrous in its process.

I recall in the justice committee what a lack of justice there was in the process. Witness after witness would come to committee and say that a bill did not make any sense, that it had no foundation in law, would make Canada a more dangerous place, and yet the government would not even accept any of this advice. We might as well not have had committees.

I do not know if this is because they have a book that explains for their members how to stop committees. In the last couple of weeks, we have had discussions about the Conservatives and how they have cost Canadians hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have been stonewalling committees by going on and on. They have illegally walked out of committees to stop them just so they could not be investigated.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will still have eight minutes left for his questions and comments period.

We will now move on to statements by members. The hon. member for Edmonton East.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When the House broke for question period and statements by members, the hon. member for Yukon had the floor on questions and comments. It is his chance to respond to a comment that was made before, and I will recognize the hon. member for Yukon for his response.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I was responding to a question by the Conservatives about not holding up Parliament.

As members know, Elections Canada is looking into the actions of a number of Conservative members regarding illegally transferred funds. The Conservative members have stonewalled the committee that wants to look at this matter, and have tied up hundreds of thousands of Canadian taxpayers' dollars by carrying on and babbling about that.

Another good example is the Cadman affair. There was an indication that there may have been an offer made to a member of Parliament to vote a certain way, which of course is a criminal offence and is totally illegal. Once again the Conservative members of Parliament have made it impossible for Parliament to debate that matter. The committee chair ran out, totally breaking the rules of Parliament, which are that one must call the vote on a challenge to the chair.

Another example is holding up many justice bills for months before bringing them before Parliament for debate.

Part of the problem of getting things done in Parliament is the process used to develop bills. A witness told me when the justice committee was in Toronto that the normal process in developing bills was that experts would work on them for years, would make recommendations to the government, and vast consultations to deal with all the problems would be done, but that was not being done with those justice bills.

As a result, we have all sorts of witnesses to give all sorts of reasons as to why a bill is either totally wrong or requires all sorts of amendments to be fixed. A perfect example of that is related to the aboriginal human rights bill, which is only a dozen words long. It is written so badly and there was such poor consultation, it took the government over a year to get it partly through the process.

The Conservatives have now withdrawn the bill because they cannot get it through at all. Everyone in Parliament wants it and it could be done very simply. The government should have simply consulted and put in the five or six items that aboriginal people across Canada mentioned were needed in those consultations.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, less than two months ago the Liberal critic for democratic reform said, “So far, on the justice end of it, they look like pretty good appointments and I am glad they”—meaning the Conservative government—“are filling the vacancies”.

We saw the odd spectacle of the member for Yukon speaking to Bill C-31 on judges saying that he wanted unanimous consent from all parties to pass the bill, then his own Liberal colleagues denied him that consent.

I put the question to the member for Yukon, what is going on over there?

We have seen the delay that has taken place in the justice committee. Thankfully we have already passed Bill C-2, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, but there are other bills that need to pass to address crime and victims of crime.

Now a bill that we all support is being delayed in this House. What is going on over there?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member made the same mistake the previous Conservative member made. I just explained that for months and months the Conservative Party has held up Parliament. It has delayed bills and stymied committees so that Parliament does not work, and he is asking why a few members here do not speak to a bill.

The member is right that this bill is universally accepted. What is not universally accepted is the terrible treatment of judges by the government. Every member of this House has a right to speak about that.

Once the Conservatives came in, they reduced the judges' pay when Parliament had already approved it. They removed their tools and the range of sentences they could give. The committee that appoints judges was changed so that the minister could have a majority of people on that committee, which totally destroyed the sense that there was any division between the judiciary and the executive branch of government. People were so upset that the chief justices of the Supreme Court had to intervene and condemn the government.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the justice committee had an opportunity to hear from the department on Bill C-31. One of the issues that came up during debate was the necessity of having additional salaries for up to 20 judges. The case was made province by province, it was an existing situation, and there was concern that the growth of population and the other key factors indicated there was going to be even further demands for additional judges.

The question for the hon. member is whether or not the Department of Justice officials, the Minister of Justice, or whoever presented to the justice committee were able to explain why it took two years before they tabled this one clause bill in the House for debate. Have they indicated whether or not there is any mechanism established to more carefully monitor the demands of the system and as more judges are needed they are identified and put in place on a timely basis so that we have an effective operation of our court systems?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member made an excellent point, that it took two years just to get these 20 judges. As I mentioned, there are 31 vacancies in the system already which the government could have dealt with, more judges than this entire bill would allow. If the government was so worried, as the last two questioners suggested, about getting this bill through this afternoon, over the last two years it could have appointed judges and filled those 31 vacancies. As the member very wisely pointed out, the government could have come up with a system of evaluating things in the future so this problem does not occur again. This is particularly cogent for the present government that has so many justice bills that could have such a big effect on the justice system.

We asked in committee and in the House what analysis was done on the expenses that this would require in the penal system and the prison system and the costs of all these bills. If they are going to be implemented, there are also ramifications. We were always told there was no analysis available for us, that it looked at this and there was very little put in the estimates for the increased cost of doing this. That is when the provinces had to finally push the government.

In the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, especially family law and youth justice cases were getting way behind. It is very important that custody cases involving small children and babies not be held up. One case in New Brunswick was held up for eight months. Another problem related to appointing judges was that some bilingual judges retired and unilingual judges were appointed in New Brunswick and they could not be helpful in all the cases.

There was a big problem in Nunavut. It is very difficult to get to a number of the ridings. Six of the judges are for specific claims, which of course everyone agrees is a problem that needs to be solved. This is a good move by the government. There are a lot of questions about those things. There are so many claims, how are they going to be resolved with only six full time equivalents. I think there are 18 judges involved. What are the qualifications of these judges?Aboriginal people are raising questions in committee about the qualifications of the judges. Do aboriginal people have a say in appointing judges? In disputes between the Canadian government and the first nations government, will there be a neutral person?

What to me is most upsetting about this or what at least needs to be debated in more detail is that there is no level of appeal. There is only one other instance in Canadian jurisprudence and administrative law where there if no appeal that I am aware of, and that is related to refugee allocation. In the entire court system there are mechanisms for appeal.

In this particular case if people think there is no appeal, they have had no say in appointing the judges, they have had no sense of their qualifications, then they are going to be wary about bringing forward their specific claims, leaving a whole list of problems that we all want to get solved as quickly as possible.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this very important bill. Bill C-31 would help correct some of the problems in the judicial system.

We do not have the judges that we need in place, and I find that many of us are certainly interested in seeing this legislation go forward, but in response to the issue about us speaking to what we support, I think that is part of our job. Many of us knew that Bill C-31 was going to be coming up today for debate and we took some time over the weekend to prepare our notes. Frankly, once we had done that work, we wanted to be on record as indicating our support or opposition to it. We are clearly not using delaying tactics. We are not interested in delaying anything.

I am pleased to be able to speak to Bill C-31. I have been listening very carefully to the remarks from my colleagues on all sides of the House and I will continue the debate.

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act, would amend the Judges Act to authorize the appointment of 20 new judges to provincial and territorial superior trial courts. It is unfortunate that the bill does not allow for appointments for the remaining 31 vacancies that need to be moved forward. I can understand the delay, but at the same time, this is only a one page bill, and it would have been better to look at all the vacancies that currently exist to avoid further delays.

The Liberal Party of course supports the effort to appoint additional judges to deal with increasing backlogs in the superior court system, something that we cannot allow to continue for much longer, but the bill does nothing to address some of the concerns that we have raised in the past regarding the minority Conservative government's attack on judicial independence, something that I believe is the pride and joy of Canada. It is something that we are very proud of and it is something that all of us in the House must work for to make sure that it is treasured and is not interfered with.

My colleagues will remember that in February 2006 the minority Conservative government announced that for the very first time in Canadian history the next judicial appointee to the Supreme Court of Canada would be questioned at a public parliamentary hearing. The Liberal government established a four stage consultative approach and process for Supreme Court nominees, which the Conservatives have largely adopted, recognizing the strength and the values that were in that process. The critical difference is that the Conservatives have instituted public hearings for the nominee, something that is not always welcomed by some of them.

As Liberals, we are concerned about this public hearing process. It could become politicized and impinge on the dignity of the Supreme Court, an extremely important institution. We must make sure that the very best people serve on the Supreme Court. It should have nothing to do with politics. Appointments should be based completely on their qualifications and their ability to hear cases, rationalize them and make decisions that reflect all of Canada.

The Supreme Court is an independent judicial body. Judges need to be selected based on the overriding principle of merit, not on the political leanings of the government of the day. I will stand by that principle no matter which party is in power. When the Liberals return to power, I expect that we will follow the same process of ensuring that appointments of judges to the Supreme Court are done on merit, on their balanced opinions and on their ability to listen to the issues and make a decision that reflects all of Canada.

Although the Prime Minister claimed that he does not want to over-politicize the appointments process, in the same breath he expressed a specific preference for judges who will take a literalist interpretation of the Constitution. That is typical double-talk, or double-speak, as it is referred to, which does not stand up well when we are talking about appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada. This is the same Conservative government that stacked the judicial advisory councils to ensure that the justice minister's chosen representatives have a majority voice on every provincial judicial advisory board.

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 last, the party's former chief money raiser in Alberta, who I would like to think had all of the qualifications and would bring a very positive approach to the Supreme Court. Clearly, however, when we read about his background this was done much more on a political basis than on the basis of who would best represent Canadians in the Supreme Court.

Even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Beverley McLachlin, highly respected throughout Canada by all Canadians, has had reason to criticize the government for its attacks on judicial independence, but perhaps this is why the Conservative member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin attacked the integrity of the Canadian justice system and accused the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of saying that judges take on these “god-like powers”. That is quite a comment and is very reflective of the thinking of that individual member.

Those statements of that member were an insult to Canada's judges, our judicial system and the country as a whole. The Conservatives need to be concerned about all of these comments and I would hope that they would keep them under due consideration as the appointment processes come forward for the other 31 judges, which no doubt will have to come forward in the very near future.

However, come to think of it, the Conservatives need to be ashamed of the disgraceful comments made by a variety of their members, but let me go back to working to strengthen our judicial system, which is what we are talking about today, and the need for those judges to be appointed and the need to be assured by the government that those individuals are meeting the test of integrity, knowledge and balance as they go forward.

Despite promises to reform the process for judicial appointments, the Conservative government has only lowered the quality standards that had been put in place previously. Also, the Conservatives have changed the membership of the provincial judicial selection committees in order to facilitate the appointment of their own party supporters to fill vacancies across Canada. There is no doubt that they are recruiting them there rather than advertising and recruiting them through the legal system and so on, which has been done previously and has always worked very well for Canada.

As of January 2008, there are currently 31 judicial vacancies that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is responsible for filling. That is a lot of vacancies to be sitting there when clearly we know that there have been cases thrown out across the country because of delays in the justice system. It is important to get judges in place who have the knowledge needed to deal with these important issues.

British Columbia currently has the highest number of vacancies, with 10 vacancies between the provincial court of appeal and the provincial supreme court. We all know about the issues in British Columbia, such as the issues of land claims and a variety of other issues that it is very important to deal with. There is just no way that it will be possible if we do not have judges in place who have the language and cultural understanding required, especially when they get into some of the aboriginal issues and the issues in and around the land claims file. They are very important in these communities. People need to feel that they are being heard and getting proper hearings from the various judges. Hence, we go back to the issue of the quality and qualifications of the various individuals who are appointed as judges.

The specific claims tribunal will have the authority to make binding decisions where specific claims brought forward by first nations are rejected for negotiation or where negotiations fail. This is an extremely important tribunal. Those who sit on that tribunal need to be able to understand the issues and the cultural background of various individuals and they need to be able to make proper decisions.

Various speakers in the House today have commented that people will not go forward on their land claims if they are not confident that the people listening, hearing the case and judging have the qualifications and the understanding of their particular issues.

Based on the federal government's analysis of the specific claims workload, which is quite tremendous and has accumulated while we have been waiting for judges to be appointed, it has been estimated that the new tribunal will require the equivalent of six full time judges to manage the claims they have in front of them. Each and every one of these claims is not something that can be decided in several days. It takes a huge amount of work and investigation by these judges. Therefore, six full time judges are needed just in this area to deal with the specific claims tribunal, which will be their own challenge to manage and go forward with.

These claims are also dispersed all across the country, with the greatest number, as I said, in British Columbia and with some of the most complex cases originating in Ontario and Quebec. It is anticipated that six new judges will be appointed to the superior courts of these provinces in proportion to their respective share of the specific claims caseload.

Again, though, I will go back to the fact that the bill is addressing only 20 of the many openings that are still there, waiting, in need of qualified judges to hear these claims and to render a decision on them. There are also the resources that are needed. This is also about the money required in regard to these appointments, required by the federal government as well as its provincial partners, which also have to assist in this issue.

It is intended that this infusion of new judicial resources will allow a number of the superior courts to free up their experienced judges so that they may be appointed to a specific claims tribunal roster. It would be very helpful if these 20 could get brought on very quickly in order to move this forward and see if they can offer some additional help. The roster will consist of up to 18 judges who will be appointed as tribunal members by the governor in council on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice.

As for passing this bill in the next few days and getting it through to the Senate for verification, this is still going to take some time. Then we have to go forward on the recommendations and governor in council appointments, which will take quite a bit more time, so it is not as if this is going to be up and running next week. We are quite probably talking about this being up and running by next year.

Again, it just shows the length of time that is required to get these kinds of bills through. This is why it is unfortunate that this bill is representing only 20 while leaving another 31 vacancies on what is a very important operation of the government in order to have justice move forward. These judges likely would be assigned on a part time basis to specific claims matters by the tribunal chair in consultation with the chief justices of the affected courts.

This is all very important. Our brave police cannot fight crime on their own. When convicting criminals, we need enough judges and enough people there to be able to hear these important cases. It takes the community, the police and judges to have an effective judicial system working in Canada.

The average length of a court case has increased from less than five months to more than seven months, putting an increased burden on the administration of justice. Again, justice delayed is justice denied.

Yet under the Conservative government our courts are staggered by dozens of judicial vacancies that have gone on for far too long. The Conservatives inherited a list of highly qualified individuals for judicial appointment. It was not a partisan list but a list of very qualified Canadians who had put forth their names, had gone through a very extensive screening process and were ready to assume their positions as judges.These individuals also had to pass a test of experience. The only test that they do not pass is the test of ideology imposed by the current government.

The Conservatives set out on a divisive republican-style campaign to stack the bench. The Law Society of Upper Canada is sounding the alarm. This is not coming from the politics of the Liberal Party or any other party. This is clearly coming from the Law Society of Upper Canada, a highly respected body that is on a continuous mission to fight on behalf of all Canadians.

The Law Society said quite clearly, when they sounded the alarm, that ideological or political considerations from anybody in any party in the House of Commons is unacceptable and should play no part in the judicial appointment process. Yet, the government continues to insist on the ideological litmus test. As a result, appointments are going unfilled. The backlog of cases continues to grow and criminals are not being convicted fast enough.

Our charter of rights guarantees us a right to a fair trial in a reasonable period of time. Not appointing judges undermines that right and could lead to even fewer convictions. For the safety of our communities, this must stop.

I think we are all well aware of several cases that have been thrown out. I refer, in particular, to my city of Toronto where the cases of people who were charged with everything from gun fights, to drug crimes and drug pedaling were thrown out of court because we did not have enough judges and those court cases were delayed. Clearly, that is an injustice to the communities that we all represent and to the families that are there.

We all know that the minority Conservative government is more interested in making headlines than taking concrete action to fight crime.

The Liberal Party is committed, has always been, and will continue to be committed to protecting our homes and our rights. We will pursue the right set of policies to fight crime for every person, for every family, and for every community of this great country that we have the privilege of representing.

We need to adopt a comprehensive and effective approach that deals with every aspect of fighting crime: preventing it, catching the criminals, and convicting the criminals through competent and quick administration. That is why we have committed to appoint more judges and are supporting Bill C-31.

In putting more police officers on the street, more prosecutors in the courts, protecting the most vulnerable, including children and seniors, and giving our youth more opportunities to succeed, it is a balance. There always has to be a balanced approach in dealing with this issue. All of the pieces of the puzzle have to be in place in order to ensure that continues.

The Liberals are going to support this legislation so that we can move forward and amend the Judges Act to authorize the appointment of the 20 new judges for provincial and territorial superior courts.

I am calling on the Conservative government to let the courts do their job and start appointing highly qualified judges free from ideological interference. This is an extremely important part of our judicial system. All individuals who go before a judge need to know they have had their effective day in court and that they will get a competent judge who will be rendering a deciding.

I would tell government members that I sincerely hope all the judges who get appointed from the passage of this bill will ensure they are there to represent Canada first and party politics will stay out of it, no matter what party is in power. When we get partisan politics going on in a judicial system I do not think we do justice for Canada or Canadians.

I am happy to support Bill C-31. I thank the House for the opportunity to keep the debate going and that I had a chance to deliver the comments I had worked on over the weekend. I look forward to the passage of Bill C-31.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of the speech that my friend just made where she said she did not want party politics to be part of this debate, I respect the fact that she did some work on her speech over the weekend and wanted to have an opportunity to express herself, but I am asking, could she possibly tell us if there is some reason why we keep having speakers from the Liberal Party?

She has already indicated, and we understand, that the Liberals are going to be voting in favour of this legislation. Combined with the government, it means that the legislation will pass. Hopefully, we will have the cooperation and the vote of the Bloc and NDP as well.

We should be getting on with business. Why do we not just move forward?

We are in agreement with the differences. Although I respectfully have a significant difference of opinion with her on what she was saying, nonetheless we are in favour of this in principle. My question to the member is, can we move forward please?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I spent the weekend writing up my comments that I wanted to deliver today, I would expect there are others in the House who did the same thing. It certainly is not up to me to deny them the opportunity to get their comments on record on these issues.

Just because we agree, there are always points we all want to make about areas where we feel the government can do a better job and areas of concern when it comes to the politicization of the whole judicial process. These are issues that all of us care about, regardless of what riding or what part of the country we come from. It is important and we want to make our points on these issues, as I am sure many of the members of the government would do.

I am not sure how many members from my party still want to speak this afternoon, but I certainly would not want to take away their opportunity to state their points of view.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the member opposite, I believe all the parties in the House, except the Liberal Party, are done. Speaking to this, I understand there was an agreement that one speaker would be put up by the opposition. In fact, one of the members of the Liberal Party attempted to put forward a motion that this bill now pass in the House. However, members of the Liberal Party objected to that motion by their own member.

I wonder if we could have a clear answer on why the Liberals are filibustering this issue. Is it because Bill S-3 is coming up later on in the House and there is an attempt to delay debate on that?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have not been part of a group or committee that has been involved with filibustering, but I understand that the Conservatives know all about it from what is happening on the other side of the House and in the procedure and House affairs committee. I actually sat in on the procedure and House affairs committee, which is the one that is trying to deal with the in and out issues. That is the only experience I have had with filibustering.

I came today with a prepared 20 minute speech and certainly wanted to deliver it. I know there is one other Liberal speaker who will be standing at some point. I cannot say whether that is the last speaker, but I certainly know that he is more than ready to deliver his comments on Bill C-31.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is humorous to hear two Conservatives talk about delaying Parliament for a couple of hours, to debate something as important as judges when they have been holding up committees. They have been filibustering and stonewalling the environment committee on making improvements to cutting greenhouse gases and also the investigation into Conservative members' spending in the last election with charges from Elections Canada.

The Conservative chair of the justice committee has walked out four times illegally at a time when he was required to call a vote. Witnesses have come from across Canada at great expense. It was shut down so we could not discuss the problems the Conservative Party was having. For the Conservatives to have the temerity to even get up and ask questions like that is very humorous.

I have a question regarding the bill. The member talked about the appointment of judges. She mentioned that Liberals are in favour of appointing more judges, which is great for two reasons: the backlog related to family law and the six specific claims judges. The Conservative Party has put us in an ambivalent position because of the perverted procedure for appointing judges. Now we are going to have to vote for a bill to appoint more judges but they are going to be appointed in a perverted procedure.

Changes were made. First, there were three categories in recommending judges. Of course there is a committee process, so there is the separation of judges and the executive. As everyone knows, it is very important to have a perception of separation and so there is this committee. The committee would recommend those who are not approved, those who are recommended, and those who are highly recommended. The minister took away the highly recommended category, which means there are only people who are recommended, so the decision is once again back with the minister, who is trying to distance himself from the procedure.

Second, another member was added to that committee so that the government now has a majority of members. He is getting the appointees recommended and then making the decision himself. I would like the member to comment on that.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, whether we are talking about judges for the refugee board or judges for anything else that goes on in Canada, one of the things that I had to do when I was appointed minister of citizenship and immigration was to put in a process that was free of any partisanship completely. There was an extensive screening position that was put together by departmental officials that consisted of three avenues of screening. By the time the actual list got to cabinet for final approval, it had very little to do with “the minister and the political atmosphere”. It was meant to be the most qualified people that Canada has to appoint to these important committees to provide the best guidance and judgment.

I still think that was the very best thing that we could be doing as Canadians and as ministers of the Crown to ensure that as little politics play a part in all these appointments. They are far too critical. These appointments are not for two years. These appointments are for years, in and out of many of the different governments here. Whether the Liberals are in power or the Conservatives are in power, we want the very best people making those decisions on behalf of Canadians.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess it is just a comment to clarify some of the misunderstandings in the House by some of the members opposite.

I wonder if the member is aware that at some of the committees she refers to the motion that was ruled out of order was on the advice of the leading legal counsel for the House of Commons. The majority, through their tyranny of games and whatnot, had ruled the chairman out of order on a perfectly legal ruling and that in fact is the cause of all the trouble at committees right now. Members of the opposition continually rule perfectly rightful rulings by chairs out of order to try to take over the committees.

I wonder if the member knows that to be true. I am sure she does because I know the member is honourable. I would ask if she is aware that the motion that was ruled out of order was actually attempted to be expanded to look into all of the advertising habits of all the parties and that motion was ruled in order, but the members opposite refused to do that. I am not sure the member is aware of that truth. I wonder if she could comment on that.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I attended one of those meetings that was being filibustered. It was just an absolute waste of everybody's time.

However, let me tell members, we were there to discuss something that Elections Canada had pointed out. It was not the Bloc, or the NDP, or the Liberal Party that Elections Canada was talking about. Elections Canada clearly indicated that it had some very significant concerns that the Conservative government had broken the rules through its in and out process, and--

[An hon. member]

Allegedly.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Allegedly, Mr. Speaker.

This is Elections Canada talking, though. This is not just a politician talking. This is Elections Canada that raised this issue about the in and out scheme and said that it wanted to look into it. It seems to me that it is a pretty legitimate role to look into that, to try to expand it so that it would then begin to look at other people. If the other parties had also been named by Elections Canada, then I would have supported that initiative.

However, in this particular case, Elections Canada said the Conservative government had violated the rules of election spending, and that is what the committee was trying to look at, so why add on other parties when the other parties clearly had not broken the rules?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act. As others have indicated, the bill would amend the Judges Act to authorize the appointment of 20 new judges for provincial and territorial superior trial courts. As it states in the legislation, it moves the number up to 50 in the case of judges appointed to superior courts in the provinces other than appeal courts.

Our party supports efforts to appoint additional judges and we do that for many reasons. However, the additional appointments are not without some worry on our part, and others have outlined that before me as well. Contrary to what the current Prime Minister promised during the election, he has most often let his ideological bent get the best of him when it comes to making appointments.

I remember the appointments board he was going to have. When Parliament took its rightful position and decided that his favourite appointee did not meet the qualifications for that independent job, the Prime Minister picked up his toys and went home. Therefore, we do not have one of the most important parts of the Federal Accountability Act in place because the Prime Minister's ideological bent got the better of him.

It is the same when the Prime Minister makes appointments, that very often we believe not just are independent, but the appointees are strongly leaning toward the Prime Minister's ideological bent. That is certainly a worry. Now let me—

[An hon. member]

That's true.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

As the member says, that is true and there is no question that is right.

However, what we have to understand in this Parliament the Prime Minister does not have a majority—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Sure he does. We have a coalition government.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

He in fact has a minority and the difference between this minority Parliament and Lester Pearson's minority Parliament was when he was prime minister, he realized he did not have a majority and he went about working with the other parties to bring in something that the majority could accept. That is why we had so much progressive legislation from Prime Minister Pearson, in those—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We just have to tell you.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. Just because some members are sitting at the other end of the chamber does not mean the Speaker cannot hear them when they interrupt the hon. member for Malpeque. If members could let him finish off and if anyone else has a question or a comment, they can do so after.

[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.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Yukon is absolutely correct. Committees as we well know in the House are masters of their own destiny. Regardless of what some of the members opposite said about filibustering in the House, that is not the case. We are trying to give examples of our worries about the bill. There are legitimate examples to substantiate our worries of how the government in power today sometimes goes beyond what we would expect a government in a democratic society would do and in terms of the traditions of our judiciary as they have been in the past.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, a number of members opposite have suggested that they would like to move quickly on the bill. They could have certainly helped by answering the question that we asked through the development of the bill. If we are going to appoint these 20 new judges, what is the distribution plan regionally? There are many regional requirements by the provinces and territories, in particular six of them. We asked a long time ago what the plan was for distributing these judges.

I do not know if the member has heard of a plan or not, but perhaps the members opposite could provide us with a plan and it would not slow the bill's progress.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, one of the difficulties around this place is having the time to get to every committee. I was not on the justice committee, although I paid attention to what happened during the debate.

As I understand it at the moment there is a grave need for additional superior court judges in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Nunavut. They are experiencing growing backlogs. Nunavut faces severe challenges in providing access to justice for its aboriginal communities.

In fairness and to the credit of the government on this one, by moving ahead with the additional judges, it does give the opportunity to be heard in a fair and impartial court.

We all know in this place that if one does not have access to justice, in effect it is justice denied. It is important to have the human resources to have timely trials and timely decision making in order to have fairness under the law.

The accused is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but once a charge is laid, it certainly is a black mark against the individual. It is important to have the human resources, the financing of the courts to get rid of the backlogs so that the system can work in a timely fashion to ensure that justice is not just perceived to be done, but is actually done.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-31, which aims to increase the number of judges in the provincial and territorial superior trial courts by 20.

Everyone in this House can agree that we do not have enough judges and that this addition would allow the provincial and territorial superior trial courts to serve Canadians better. Indeed, the waiting periods for trials are often so long that one might be inclined to wonder if our justice system is working properly and if it meets the standards of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We support these efforts to ensure that more judges are appointed in order to clear up the backlog that is accumulating in superior courts. I would like to point out that it was this Conservative government that interfered with the judicial advisory committee to ensure that the representatives chosen by the Minister of Justice would hold the majority of votes for each provincial judicial advisory committee.

We are all familiar with how these advisory committees operate in the provinces. Ideally, we hope that all judicial appointments are carried out in an non-partisan manner. Unfortunately, when the Conservative government insists—and uses its back-door methods to require—that all members of these committees be its chosen representatives, we must question its good faith.

It is also this same Conservative government that went to great lengths to fill the Canadian judicial system with its cronies. This was mentioned earlier, but I was unfortunately not in the House at the time, and I want to make sure that everyone knows about it. I am referring specifically to the Prime Minister's former campaign manager for New Brunswick, the former president of the Conservative Party of Quebec and the former Conservative Party fundraising manager in Alberta. The Honourable Beverly McLachlin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, even criticized this government's failure to act on judicial matters.

In recent weeks and months, we have alluded in this House to this government's lack of seriousness in appointing judges in Ontario recently. We are all aware of the importance of bilingualism in Canada's courts of justice, especially in Ontario, where the Conservative government decided to circumvent the rules. In many, if not all, cases, the minority Conservative government appointed judges without making sure they were bilingual. Obviously, I am talking about these judges' ability to understand and speak French. Certainly, the Conservative government never would have dreamed of appointing a judge who did not speak English. They did the opposite in this case, appointing judges who are very comfortable in English but cannot speak French.

I would like to take a little trip down memory lane. As hon. members know, I come from a beautiful town on the south shore of the Ottawa River in eastern Ontario. This town, which is called L'Orignal, is the administrative seat of the county or judicial district of Prescott-Russell.

I learned about the law growing up in this charming village where my father practised law. He was a crown prosecutor for the Government of Ontario for many years in this part of eastern Ontario, where the francophone community has always had a strong presence.

This region was one of the first in Ontario to provide bilingual legal services in court. The proceedings for an accused who was to appear in court could be conducted in French. My father was a francophone by birth and the Ontario government had appointed judges who were francophones and who, naturally, had a good command of English. I remember that, at the time, there was Judge Joffre Archambault and then Judge Louis Cécile. The courts could function equally well in French or English.

As a result of several recent appointments by the Conservative government, unfortunately, individuals who are accused or who must use the services of the court in various districts in Ontario will not necessarily be able to seek justice in their language, that is, in French. It is a sign of bad faith on the part of this minority government with respect to our judicial system.

I would remind you that the Conservative government is claiming to table this bill to help clear the backlog in the provincial and territorial courts and to appoint additional judges to independent tribunals that are being set up to deal with the first nations specific land claims.

This bill seeks to amend subsection 24(3)(b) of the Judges Act to authorize the appointment of 20 additional judges to superior courts in the provinces and territories. In particular, the superior courts in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Nunavut have backlogs and are experiencing ever growing delays. I would like to mention parenthetically that in my riding, Hull—Aylmer, located in the judicial district of Hull, there is definitely a need and the court delays are long.

Nunavut in particular is having a great deal of difficulty in providing access to justice for its aboriginal communities. The provinces lack resources, particularly in relation to family law, because of population growth.

On January 24, 2008—not so long ago—there were 24 judicial vacancies that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada has the responsibility to fill. British Columbia currently has the largest number of vacancies, 10 in all, in its court of appeal and its supreme court.

The first nations specific claims tribunal has presented specific claims that will meet with a refusal for negotiation, or for which the negotiations will fail. Judging by the caseload for the specific claims, the federal government estimates that the new tribunal will need the equivalent of six full-time judges to manage roughly 40 claims a year. These claims come from across the country, but most started in British Columbia and some of the most complex claims are from Ontario and Quebec.

Six new judges are to be appointed to the superior courts of those provinces, proportional to their respective share of the number of specific claims. New judicial resources are to be assigned in order to allow certain superior courts to free up their experienced judges and appoint them to the specific claims tribunal.

This tribunal could be composed of 18 judges, who will be appointed to the tribunal by the governor in council on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice. The chairperson of the tribunal, in consultation with the chief justices of the jurisdictions involved, will assign these judges, probably part time, to specific claims.

Although we support the efforts to appoint extra judges, I must tell the House—as some of my colleagues have already done—that we regret that the bill does not address in any way matters related to the independence of the judiciary. I deplore this destructive attitude of the Conservative minority government.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest. I wonder if the hon. member, who has talked about the amendment to the bill, knows, first, when the Judges Act was last amended to reflect Canadian needs.

Second, and more importantly, I listened to the other speakers, who always talked about two or three appointed people who likely were Conservatives, so I suspect they believe that every judge appointed should be a Liberal. There are those connotations. I really wonder, though, if they are saying that, do they really believe that the appointed judges are not qualified people?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his question. It seems that he is trying to bring my alleged objection to judges from Conservative circles into the discussion. He is trying to make people believe that I would like judges to come from Liberal circles only. That is not at all how I operate.

On the contrary, it was as essential, as crucial, when we were in power as it is now that the minority Conservative government is in power to appoint the best candidates to the bench, whether they are appointed by the federal government or provincial governments, or whether they are appointed to an administrative role. In my opinion, neither a Liberal government nor a Conservative one should appoint a person to such an important, key position in our democracy without ensuring that the appointee is the most competent candidate with a sense of judgment good enough to do the job.

My colleague is wrong to suggest that I think all appointees should be Liberals. This is about appointing competent people. If my colleague were to be honest with himself and with me, he would admit that, in general, Liberal candidates are less inclined to the right or the extreme right, which leaves room for fairer rulings. However, this is not at all about thinking that appointees should all be one or the other.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Hull—Aylmer mentioned something important, which is access to justice. Access to justice is something very important for the constituents in our various ridings. Access to justice is certainly related to bilingualism. We ensure that the judges appointed will be able to provide services for Canadians in the language spoken by those Canadians.

The government constantly talks about bilingualism and regularly throws around related words, as though it were the defender and saviour of bilingualism, but that is absolutely not the case. The Conservatives' actions clearly show official language minority communities that the government thinks nothing of those who need services in the language of their choice.

Could my colleague tell us whether this attitude from the Conservative government undermines what we refer to as access to justice? Does being unable to appear before the court in the language of their choice undermine access to justice for official language minority communities, the francophones outside of Quebec, or the anglophones in Quebec?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche for his very relevant question. My colleague is obviously from New Brunswick, where everyone is also very aware of what it means when a judge cannot allow an accused or someone in the judicial system to address the court in his or her preferred official language.

I spoke earlier about judges who were appointed in Ontario by this minority Conservative government, which failed to show good judgment by making sure that those judges were bilingual—perhaps not all those judges, but a majority of them. It would be entirely inconceivable that a judge appointed by the federal government to the Superior Court of Quebec, for example, could not hear a case in English. However, it is a different matter when we talk about francophones outside Quebec. I do not need to spell it out.

There are francophones throughout New Brunswick and Ontario. The same is true in Manitoba, where there are francophones in the Winnipeg area and elsewhere. There may not be as many in Saskatchewan, but there are still quite a few.

You know the area, Mr. Speaker, and it is certainly useful for you to be able to speak French because you have francophone constituents. Obviously, there are many francophones in Alberta, right up into the northern part of the province.

I had an uncle who had a wonderful name, the same as mine. He was a missionary in northern Alberta, where he seldom spoke English. He spoke French in the diocese north of Edmonton. Members will say that there are fewer francophones in British Columbia, but I went there recently and spoke to people in French.

Obviously, the government is doing the same thing in these provinces. I can tell you what happened to me when I went to the Northwest Territories in 1995 or 1996. I met with people, including a very interesting woman. As we talked, I learned that her mother had been raised in L'Orignal, the beautiful little town in eastern Ontario where I grew up. In short, there are francophones all across the country. It is very important that the government enable these people to use the official language of their choice.

To answer my colleague's question, it is very important that bilingual judges be appointed across Canada so that people everywhere have access to a bilingual legal system. Every time the government gives bilingualism short shrift, it makes a serious mistake. As was reported in this House not long ago, the minority Conservative government has made mistakes in Ontario recently.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

There is one minute left for questions and comments. With a very brief question or comment, the hon. member for York West.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I note for my hon. colleague that the whole issue of bilingual judges is extremely important. I have only a short time for this question, but in respect to the current government looking at the pool of names it would have, is the hon. member confident that there are sufficient names for the committee to be able to review the appointments of judges to ensure that the judges are bilingual?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly, my colleague would like to know whether the government has the means—I am not talking about financial means, but human resources means—to be able to properly evaluate whether a judge is bilingual.

At the beginning of my speech, 15 or 20 minutes ago, I spoke about the advisory councils in the provinces. These councils are made up of representatives from the government, the bar, the province and so on. Obviously these councils have the human resources to ensure that the candidates or the judges appointed are bilingual and that they can continue to offer services in one of this country's official languages, based on the choice of the people involved.

Mr. Speaker, you seem to be impatient about my response. I am finished, and I thank you very much.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act.

I have been in this place long enough to know that there are times when bills are presented to the House by the government and the argument is made that it is a housekeeping bill, that there really should be no delay and that it should be passed quickly by the House. In some cases that is true, but it is not always the case. Sometimes we have to dig a little deeper to find out exactly what the piece of legislation purports to do.

I must say when I look at this bill there is a certain logic to it. However, if we put it in the broader context of the Conservative government and how it has approached appointments generally, it does cause one to pause and to reflect somewhat.

I am thinking of a number of things. One of them is the government's initiative to set up a public appointments commission. This was a plank in the 2006 election. The idea, as I understood it, was that the Conservative Party was going to have a non-partisan system of appointments. It was going to set up an arm's length commission and have all the major appointments go through this commission. I am not sure that appointment of judges would go through that particular commission, but the subject is appointments, generally.

The government picked three members for the commission. In fact a very good friend of mine, Roy MacLaren, was asked if he would serve. The government selected Mr. Gwyn Morgan as the chair of the public appointments commission. Mr. Morgan went before a committee of the House of Commons. He was subjected to some questioning. In fact the committee decided in the end that it was not comfortable with Mr. Morgan's appointment as the chairman of the public appointments commission, notwithstanding Mr. Morgan's very strong record in the private sector, in the oil and gas industry, as president and CEO of EnCana. He had said some things that raised the ire of a number of the members of the committee. It was no secret at the time that Mr. Morgan was an active fundraiser for the Conservative Party. His appointment went to the committee. The committee did not like the appointment of Mr. Gwyn Morgan and the committee said no.

That did not need to stop that whole process, if there was some need to have a public appointments commission. If the government could have achieved this laudable objective of having completely non-partisan appointments, something which I think the cynics in town and across Canada would argue and debate, but nonetheless a very laudable objective, if it actually had decided to pursue that, what would have been the problem with the government saying that Mr. Morgan did not make the cut, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Canadians who would be qualified to chair such a commission. Instead the Conservatives picked up their toys, ran out of the sandbox and said, “If you are not going to play with our toys, we are not playing with you”. That was the end of the public appointments commission, notwithstanding that this was a party plank of some importance.

Of course the Conservatives use it as an opportunity to blame the committee and blame the Liberals, and say, “We are getting the job done”. I am so tired of that expression. They have been in power now for over two years, but we do not get a decent answer in question period; it is always about the 13 years the Liberals were in power, blah, blah, blah.

In any case, they could have proceeded with the public appointments commission and demonstrated that they wanted a non-partisan process for appointments and picked someone else, notwithstanding Mr. Gwyn Morgan's career and his very good qualifications in the sense of the private sector, someone who was not perhaps so actively involved in a partisan way. But no, they did not. They picked up their toys and off they went and said, “It is those old Liberals again. They are obstructionist”.

I begin to wonder when I look at the bill before us today what is really behind an act to amend the Judges Act and the appointments. Not many people in the House would argue that we have a backlog in appointment of judges, but we also have a backlog in immigration. Many people should be appointed to the Immigration and Refugee Board. In fact, I was told by one of my colleagues that there are something like 30 vacancies outstanding, perhaps more. These are the people who adjudicate on refugee claims and they get involved with appeals and a whole range of other issues. What is stopping the Conservative government from appointing these Immigration and Refugee Board judges?

When I look at the bill before us I wonder what really is going on behind this seemingly innocuous bill to amend the Judges Act. We know we have backlogs in immigration. In fact the government, if I might, sneakily put changes to the immigration policy of this country into the budget implementation act, Bill C-50. The government added it in at one of the clauses at the end, almost as an afterthought, but it is not an afterthought. It fundamentally changes the way we deal with immigration policy.

We know there are ways of dealing with backlogs, such as to hire more people and put them into missions abroad. That is what the Liberal government was trying to do. We went to committee and the committee rejected the proposal in the estimates, so there we are. But that is the way to deal with the backlog. The idea that the minister would have complete discretion should raise some hackles, as should Bill C-31 because it raises similar issues.

I would like to talk also about the Senate. When we are talking about appointments, I know there are those opposite and indeed some on this side of the House who would like to see the Senate reformed, but we all know as reasonable people that the Senate will only be reformed through constitutional change.

While Conservative Party members go on and on about how bills are delayed in the Senate and the Senate is obstructing the will of Parliament, the Conservatives have the ability now to appoint, I am not sure exactly how many senators, but they could appoint a stack of Conservative senators. The way the Constitution of this--

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, perhaps the member needs a lesson on how to filibuster. He has to be talking about Bill C-31. He cannot just mention Bill C-31 and change from filibustering and talk about immigration. Then he says Bill C-31 which makes it all right for him to go into a bit of a diatribe on what he thinks about Senate reform. This has to stop at this point. The member must be relevant on talking about Bill C-31 if he indeed wants to continue this filibuster.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I thank the parliamentary secretary for raising the point. Perhaps if the member for Etobicoke North could bring his remarks back to the contents of the bill as it is as third reading, he could continue on with his remarks.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must say I object to this being characterized as a filibustering effort. There is no such thing involved at all. The member opposite tries to conjure up these conspiracy theories, but he knows full well that we have a serious bill before us, Bill C-31, and as responsible members of the House of Commons, we are here to debate it. That is exactly what I will do.

I was trying to put the appointment of judges in the broader context of appointments, appointments with respect to the Senate, appointments with respect to the Immigration and Refugee Board and appointments that were supposedly going to be handled through a public appointments commission that never happened.

I am coming now to the question more specifically before us with respect to judges. First of all we need to understand that judges have to be non-partisan. It does not necessarily mean that judges do not bring their own personal perspectives to the job. This is obviously the case. A judge who is going to be appointed will have a certain bias toward--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I hate to do this to the hon. member in the middle of his speech, but I have to read this into the record before five o'clock. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Welland, Environment Canada.

I regret having had to do that, but the hon. member for Etobicoke North can continue.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is quite acceptable. I know you have your job to do as well. I was glad to hear of the adjournment motion later on this evening and I will be sure to attend.

There is a need for an impartial and non-partisan judiciary. Of course, every judge brings his or her own ideas and experience to the table--we cannot debate that--but a judge certainly should not be involved in partisan activities.

Canada is blessed with a very competent judiciary and we want to keep it that way. One of the things we are not so troubled with in Canada, but it is evident in many countries around the world is a corrupt judiciary. If I might, I would like to tell a little story about the time I was in Nairobi, Kenya.

Daniel arap Moi was president at the time. There was an election and Mr. Kibaki was elected as president of Kenya. He had run on an anti-corruption ticket and the moment he was elected, he fired about 40% of the judges in Kenya. We were quite excited about that, because it was a fairly well-known fact that in Kenya there was a list and if someone wanted to get off a burglary charge, it cost so many Kenyan shillings and if someone wanted to get off another charge, it was so many Kenyan shillings. It was a menu. It was the most astounding egregious thing I had ever seen. When President Kibaki fired 40% of the judges, we all thought it was a very positive development. However, what happened was that about a year later the president ended up being more corrupt than President Daniel arap Moi.

The point is that we do not have a corrupt judiciary in this country and we want to keep it that way. We have to be very careful, therefore, in the way we appoint judges. We need to ensure they are people of the highest calibre and highest personal integrity. How do countries prosecute corrupt elected officials if there is a corrupt judiciary? It just does not happen. People get off and there is a perpetual cycle of corruption.

I have a very good friend who is a Federal Court judge and he tells me stories. He had a very successful career in the private sector as a lawyer. He wanted to be a judge. He loves the law. He loves debating law. He became a Federal Court judge. When I speak to him today, he tells me about how he loves his work, but how the workload at the Federal Court is absolutely incredible. Of course, Federal Court judges travel across the country. He is a very competent lawyer and judge.

We should also be appointing more Federal Court judges. This bill is derelict in that regard, I would submit. It deals with the Superior Court backlog in appointments but it does not deal with the Federal Court.

The Federal Court is very important in our country. It deals with a whole range of things, immigration law, taxation law, aeronautics law. In fact, there was a milestone case recently with respect to Canada Post and pay equity. Issues like that go before the Federal Court. It is very important that we have a full complement of Federal Court judges, as we should also have a full complement of Superior Court judges. The Superior Court is also responsible for many of the specific claims that are brought forward by our first nations people.

This is another issue that needs to be resolved. In fairness to the government, I think it is trying to expedite some of the land claim cases. It is very important because the mining industry and the natural resource sector are trying to move forward and develop opportunities, revenues, create jobs, and the land claim sort of hangs over the whole affair and creates uncertainty. It is not a very positive investment climate.

It is a good thing that the Conservative government is moving aggressively to try to solve those land claims, but there are many other issues for our first nations people. We are not here to debate the Kelowna accord, of course, but I know that my colleague from LaSalle—Émard feels very strongly, as do all of us on this side, that we should help our first nations people with their infrastructure, schooling, housing and water. That is why we need good judges in the superior courts. They should also reflect the diversity of this country. I presume that when we appoint the judges there will be fair opportunity for women and for people who are bilingual, and fair opportunity for first nations people to become judges, because for many it is a very honourable thing to be a judge.

Many judges face great sacrifices. In many instances, they can earn a lot more money in the private sector by being a trial lawyer or a corporate lawyer, for example. However, judges have decided that they want to serve their country and participate in the judicial process. I take my hat off to all those people.

Sometimes we have situations like the one we had in the last Parliament with respect to the DNA lab at the RCMP headquarters. When I went there one day, I was told that the lab was getting only 50% of the DNA samples it was supposed to be getting. We checked it out and found out what had happened. It was a relatively new concept and prosecutors and judges were supposed to make decisions around forwarding DNA samples to the RCMP lab. The more DNA samples the RCMP labs have, the easier it is to solve crimes and prevent crimes. I was perplexed and troubled by the fact that the DNA labs were not getting all the DNA samples that they should have been.

What we discovered was that because it was a relatively new concept, the prosecutors had to make the case to the judge that the DNA samples should be submitted to the lab. In some cases the prosecutors were not doing that. In some cases the judges were neither asking for nor demanding the information on whether the DNA samples should go to the lab.

Therefore, at committee we made some changes to the DNA law. I think they were positive changes, adopted finally by the House and by the Senate, in which we recommended that for those most heinous of crimes, such as murder, rape and crimes of that nature, where there is a convicted person, the judge would have no discretion and the DNA samples would automatically be referred to the DNA lab. This is not to say that judges lack the wisdom to decide whether DNA samples should be sent to the lab. It just made it absolutely crystal clear that when the most heinous of crimes were involved, the court would be prescribed to submit the DNA samples to the RCMP lab.

That tells a story about the importance of quality judges and the role parliamentarians can have in reviewing bills and legislation such as Bill C-31. I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak. I hope the government follows through on some of these appointments. It is fine to have a bill, but even if the bill is passed by Parliament, the government still has to appoint judges. It has to appoint Immigration and Refugee Board judges. It still has to appoint senators. It cannot sit on its hands. The government has to actually do it. It is one thing to have the legislation, but then the legislation has to be implemented.

If the bill does pass, I hope the government will act on it, fill some of the vacancies and appoint the judges who are needed for this country to be governed properly.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Judges Act, be read the third time and passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the member for Etobicoke North on his past service to the House. I understand he has decided that when we reach the point of going to a general election he will not run again. I would like to acknowledge the fact that he has been a consistently solid contributor to the affairs of the nation.

It is within that spirit that I wonder if he might want to reconsider some comments he made. I say this with the deepest sincerity. The member was talking about the fact that a Mr. Gwyn Morgan, who had been given the job of becoming involved in the appointments process, ended up not being confirmed by the opposition. This was immensely regrettable because of the standing of Mr. Morgan within the corporate community of Canada and indeed within his own community around Calgary.

It really gives us a good reason for why many people of exceptionally high calibre who could be contributing to public life in Canada choose to stay away. As a matter of fact, he was given the appointment by our current Prime Minister and was going to be getting the princely sum of $1 per year in order to carry out this function. In fact, it did not happen.

I wonder if the member might want to reconsider his comments, because certainly a person of the immensely high calibre of Gwyn Morgan, whether he happened to have been associated with our party, the member's party or any other party, is really quite irrelevant. He would have brought a tremendous asset base to this chamber and was prepared to do it virtually as a volunteer, obviously, for a $1 fee. I wonder if the member, who I know is a very honourable gentleman, might want to reconsider his inference toward Mr. Morgan.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Kootenay—Columbia, the Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage, for his kind words. Over the years we have worked together at committee or in different venues and have always had a good rapport and a good understanding of each other.

However, I am somewhat puzzled, I must say, by his request that I would retract something I have said.

Here is the reality. In fact, I met Mr. Gwyn Morgan. As a businessman he did some amazing things with EnCana. I worked with EnCana on some policy issues and I have a lot of respect for Mr. Gwyn Morgan, but the point I was trying to make was not really a comment on Mr. Gwyn Morgan's capabilities or otherwise. The reality is that he was a Conservative fundraiser, but the other part is that he made some comments that people found distasteful.

Irrespective of all of that, the committee said that in its wisdom it did not want to confirm Mr. Gwyn Morgan. What would have been the problem, then, for the Conservative government to say that the public appointments commission is really a good idea, we thought it was the best batter, but the batter struck out, so let us find another batter and let us get on with this if we really are committed to this notion of non-partisan appointments? I think it is a very laudable objective.

Whether it could have been achieved with a public appointments commission, I am not so sure, because we would have to sort of unravel the whole political history and political economy of Canada to reach that point. The reality, and we all know it, is that when we get down to the short list there are many people who are equally qualified. There might be a person with excellent qualifications and another person with excellent qualifications, and the way the system works is that for two people of equal qualifications the Prime Minister has the discretion to do what he or she wishes.

That is how it works in this country. If the government wants to change that, it should advance this public appointments commission instead of running away with its toys, packing up its tent and going home.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I thank my colleague for his eloquence in addressing Bill C-31.

In examining this bill more closely, we must also ensure certain elements are present. We know that, throughout the country, we are in great need of judges and we owe no thanks to the Conservative government as we attempt to resolve the situation.

In light of Bill C-31 and the 20 additional judges, it is clear that, in terms of judicial appointments, we must ensure that certain elements are present and that there is respect, in order for the judiciary to be highly regarded by Canadians. One of the elements when making judicial appointments is balance because Canadians, in turn, expect balance when decisions are made.

I would like to ask my colleague a question. Does the Conservative government's approach to making appointments, whether for various committees or other bodies, result in balance? Or is the Conservative government trying rather to imbue the judiciary with its ideology? Will this lead to certain problems in future?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Madawaska—Restigouche.

In my opinion, this member is making a very important point. Our judges must be competent, honest and there must be balance when judges are appointed in Canada.

My colleague made another important point, which I developed somewhat in my earlier remarks. The judiciary has to be totally non-partisan. While the Conservatives on the other side of the House talk about non-partisan appointments, that is not what we on this side of the House have seen to date. We have seen a predominance of Conservative loyalists being appointed. That is the way this is going.

Frankly, when we set objectives as a government or as a party, we should be realistic about whether they can be attained. The reality is that in our current Constitution the Prime Minister of Canada has discretion. It is folly for the Conservatives to argue that they are not going to make any partisan appointments in the context of Canada, our current political climate and our Constitution. What we have seen to date, based on the evidence, is that their appointments are highly charged and highly partisan. We have seen no change with respect to that.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased this afternoon to speak to Bill C-31. As I already mentioned earlier, this bill is extremely important if we look at the needs of our judicial system across the country. It is also very important because of the current vacancies within the judiciary. The government has come up with Bill C-31 to appoint 20 extra judges.

The government certainly has its share of the responsibility for the current situation with respect to judicial appointments. When we look at the situation, the Conservatives are certainly the only ones to blame. They cannot blame anyone else but themselves in this case.

As far as the appointment of 20 extra judges is concerned, as I have said, we must make sure that Canadians receive the services to which they are entitled. This is not just a matter of people appearing in court or before a judge because they have done something wrong. Canadians also appear before a judge or judges because they want to fight for their rights.

We have a rather concrete example, which I just gave, of a woman, who, thanks to the court challenges program, was able to fight for her right to be served in French by the RCMP. The court ruled that the woman's complaint was well-founded. As the House can see, Canadians do not just appear before a judge when they have done something wrong, but also when they want to stand up for their rights, the fundamental rights of this country that cannot be denied any Canadian citizen. One of the great things about our country is also the fact that we are free to speak up for ourselves, which is possible because of the judicial system.

We need extra judges, but we also have to wonder about Bill C-31. Since January 2006, since the Conservatives have been in power in Ottawa, we have had to wonder quite a bit. What we hear and what the Conservatives say are rarely the same thing. That is why I wonder about certain aspects of the bill.

One of the aspects is ensuring the independence of the judiciary. That is what the government tries to say, but the opposite happens when it comes time to make a decision. A number of examples show that we should still be worried. Sometimes, when the government introduces a bill, we wonder if they are acting with utmost sincerity or if they have a hidden agenda. I will not go on and on. I know that some members of the government will say that I am off topic, but let us look at the example of Bill C-10 and the question of censorship. That is flagrant proof that the government is trying to introduce bills containing elements that make us believe they are sincere, while in reality they are hiding elements from us.

I spoke earlier about the importance of the independence of the judiciary. I have serious issues with certain elements—I am thinking about the members of the provincial advisory councils. The Conservatives decided to appoint people in order to obtain power. In northern New Brunswick, they appear to have stacked the deck in an attempt to control the judicial system. The Conservative government is wrong to do that. The other element in terms of Canadian judicial system appointments has to do with the appointment of people who are influential within the Conservative Party.

The Conservatives say that it is important that the best people be appointed.

Yes, it is important to appoint the most qualified people, and that should guide all of the government's decisions every day. However, a closer look at the situation suggests that it might be more than coincidence.

The Conservatives have just said that the best, most qualified people should be appointed, but we have to wonder. As it happens, the Prime Minister's former campaign director for New Brunswick, the former president of the Conservative Party in Quebec, and the former chief Conservative Party fundraiser for Alberta were all awarded judgeships.

As it also happens, the Conservative government said that there must be transparency—especially on the part of the government—that the best people must be appointed and that the most qualified people must get the job. This is about fairness and about giving people a reason to have faith in the system.

However, it just so happens that high-ranking Conservative Party members got lucky. It is quite the coincidence that these people were appointed and the others were rejected.

We might think that from time to time, party supporters might get lucky and be appointed, but that is because they are the best candidates with the best qualifications, people who can demonstrate that they have the best skills for the job.

We should take a look at the situation in the provinces. I gave just a few examples earlier of very high-ranking Conservative Party members who were appointed to the Canadian judicial system.

I find these elements very troubling. The Canadian people also have concerns about this party, which is easy to understand when things like this come up. The government is trying to make itself look as though it is transparent, as though it is the political party, the government, that wants to do things with as much clarity and transparency as possible. The sad truth is that it is filling up the room and filling up the committees via the back door. What does the Conservative government want the appointees to abide by? By Conservative ideology, of course.

Canadians have every reason to fear the Conservatives. In fact, Canadians have every reason to fear the Conservative ideology, because the future of the country in many respects is certainly not currently in the right hands. People in my riding say so all the time. There are things going on, and people are afraid of the Conservatives.

When we say, myself included, that Conservatives are not transparent, that they try to slip things in through the back door, that they add things to bills to bring them in line with the Conservative ideology, we need to be prepared to back this up. Moreover, we must be able to provide even more proof to Canadians that the Conservative government is making decisions not for the well-being of the Canadian people or of minorities, but solely for the well-being of the political party currently in power.

[An hon. member]

That is what they are doing.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

It certainly is. It is exactly what they are doing.

Back to the appointment of judges. The Conservative Party regularly says that it is pro-bilingualism. To be pro-bilingualism, the government needs to do more than simply say so. It needs to take concrete action so that Canadians will trust politicians. Then Canadians will find that these are good laws and that our parliamentarians are being fair so that each and every Canadian can benefit.

As for bilingualism, it is a matter of access to justice. Access to justice is a concept that is very easy to explain and understand. It means that each citizen can be served in the language of their choice and be treated fairly. That is access to justice. But when it comes to bilingualism, access to justice is another worry that Canadians have about the Conservatives.

It is crucial that francophones outside Quebec and anglophones in Quebec have access to justice. The government cannot just say it is going to appoint judges and allow them to sit and do their work, regardless of their ability to express themselves in one of the official languages. People who need a service and who defend their rights in the language of their choice may not receive the same service. It is scary to see what the Conservatives are doing. Yet they tell us, through the media, that they are in favour of bilingualism and want to give francophone minorities outside Quebec every possible opportunity.

I live in New Brunswick, a province that is in this situation. Where I live, francophones are in the minority. That is the reality. We need services in our language. But when we look at realities such as the abolition of the court challenges program, it is too bad, but it is a prime example of what I am talking about. The government cuts a program that costs peanuts and helps people defend their rights in court and gain access to services.

In my books, the government is not sincere when it says one thing and then turns around and cuts a program like that. When we say something, we have to be able to walk the talk. Our actions have to be consistent with what we say. At present, the Conservatives are saying one thing, but they are doing another by eliminating access to services for francophones outside Quebec and anglophones in Quebec. They are doing this to all minorities.

The court challenges program was not just in place to defend language rights. Everyone knows that it also helped people with special needs, persons with disabilities and women. It is slightly illogical to consider women a minority since they account for a large proportion of Canada's population, but this reflects a reality we can see.

When it comes to access to justice, it is very hard to really have confidence in the government. The Conservatives have said they want to have additional positions. The government and the Conservative members should stand up and walk the talk.

First, we, the members in this House, would be in a position to trust the Conservatives a little more, because, after all, we must not exaggerate. Thus, we could trust the Conservatives a little more and Canadians could also trust them a little more, because at this time, they do not trust them, specifically because any time the members of the Conservative government speak in this House or speak to the media, they say the exact opposite of what they actually do.

However, if, as parliamentarians, we can prove to Canadians that members of this House are doing the job for which they are paid, defending the interests of their constituents, only then will citizens no longer feel like they come last and will they be inclined to show greater support for their politicians and representatives in the polls. In addition, our actions will be fair and consistent with our words when it is time to set policy and make decisions. The Conservatives, however, do just the opposite.

I spoke earlier about bilingualism and the court challenges program. Consider for example the New Brunswick woman who could not be served in French by the RCMP and who was able to defend her rights thanks to a court decision and the court challenges program. Let us imagine this woman's situation if, in addition to not being able to access services in her language in New Brunswick, she also had to deal with a judicial system that did not allow her access to justice in her language. That would be ridiculous. That really is the direction being taken by the Conservatives and this is reflected in their actions. Canadian are afraid of their actions. This is one reason why Canadians have many fears about the Conservatives.

Let us now imagine if this woman, in addition to not being served in her language—and the court ruled that she should have been served in her language—did not even have access to judicial services in her language.

It really would be incredible. It would make no sense. I am convinced that my colleagues on this side of the House agree with me. It would also be interesting if the Conservative government were to acknowledge this. Citizens would have a little more trust in the government. At the very least, one thing is certain. We, the Liberals, rise to keep the Conservatives in check because Canadians have faith in the Liberals. We have established many programs over the years and over the decades. We established the criteria and the rules to ensure that Canadians are treated fairly.

I will go back to the example given a little earlier: the court challenges program. The results of this program speak for themselves. There was the case of Montfort Hospital in the national capital region. This program also made it possible for French-language schools to be opened in some provinces where there are few francophones. And there are other examples.

As I was saying earlier, what they say and do are two different things. As we know, the court challenges program was eliminated twice. By what kind of government? Not by the Liberals, but by the Conservatives. For this reason, Canadians trust the Liberals. That is also why Canadians want change. The Conservatives say one thing to the people, the media and the House of Commons and then do another.

At some point, we will take over from the Conservatives. I can guarantee you that the time will come for the Conservatives to face the music. Then the Liberals will ensure that Canadians are treated equitably and that they have equal access to justice. Canadians will not fear their government as is the case today.

Bill C-31 is necessary for increasing the number of judges in the country. However, as one can guess by all the examples I have given, there are many things that can make us fear the worst, that can change the entire face of the judiciary and, in fact, the entire face of the country within a few yeas. The Conservatives do not want to go in a direction of greater fairness. They do not want to ensure that the machinery of government or the judicial system is fairer. They are trying to stack the deck to gain control, to allow their Conservative ideology to prevail instead of allowing fairness and equity to prevail. We talk about equity on many levels: pay equity, equity among peoples. These are magic words all hon. members should keep in mind. When we are fair, everyone wins.

They want to favour certain people. As I was saying earlier, who does the Conservative government just happen to be favouring? As luck would have it, they are favouring senior Conservative Party members within the different provinces. That is quite the coincidence.

Sometimes a person is appointed. One might think that person is possibly the best candidate to be appointed, with the best skills and qualifications. At the second appointment, there begin to be some serious doubts. We start to wonder whether the Conservative way of doing things is just to ensure that the Conservative ideology is spread far and wide. At the third appointment, we have more than just doubts. We wonder what is happening and whether they are in the process of so completely changing the face of Canada that Canadians will no longer recognize themselves.

Bill C-31 is certainly important for increasing the number of judges. Nonetheless, access to justice must prevail above all.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I was listening to the member opposite, I had to go back to today's projected order of business to find out exactly what we were debating because he seemed to be wandering a bit.

He went on at length as to why it took our government two years to deal with this amendment to the Judges Act.

The act was last amended in 1998 by the Liberal government. In the subsequent six or eight years that it was in the position of government, it did nothing else on it. It is a little disingenuous to say that two years is too long a period of time when the Liberals did not touch it for eight years.

He also mentioned that Canadians do not have a very high opinion of politicians. I think we are even second last to lawyers. However, I wonder if some of the actions of previous Liberal governments, for example the sponsorship scandal and some of the images that Canadians had of money changing hands in brown bags, if that might have had something to do with that opinion.

To get back to what we are debating here today, Bill C-31, an amendment to the Judges Act, perhaps he could comment on why the Liberals did not act on it for eight years when they were in government.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is ironic to hear my colleague ask questions and wonder whether I talked about the bill at all.

My colleague opposite started giving examples of some situations that happened in the past. I will be reasonable and remind him of certain questionable facts involving his party that surfaced in the past weeks and months. But I will stop there. The truth is that I talked about Bill C-31 because I truly believe that we have to take a very close look at it.

Perhaps these words will ring a bell for the member: the Cadman affair, NAFTAgate, the Elections Canada in and out scheme, the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. Does the member want me to go on?

[An hon. member]

Yes, yes.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Yes? My colleagues want me to go on.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out one thing: I have provided enough examples for them to understand that they have been caught up in the system for the past few weeks and months. We have no idea where the scandals involving the Conservative Party will end.

Let us take a look at what has happened over a little more than the past two years. For 26 or 27 months now, we have been governed by the Conservative government. We are now heading into our third year, which is too long. The truth is that during that time, the Conservative government has been asleep at the switch. I will explain why.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

The Conservative government and all of the members opposite were sure that there would be an election within six months. They did not do anything; they just waited. All of a sudden, nine months later, they said that they would wait another three months, and then there would be an election. But no election was triggered. Their only goal was to do things for the short term.

The truth is that we are here to run a country. We are not here to run it for the short term until the next election. We, the Liberals, are looking to the future. Just as we have always done in the past, we are looking to the future.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I can hear the Conservative members acting up. That is what we call lack of respect. Once they have listened to the interpretation, they will understand what I just told them. The truth is that there has to be respect not only in the House, but in everything.

Let us look at the situation. With regard to Bill C-31, it is clear that if the government had met its obligations over the past two and a half years and had filled positions equitably as it went along, we would not need to discuss certain things today.

Today, we are talking about a bill that aims to increase the number of judges, because it is important that Canadians be treated equitably. It is also important that the government have a legal system in place so that people who have needs and want to defend their rights can do so, and not just when it suits the government.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives sometimes tell people that they can go to court whenever they want to, even if they have no money, because that is not a problem. In the end, if people do not have any money, they will not be treated equitably in this country. We do not understand that in the same way. We want to make sure Canadians have the services they need so that when they want to defend their rights, the tools are in place in the government or the legal system. In this way, Canadians will be able to defend their rights, which is crucial.

The comments my colleague opposite made before he posed his question are deplorable. The fact is that the Conservatives are not equipped or capable to debate a bill like Bill C-31. They are forced to make personal attacks on individual members. This is unfortunate, but in recent months, the Conservatives have been embroiled in one scandal after another.

We can talk about Bill C-31 if the members want to, but the members opposite are going to have to be much more serious when making their comments. One thing is clear: either they have not listened to anything that has been said or they have not understood anything that has been said. Perhaps it is a bit of both or something else.

The fact is that there are concerns about Bill C-31, and they are justified. Access to justice must be provided equitably. Decisions about judicial appointments must be made equitably and not in a partisan way, as the Conservatives have been doing for the past two and a half years.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Hull—Aylmer should know that there are three and a half minutes remaining. If the question takes three minutes, the answer will take 30 seconds, and vice versa.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that you would make assumptions, because you know that I like to get to the point, and that I want some answers from my colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche.

Earlier, my colleague alluded to bilingualism and the fact that the judges appointed in New Brunswick ought to speak French. Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what would happen in his province if the government appointed judges who spoke French but not English?

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. That is an excellent question. As I was saying earlier, it is a matter of respect, and it goes both ways: francophones towards anglophones, and anglophones towards francophones. We do not want judges to be appointed solely for their ability to serve francophones. We also want the judges appointed to be able to serve anglophones. As I said, we must be fair.

Fairness implies that if a judge could provide a service in English within a given period of time, then the same should be possible in French within that same period of time.

Thus, it is important to be fair and to ensure that all Canadians have access to justice. That is what we, the Liberals, want to do.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, we could get this bill over with, because I want to speak on the next bill, but the committee asked the Conservatives to do three things.

First, was to consult to ensure the judges were given out regionally and appropriately. Has the member heard if the Conservatives have done that?

Second, there are only 14 judges. That is less than one per territory. Is less than one judge enough to fill the backlog in Quebec?

Finally, has the member been told of a plan to ensure that linguistic implementation and allocation is appropriate, especially for provinces like New Brunswick and Quebec?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche has 40 seconds to respond.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has certainly asked some excellent questions, and I will try to answer them as quickly as possible.

To answer his first question, it is obvious that consultation is not the Conservatives' strong point. It is strange, each time they hold a consultation, they always do the opposite of what is suggested. They consult the public, ask people their opinion, but they do the opposite.

So I do not believe that there are many consultations taking place. The reality is that they are not listening at all.

Certainly, this is the reality for all Canadian citizens in terms of linguistic issues.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)