An Act to amend the Judges Act

This bill was last introduced in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2021.

Status

Second reading (Senate), as of June 15, 2021
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Judges Act to replace the process through which the conduct of federally appointed judges is reviewed by the Canadian Judicial Council. It establishes a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct that are not serious enough to warrant a judge’s removal from office and makes changes to the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made to the Minister of Justice. As with the provisions it replaces, this new process also applies to persons, other than judges, who are appointed under an Act of Parliament to hold office during good behaviour.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 15th, 2023 / 10:25 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Madam Speaker, even though it is late, we are wrapping up our work and we may be a little jagged, it is a pleasure to speak to the return of Bill C‑9 as amended by the Senate.

This all feels a bit like groundhog day. I was rereading the notes from my last speech on Bill C‑9 and they begin with a reminder to wish everyone a merry Christmas.

In my notes, I was talking about the fact that I had spoken to Bill C‑9 or its equivalent, Bill S‑5, before the 2021 election. All that to say that I have spoken to Bill C‑9 many times now. I feel like I am repeating myself, unfortunately. It may be a feeling shared by my colleagues, either in their own speech or in having to listen to mine for the umpteenth time this evening.

This has been mentioned many times: There is a real urgency to look into the misconduct of federally appointed judges, as current events are reminding us. There is the case of Justice Brown, for instance, where there were unending delays in the probe of what seemed to be alleged misconduct.

In a context where, unfortunately, there is a shortage of judges, we are reminded that we need to streamline the process for studying misconduct and that we need to do so in two ways. First, Bill C‑9 provides for fewer judges to study a case of misconduct. Second, it provides fewer possibilities for using delaying tactics throughout the process to ensure that the work is done diligently and that the judges are assigned for a shorter period of time.

With respect to the amendments proposed by the Senate, only two were retained by the government and the rest were rejected. I will spend a little more time on one of the amendments, which prompted some questions that I have already asked my colleagues. It concerns an amendment to clause 84, which follows up on the clauses that provide for the creation of a list of judges and laypersons who can be involved in the different stages of the process for studying the misconduct. There is a diversity provision for this list. The initial clause read as follows:

84 As far as possible, the Council shall name persons who reflect the diversity of the Canadian population to the roster of judges and to the roster of lay persons.

The amendment suggested by the Senate and accepted by the government would delete “as far as possible”. As I mentioned, this points to a shift away from what seemed like an obligation of diligence to an obligation of result. To the extent possible, the aim was to incorporate diversity into the list of judges and laypersons for selection. However, by deleting “as far as possible”, I get a sense that we are creating more of an obligation of result, which raises a number of issues.

We are told that there is currently a shortage of judges. We cannot change the current number of judges simply by snapping our fingers. It would be nice if we could because we need them, but we have to work with what we have. If we absolutely had to start reflecting diversity now, with our very small pool of existing judges, we could run into certain problems by selecting judges concentrated in certain geographic areas, where there is better representation. We could end up relying more heavily on specific locations to find judges more representative of diversity. We could also run the risk of sidelining certain other necessary or useful criteria in selecting the judges we want to include on our lists. One example could be knowledge of both official languages. By making diversity an obligation rather than something we are striving for or want, we could be limiting our options at a time when resources are already scarce.

When I asked the minister whether it might not create obstacles that are more difficult to overcome if we make it an obligation of result rather than an obligation of diligence, I got the impression that he somewhat agreed that it was perhaps not the best amendment that the Senate could have suggested. He seemed to be saying that we can live with it, it is not so bad, but that, clearly, we could have done without it.

When it comes to this aspect of creating an obligation of result when drawing up a list, I think we could have done without this amendment. It creates an obligation that may be difficult to fulfill. I do not necessarily share the Minister of Justice's optimism when he says that the Canadian Judicial Council is of the impression that it will be able to fulfill this obligation.

The other amendment that was proposed and welcomed by the government is to add the term “sexual misconduct” to the list of complaints that cannot be systematically dismissed by a screening officer who receives complaints. It therefore says that “A screening officer shall not dismiss a complaint that alleges sexual misconduct [that is the term being added] or sexual harassment or that alleges discrimination on a prohibited ground of discrimination within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act.”

In the complaints analysis process, a complaint can be dismissed from the outset if it is frivolous, vexatious or obviously unfounded because the grounds for complaint are not sufficiently substantiated. A complaint cannot be rejected if there is an element of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment or discrimination.

This amendment is timely in the context of the #MeToo movement, as we increasingly seek to eliminate everything to do with sexual misconduct. We do not want this to be such a specific criterion that we never reach it. We want to widen the scope. I think it is a good thing to add “sexual misconduct” to the list of criteria for not automatically dismissing a complaint.

In that regard, I believe that good work was done. In my opinion and in the Bloc Québécois's opinion, the minister clearly explained the reasons for which he supports these two amendments, although we do not entirely agree with one of them. However, this will not prevent us from voting in favour of the motion, because it will finally make it possible to implement Bill C-9. This is becoming increasingly urgent. We need to get this done as quickly as possible, so we can truly streamline the complaints analysis process.

The government rejected the rest of the Senate amendments in order to prevent the complaints analysis process from becoming more cumbersome, given that the original intent of the bill was to streamline it. In our opinion, it was warranted to reject the proposed amendments.

I want to come back to the fact that this bill was debated at length on multiple occasions and in various incarnations. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has done a lot of work on this, and it seemed as though we finally had a version that parliamentarians agreed on.

Bill C‑9 was unanimously passed at third reading. I think we could have done without the Senate deciding to get involved and adding its two cents. I will not get into the details of Bloc Québécois's position on the very existence of a second chamber. However, I would like to come back to the general purpose of the bill. It is important to remind members of that. The community, all jurists, have been asking for this bill for a long time.

What is more, as I mentioned recently, after the news broke about Justice Brown, the Right Hon. Richard Wagner once again emphasized the urgent need to take action and pass Bill C‑9. He also mentioned that it was too bad that the bill was still being examined by the House.

This allows me to add this little grain of salt: If not for the snap 2021 election, we would already have a bill in place. I mention the following purely as a hypothesis, since I do not have a crystal ball, but Justice Russell Brown's case might have gone differently had it been handled under the future version of Bill C‑9, which we will likely adopt, instead of under the old complaints process, which is several decades old.

This bill, which seeks to shorten the process and therefore lower the cost, is well balanced. It helps speed up the process and make it more efficient, while upholding the rights of any judge who may be the subject of complaints for misconduct of all kinds within or outside their practice.

The other thing we really liked about the bill is that it gets us out of a binary repression mode, a binary method for sanctioning complaints. In the first version, either the judge was cleared of the charges and remained in their position, or they were found guilty of the charges and had to be removed. There was no grey area between the two for less serious misconduct, for example. That is something that has been corrected in Bill C‑9.

I think it is still worth mentioning a few things that are now possible. I did this last time, and I think it is still relevant to repeat it again today. Clause 102 of the bill states: “If the review panel does not refer the complaint to the Council under section 101, it may dismiss the complaint or take one or more of the following actions if it considers it appropriate to do so in the circumstances”.

One of the things the panel can do is “issue a private or public expression of concern” about the judge's alleged conduct. It can “issue a private or public warning”. It can also “issue a private or public reprimand”. Once again, these measures may be more appropriate depending on the type of misconduct that may have occurred, rather than an all-or-nothing approach, in other words removal or no removal. The panel can also “order the judge to apologize, either privately or publicly, by whatever means the panel considers appropriate in the circumstances”. This means the judge can be supported through an apology process that would be tailored to the situation.

It can “order the judge to take specific measures, including attending counselling or a continuing education course”. There is a rehabilitation aspect. This is a much more positive approach that shows a desire to retrain judges, if they make honest mistakes, for example.

The panel can “take any action that the panel considers to be equivalent to any of the actions referred to in paragraphs (a) to (e)”. This provides the panel with a fair bit of latitude in the actions it can take. Finally, the panel can, “with the consent of the judge, take any other action that the panel considers appropriate in the circumstances”. The fact that the judge's consent is absolutely required for measures beyond the scope of those mentioned is perhaps the aspect of the bill that made us hesitate a little more.

Generally speaking, this is a bill that has long been awaited and desired by the judiciary and the bar associations. We are pleased to finally see it come to fruition, to completion. We hope that, despite the little game of ping-pong between the House of Commons and the Senate, no more obstacles will be thrown in the way. I would like to point out that the fact that another amendment has been proposed just this evening worries me a little. I hope that this will not prevent the bill from being passed before the summer, or before what could happen in the fall. Nobody here has a crystal ball. I hope this will not be the umpteenth bill to die on the Order Paper. We could fill a lot of shelves with all the bills that have died on the Order Paper. Unfortunately, we are making a lot of work for shelving manufacturers.

In general, we feel that the government's motion assessing the Senate amendments is balanced.

It prevents excessive amendments from undermining the bill's original substance and its original objective of streamlining the process and making it much more efficient. We still have some uncertainty about deleting the words “as far as possible” and imposing an obligation of result. However, we can live with that uncertainty. I think that voting in favour of the government's motion is worthwhile, because it will finally allow the bill to be implemented.

With that in mind, the Bloc Québécois has no problem in supporting the motion. Most of all, we hope that the next steps will be taken in a timely manner and will finally produce an acceptable bill.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

December 9th, 2022 / 12:10 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Madam Speaker, I understand that I have about 18 and a half minutes left. I will do my best, but I cannot promise that I will use up all of that time. I am just pointing that out for the benefit of the person who is speaking next.

Now that all the Christmas wishes and greetings have been sent, I want to come back to Bill C-9, which I spoke about in June, as I mentioned. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the Bloc Québécois will support this bill at third reading for a number of reasons. One of them is that the community has been calling for this bill for quite a long time. It has been calling for a review of the system for removing judges who engage in conduct unbecoming of the profession.

This bill will also help shorten the process and, incidentally, reduce the cost associated with assessing judicial misconduct, while still maintaining sufficient procedural equity that a judge who is facing sanctions can make their case and ultimately exercise their right to full answer and defence. In a way, this bill is streamlining a process that, in the past, was unfortunately inconsistently applied and abused, as in the case of Judge Girouard, who has been mentioned quite a bit in the House. It took nearly a decade to come to a final decision on the acts he was accused of.

It is worth mentioning that this bill introduces a mechanism to deal with less serious complaints that would not necessarily require removing a judge who has committed wrongdoing. This mechanism would still allow the judge to be punished for their actions. It is no longer a purely black-and-white system where there are only two possible outcomes to a sanction: either to reject the sanction outright or to remove the judge from office, which is the ultimate sanction for misconduct. Under the old law, there was no in-between. The new bill allows for a slightly fuller range of options, with different shades of grey—not that I am naming a particular book—in terms of the sanctions that can be imposed.

Realistically, we cannot expect Bill C‑9 to change much on a day-to-day basis, because not that many judges face possible sanctions, which is a good thing. My colleagues have said that about eight cases have come under the microscope. This is not something that happens very often.

However, the bill will affect the way people perceive the justice system. If a judge is put under the microscope, we can expect the process to elicit far less criticism and complaint from the public, because it will presumably be much more effective.

As I said, we will vote in favour of the bill. Based on what my colleagues have said, most if not all members of the House will do likewise. The only real criticism we heard during members' speeches had less to do with the content of the bill than with the timeline of its passage, which should take place in the coming days.

This is not our first time studying a bill like Bill C-9 in the House. We saw a previous version, Bill C-5, which ended up dying on the Order Paper because the government decided to call a basically useless election in August 2021, so again, this is not the first time we are indirectly talking about Bill C-9 in the House. However, there is so much consensus on it that, hopefully, this will be the last time.

Bill C-9 upholds a principle that is absolutely critical in our democracy, namely, the principle of security of tenure for judges. This principle is set out in section 99(1) of the Constitution. I think section 99(1) bears quoting.

It states:

...the judges of the superior courts shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons.

With respect to this aspect, Justice Dalphond, who is now a senator, spoke to Bill S‑5. He said the following:

By imposing a process that makes it the responsibility of judges, first and foremost, to deal with allegations of misconduct against a judge, the Judges Act protects judges from acts of intimidation or retaliation by the executive power or litigants. In addition, since the act provides for parliamentarians to exercise their constitutional power to remove a judge only after having received the report and recommendation of the council in this regard, Canadians can rest assured that this measure, intended to be exceptional, will only be taken when it is truly justified.

This essentially separates the different branches of democracy, namely the executive, legislative and judicial branches, by ensuring that if a judge is removed, it is not for purely political reasons, for example.

Although the current system for removing judges in cases of wrongdoing is recognized as one of the best in the world, there was room for improvement. I will name a few of the drawbacks that have been identified.

As I mentioned, the current process can be extremely long. Along the way, there is always the possibility of countless appeals and judicial reviews. Under the act, the review panel was seen as a sort of administrative tribunal that opened the door to using the regular court system, meaning filing an appeal, reviewing a decision or applying for a judicial review. As a result, some cases dragged on for over a decade.

One of the problems that was identified is that a judge who may be at fault could have a financial interest in dragging out the proceedings with stalling tactics, because the judge still gets paid while the process is underway. They can keep contributing to their retirement fund, so the benefits continue to add up. The judge therefore has an incentive to make sure the final decision on their alleged conduct does not come out too quickly.

That is something that has been corrected through proposed section 126 of the new bill. Proposed subsection 126(1) states:

For the purposes of calculating an annuity under Part I, if a full hearing panel decides that the removal from office of a judge who is the subject of a complaint is justified, the day after the day on which the judge is given notice of the full hearing panel's decision is the day to be used to determine the number of years the judge has been in judicial office and the salary annexed to the office held by the judge at the time of his or her resignation, removal or attaining the age of retirement unless

(a) the decision is set aside by a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, or by the decision of an appeal panel if the appeal panel's decision is final;

(b) the Minister's response under subsection 140(1) provides that no action is to be taken to remove the judge from office; or

(c) the matter of removal of the judge from office is put to one or both Houses of Parliament and is rejected by either of them.

Should the complaint be rejected, the judge could retain all benefits associated with their office. From now on, pension and benefits accumulation ceases as of the day on which notice of the decision is given. That removes any incentive for a judge to draw out proceedings.

As I also mentioned, one of the benefits of the bill is that it now offers a wider range of sanctions than was available under the old act. The act did not, for example, allow for mandatory sanctions, so it made them seem like half-measures. The parties could make them mandatory by mutual agreement, but there was no real possibility of imposing anything. That is no longer the case. There is now a range of different measures.

Let me read some more of the bill. Proposed section 102 of the new bill provides as follows:

If the review panel does not refer the complaint to the Council under section 101, it may dismiss the complaint or take one or more of the following actions if it considers it appropriate to do so in the circumstances:

(a) issue a private or public expression of concern;

(b) issue a private or public warning;

(c) issue a private or public reprimand;

(d) order the judge to apologize, either privately or publicly, by whatever means the panel considers appropriate in the circumstances;

(e) order the judge to take specific measures, including attending counselling or a continuing education course;

(f) take any action that the panel considers to be equivalent to any of the actions referred to in paragraphs (a) to (e);

(g) with the consent of the judge, take any other action that the panel considers appropriate in the circumstances.

It uses the word “order”. That means it would be mandatory, and the panel has a lot of latitude.

There are plenty of measures that can be taken to improve the quality of a judge's work in the future, without having to resort to the extreme punishment of removing their right to sit on the bench. The bill improves what can be done within the system while also reducing the burden of what is required to make the review process work.

In the past, under the Judges Act, no fewer than 17 judges might be needed to convene a review panel to examine a case. There is currently a shortage of judges. The courts are operating at a slower pace. If a judge were to be accused of something, we cannot afford to take 17 judges out of the system when there is a shortage everywhere.

Under the new version of the act, a panel can be formed with slightly fewer judges than what was required in the past. The bill also creates an internal appeal process, which will limit reliance on external courts and therefore limit the possibility of invoking the legal system for disciplinary matters involving judges.

I am making an aside on this aspect because the issue of tying up courts and judges cannot be solved by Bill C‑9 alone. We had a discussion about Bill S‑4 and the possibility of making greater use of virtual tools to hear cases. This debate may continue in the days to come. That would help, but even if we add the option of virtual hearings, if there are no judges to hold these hearings, it does not matter that platforms like Zoom are available because the system will not work.

That is why, in addition to Bills C‑9 and S‑4, it is important that the Minister of Justice quickly appoint judges to fill vacancies. Currently, there are nine vacancies. The chief justice of the Quebec Superior Court is even recommending that a dozen judges be added to those currently sitting. This would increase the minimum number of justices that can sit on the Quebec Superior Court. Let us hope that this message will be heard by the Minister of Justice.

Basically, Bill C‑9 is about improving people's trust in the judicial system. However, as I said, it may be relatively limited in scope, because most people will not read the contents of Bill C‑9. If a judge were to commit a wrongful act, people might be interested in this new process that exists to reprimand judges.

Beyond the possibility of reprimanding a judge who has already been appointed, if we really want to improve public trust in the system, we must also address the issue of judicial appointments. Some work has been done. The Liberals have mentioned that they are going to abandon the infamous Liberalist, but that may not be enough. The process is still potentially partisan. The power to select and recommend who will be appointed as a judge is still in the hands of the executive branch of government.

That is why the Bloc Québécois recommends creating a truly all-party committee tasked with evaluating candidates for judicial positions in courts under federal jurisdiction, such as superior courts.

This is what Albania did in hopes of joining the EU. It had to change a lot of its judicial practices to meet EU standards and bolster public confidence in its institutions.

At present, Albania's justice minister has no power over judicial appointments. An independent committee is in charge. The justice minister's primary responsibility is to oversee sound administration of the courts. The minister monitors statistics to ensure that hearings are progressing without wait lists or undue delays, but is not actually responsible for appointing judges. That allows for true separation between the powers of the executive and the judiciary. The House may consider following suit as it develops a different judicial appointment system.

It is on this wish that I will end my speech. Bill C‑9 is a good thing. It is an improvement that has long been called for. It may have taken a long time for it to come to fruition, but we commend the initiative nonetheless. There is still work to be done on the judiciary. The Bloc Québécois will always be a very approachable partner when it comes to improving the legal system. I think that begins with a review of the judicial appointment system.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

October 28th, 2022 / 12:10 p.m.
See context

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Mr. Speaker, I think this is something that may have never happened in the House before, a member beginning a speech on a bill in one seat and continuing it in a separate seat on the very same day. This was made possible, of course, by a standing order change that allows us to sit absolutely anywhere in the House. I was tempted to do it from the Prime Minister's seat, but that would have involved a little too many logistics. I was not sure we would get back to the debate, so I will do it from this seat here.

We are debating Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, and we are at second reading. I want to talk about the substance of the bill. It is actually, I think, a very good bill, and I will deal with that in a minute.

First, I want to talk about the fact the government is once again rushing this debate through and imposing closure. As I consider its actions, the thought that occurs to me is that, out there in the normal world, there is a saying. It is that “your lack of planning does not equal my crisis,” but this is the House of Commons of Canada. As long as they have the support of the New Democrats, the Liberals can be as disorganized as they want and can create crises for themselves and then impose limits on democracy and open debate in order to rush through crises of their own making.

In the case of the bill, which has now been time allocated, a version of it was introduced as Bill S-5, a government bill in the Senate, in May 2021, but it died on the Order Paper, because the Prime Minister, in his infinite wisdom, decided to call the least necessary election in Canadian history, which resulted in our having exactly the same seat breakdown we had prior to the election. However, it did cause everything on the Order Paper to be wiped off the Order Paper, and when we resumed in the autumn of 2021, a new bill was introduced on the Order Paper, on December 1, 2021, as Bill S-3. Subsequently, that bill was dropped and Bill C-9, the bill we are presently debating, found its way onto the Order Paper on December 16, 2021. It then sat on the Order Paper, undebated, for exactly six months to the day, until June 16, 2022.

The House rises in time for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, which is on the 24th of June. The bill, therefore, had a couple days of time for debate before the House rose. Then, with a whole summer going by, it did not come back until very recently, when we had been here for a month. This makes the point that the reason there is a rush, if there is a rush at all, is that the government has caused a delay. I should point out as well that the purpose of the bill is to make changes to the Judges Act, which was implemented in 1971, so we are talking about changes to something that has been in place for 50 years.

Saying this constitutes the kind of crisis that warrants putting limits on debate is, in my view, simply unreasonable and simply a reflection of the fact that it is now reflexive for the current government to put time limits on all debates on everything.

Now, let me talk about the substance of the bill.

Bill C-9 deals primarily with judges, but as for the provisions it replaces, this new process would also apply to persons other than judges who are appointed under an act of Parliament to hold office under what is known as “good behaviour”. The question of what constitutes “good behaviour” is a matter that needs to be updated from time to time, particularly in the world of the law and the actions of judges, because if something goes wrong in the court system and if judges or courts act inappropriately, we say that the law is brought into disrepute. Bringing the law into disrepute is the worst thing a judge can do. What constitutes “disrepute” does change over time as we get greater sensitivity, for example, to gender issues, which lie at the heart of the present piece of legislation, or to concerns relating to the ability of people who face various forms of disabilities to communicate with the courts and so on.

Standards within society do change. I think they usually improve, and it is reasonable to update this from time to time.

Right now, the way it works is that, should a federally appointed judge be found to be potentially in breach of their responsibilities, the issue is sent to the Canadian Judicial Council for review. The bill would establish a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct, allegations that are not serious enough to warrant a judge's removal from office, and would make changes to the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made to the Minister of Justice.

The bill would specifically modify the existing judicial review process by establishing a process for complaints serious enough to warrant removal from office and another for offences that could warrant other sanctions, such as counselling, continuing education and reprimands.

Currently, if misconduct is less serious, a single member of the Canadian Judicial Council holds the initial review and may negotiate with a judge for remedy. I should mention as well that the Canadian Judicial Council was set up under the existing law. It dates back to 1971 and is mandated to promote efficiency and uniformity and improve the quality of judicial services in all superior courts in Canada.

The reasons a judge could be removed from office include infirmity, misconduct, failure in the due execution of judicial office, and the judge's being “in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office”.

Under the new rules, a screening officer could dismiss complaints rather than referring them to the review panel, should they appear frivolous or improper. Certain things, such as a complaint that alleges sexual harassment or discrimination, may not be dismissed. The full screening criteria would be published by the Canadian Judicial Council.

These amendments address the shortcomings of the current process by imposing mandatory sanctions on a judge when a complaint of misconduct is found to be justified but not to be serious enough to warrant removal from office. Again, such sanctions could include counselling, continuing education and reprimands.

In the name of transparency, this legislation would require that the Canadian Judicial Council include the number of complaints received and how they were resolved in its public annual report, something that is a very sound idea.

Since its inception in 1971, the Canadian Judicial Council has completed inquiries into eight complaints considered serious enough that they would warrant removal from the bench. Four of them, in fact, did result in recommendations for removal.

Under the new process, as laid out in Bill C-9, the Canadian Judicial Council would continue to preside over the judicial complaints process, which would start with a three-person panel. If the complaint is serious enough that it might warrant removal from the bench, it could be referred to a separate, five-person hearing panel.

As I am out of time, I will just make the observation that, on the whole, this is a good piece of legislation. I am glad it is before us. It could have been before us earlier. I very much welcome the opportunity to vote in favour and send this off to committee, but of course I object to the rush we have been put in to do that.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

October 28th, 2022 / 10:40 a.m.
See context

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and pleasure to speak in this House on behalf of the citizens of Saskatoon West. Of course, I am rising today to speak to the bill before us, Bill C-9, which makes changes to the way federally appointed judges can be removed for misconduct.

My approach today will be a bit different. I am not a lawyer, so I am not well versed in how law works and all the details and technicalities of it. The best example of that was from yesterday when I was privileged to attend the justice committee. I was listening to witnesses on the subject of Bill C-28, the extreme intoxication law. It is unbelievable that in this country, a person who gets so drunk that they commit a crime that results in great harm to a person can get off for it and there are no consequences. That is exactly what happened. That is why the government brought in Bill C-28 earlier. It was supposedly to fix this.

As a layperson at the committee yesterday, I was listening to all my learned colleagues ask very intelligent questions that were going over my head. I was listening to professors explain the legal technicalities of everything. However, one thing that did come out clear was that it is absolutely wrong that if a person commits a crime, they do not face consequences simply because they were too drunk. Clearly, that needs to be fixed.

The more troubling thing that came across to me was that the government attempted to fix this law in a very hurried way earlier this year. Essentially, it rammed through legislation to supposedly close a loophole. What I heard yesterday was that what the Liberals rammed through in a hurry, without proper consultation and without actually talking to people, has not solved the problem. In fact, it may have made it worse. We need to be very careful in the House when we propose solutions and ram them through the House without proper due diligence, because we can actually make things worse. That was the main thing I took away from yesterday.

I also want to note another piece of legislation going through the House right now. It is Bill S-4. It amends the process for peace officers to apply for and obtain a warrant using telecommunications rather than appearing in person. It expands the abilities for accused and offenders to appear remotely by audio conference and video conference. It also allows prospective jurors in a jury selection process to appear by video conference.

This is a bill that came about because of COVID. There were some changes needed in our system to accommodate more remote appearances, as members can see. What I find interesting is that these changes were due to the COVID epidemic we have, which started two years ago. It has taken two years for the Liberal government to get this to second reading in this House.

I find it odd that on one hand, some legislation gets rammed through almost instantaneously, like Bill C-28, while in the case of Bill S-4, it lollygags along for a while. Maybe COVID will be in the rear-view mirror when it finally gets passed. I find it quite rich when the government talks about those on the Conservative side obstructing things, when we are trying to do the proper due diligence and trying to make sure that we do not get bad laws.

This brings me to Bill C-9. This bill was originally introduced as a Senate bill, Bill S-5, in 2021. The bill modifies the existing judicial review process by establishing a process for complaints serious enough to warrant removal from office and another for offences that would warrant other sanctions, such as counselling, continuing education and reprimands. Currently, if the misconduct is less serious, one Canadian Judicial Council member who conducts the initial review may negotiate with the judge for an appropriate remedy.

The bill states that the reasons a judge could be removed from office include:

(a) infirmity;

(b) misconduct;

(c) failure in the due execution of judicial office;

(d) the judge is in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.

Also, a screening officer can dismiss complaints rather than referring them to the review panel should they seem frivolous or improper.

Federal judges are appointed for life, and it is absolutely critical that they are free of political inference. It is important that we have mechanisms in place to deal with them and remove them from office if that extreme point is necessary. Parliament sets laws, though, and judges need to respect the will of Parliament. A good example is the mandatory minimum sentences that the previous Conservative government brought in.

Any violent criminal, regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation, should be treated as equal. The offender should face a jury of their peers and if convicted should get the appropriate punishment. Prison time will keep that person off the streets so they cannot engage in further criminal activity.

Mental health issues, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, need to be addressed and monitored by trained personnel. Therapy and 12-step programs that are offered in prisons must be made mandatory for prisoners. Under house arrest, there is no way to ensure that these offenders get the help they need.

We also need to consider victim safety when we are sentencing offenders. A sad but real truth is that violent crime is often committed within a family. It can be spousal abuse, sexual exploitation of a child, custodial kidnapping or robbery for the purposes of illicit substances. The people in closest proximity are always the most accessible victims. If a judge is required to sentence a spousal abuser to live at home rather than go to prison, what happens to the abused spouse and children? Do they flee to a crisis centre, or will they will get revictimized?

I want to talk a bit about Saskatoon and my riding of Saskatoon West. It is an awesome and beautiful place to live and work. My wife and I call it home. For years before I became a member of Parliament, I was a home builder. I built new homes for families moving into the riding.

First as a candidate and now as an MP, I can say that I have knocked on almost every door in Saskatoon West. As I have walked through those neighbourhoods, I have seen some of the areas of highest crime. In the past year, there have been 389 cases of reported sexual violations in Saskatoon, 2,303 reported cases of assault, 65 reported cases of kidnapping and abduction and 759 cases of violation under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Saskatoon is well above the national crime severity index of 73.4 in Canada's largest cities and has a crime severity index of 118, and it was ranked fourth behind Lethbridge, Winnipeg and Kelowna in 2020. Much of this crime is in the areas right around my constituency office. My constituency office is on the convergence of these neighbourhoods, and according to the Saskatoon Police Service, it is in the highest crime area of Saskatoon. As a result, we have to be very diligent in our office. We have gotten to know many of the people who live in the neighbourhood. They frequent our office and frequent the area by our office, and we have developed relationships with them.

My staff have a security door and a buzzer system in place to screen people before they come into the office. Still, my office has been broken into and I have had my House of Commons computer stolen. An employee of mine had the window on his car broken just because somebody wanted a few quarters that were sitting in there. A lot of this is because of addicts. We have a lot of addiction issues that drive many of the crime problems we have.

This is something that I agree with the government on. The approach on how to fix it, though, is where we differ. I believe in the miracles of alcohol and drug treatment through 12-step programs and abstention. The NDP-Liberals believe in what is called harm reduction.

What I think needs to happen is that addicts need to be treated with love and compassion, which is offered through 12-step programs. These programs offer alcoholics and addicts a way to get clean and help others get clean at no cost to the individual or taxpayer. Unfortunately, there are two things that the government does not like. First, these are programs of spirituality. They require the addict to “turn their will and lives over to the care of God”. Second, as I explained, this does not require big government intervention. These programs deliver miracles; I know that for a fact. I know people who have been through them and care about them.

As I wrap up, I just want to say that there are so many areas that we need to be working on in this House to improve our criminal justice system. Bill C-9 is a good step forward. We need to make sure that our judges are independent and that they are worthy of the positions they hold.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

October 28th, 2022 / 10:25 a.m.
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Conservative

Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise here today to speak to this piece of legislation.

In my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country, the impacts of crime and increasing crime rates are things that I have heard more and more about from my constituents. According to a release from Statistics Canada earlier this year, the Kelowna census metropolitan area, the CMA, now has the highest crime rate in Canada, with 27,147 Criminal Code violations in the region in the 2021 report.

While the crime severity index, the CSI, is 73.7 across Canada, according to Statistics Canada, in the Kelowna CMA, it is significantly higher, at 122.3 in our region. It is the topic of discussion I hear from constituents in meetings, through emails, at coffee shops and on the streets, and it was one of the most important issues discussed during our municipal election, which just ended a few weeks ago, with different solutions discussed on how to best solve the issue.

One of the problems that arises from this is the revolving door we see in our criminal justice system. Unfortunately, too often we see individuals go through a catch-and-release system, where they do not serve their time and also do not receive the help they need to help reduce the chances of them reoffending, including addiction or mental health treatment. These are all areas where we need to see improvement in our system, on top of Bill C-9.

Unfortunately, in the conversations I have had in my community, there needs to be improvement in public confidence in our justice system and there has not been much evidence that the Liberal government has helped to uphold this. This is yet again another example of a bill which could have been in place almost a year ago if it were not for the Liberal government's decision to hold an unnecessary snap election last fall.

The previous iteration of this bill was Bill S-5 from the 43rd Parliament. It would have been debated, studied and perhaps adopted by now if all members of the House were to have moved it forward. Instead, here we are again, starting debate on this bill from the beginning, over a year since the last version was introduced, because of an unnecessary, costly election. Just as a reminder, ash was falling from the sky in my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country when the Prime Minister called the snap election.

There are many examples of legislation being worked on in the last Parliament, but due to the snap election, everything was cancelled and had to start over again. The committee I sit on is now looking at a Bill C-22, the Canada disability benefit act, which was also first introduced over a year ago and then died on the Order Paper because of the snap election last fall. Here is another example of how we really have to look at what the government's priorities are. A lot of its priorities are political rather than moving forward good legislation that we need in this country.

Conservatives are always happy to work for reforms in our judiciary. Public faith in our system is what guarantees our society's commitment to due process under law. No one spoke more eloquently on this than former Conservative leader Rona Ambrose when she introduced her final piece of legislation in 2017, the just act. That bill proposed judicial accountability through sexual assault law training.

As a strong voice for women and sexual assault survivors, Ms. Ambrose recognized that far too often our justice system fails to respect the experiences of victims of sexual assault. Sexual assault survivors need to know that those hearing their cases have the training, background and context to give them a fair trial and better ensure that sexual assault survivors do not hesitate to come forward. We, unfortunately, still need a judicial system that we can trust and that will be fair, a system that really focuses on victims.

More work needs to be done to ensure judges understand the laws surrounding this consent. More tools need to be provided to judges to provide fair, compassionate sentences that will see offenders rehabilitated.

My own private member's bill legislation, Bill C-283, would provide such a tool in reforming the sentencing process for offenders suffering from drug addiction and mental health challenges. My legislation would amend the Criminal Code of Canada to support a two-stream sentencing process. While both would have the same sentence time, certain convicted individuals who demonstrate a pattern of problematic substance use and meet certain parameters at the time of sentencing could have the judge offer them the choice to be sentenced to participate in a mental health assessment and addiction treatment inside a federal penitentiary while they serve out their sentence.

Through this sentencing process, offenders would still receive meaningful consequences for their actions, but they would also receive curative treatment leading to a path of reducing the risk of reoffending. In other words, it would end the revolving door. I have actually called my private member's bill the “end the revolving door act”. My bill has the support of many stakeholders who work in addiction treatment and in the criminal justice system, and it also has support across some party lines in this place. I am thankful to say we had our first debate on it, and it will be coming forth again.

It is too important of an opportunity to miss out on, just like this bill we have here today. Some victims have said they have lost faith in the judicial system completely. It was not too long ago that victims, especially women, were blamed for sexual assault. Before laws were put into place improving the process, it was common for judges to factor in things such as the length of a woman's skirt or whether she had a past relationship with the perpetrator when determining if something was criminal. There needs to be more accountability in the judiciary. Legislation that involves our judicial system is really important.

Unfortunately, we know violent crime is up across Canada. It is up 32% since the government took office. One has to wonder how some of these soft-on-crime policies the government has can impact Canadians' faith in their justice system, as well as public safety.

We also need to remember the position of the federal ombudsman for victims of crime has repeatedly been left vacant by the government for many months at a time. Most recently, it was left vacant for almost a year. These are things that are really important when we are looking at our entire judicial system and how it functions, and we need to focus on these types of issues no only so the public has confidence, but also so the public is best served in all of these different areas. It is also really important that, at the core of everything, we keep victims in mind and that we are always standing up for the victims of crime, which is something the Conservatives absolutely do. It is always something we are considering and focusing on.

In closing, if the Liberal government really were concerned about the issue we are debating here today, Bill C-9, it would have not called a snap election last year. This would have been already in place. It is something that already would have been enacted.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

October 21st, 2022 / 10:35 a.m.
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Conservative

Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, as I was sharing, we all have EDAs and campaign teams. Although it is our names on the ballots, there is a huge group of people, and I count almost 200 volunteers over the course of my last three or so years in politics, who have helped fight for the cause. I am so thankful and blessed because of my EDA and campaign team and all those people who have worked so hard to fight for the principles that I am so proud to stand in this place to represent.

When it comes to the reason we are all here, I often joke when I speak with classes in my constituency that there are only three job qualifications to be a member of Parliament in Canada. Just three; that's it. Number one, we have to be Canadian. Number two, we have to be over the age of 18. Number three, we simply have to get more votes than the other guy or gal. That process, that participation in our democratic system that each parliamentarian has, with, at least in the current standing, 338 different paths, different types of individuals, different parties represented, different backgrounds, different experiences and different professions, brings a unique cross-section of Canadians to this place.

I cannot thank the people of Battle River—Crowfoot enough for the last three years. I have spoken over 400 times in this place, being up in question period, giving speeches, speaking over 500 times in committee, being part of interparliamentary groups, meeting with delegations and being a part of international trips, representing the people of Battle River—Crowfoot here in Canada and around the world, voting almost 400 times, jointly seconding private members' bills, and all the various ways of communication.

Last night we talked about mental health and being able to break some of the stigma surrounding things like mental illness. There are things like constituency communication, social media outreach, more than a dozen mail-outs and visiting 63 communities. I represent a constituency that is about the same size as the province of Nova Scotia and has about 60 or so self-governing municipalities. I have visited each one of those communities over the last three years, some more than once, and attended hundreds of events, doing dozens of town halls and helping when it comes to the base of what being an elected official is about: helping people and taking thousands of calls, helping with practical issues regarding case work or the Phoenix pay system, helping veterans and members of the military, and helping people with passport issues or immigration or whatever the case may be.

There is so much that goes into what we do in this place. The headlines always grab the big news items of the day, but as I reflect on the last three or so years that I have had the honour of taking my seat in this place, looking back at my experiences, those who helped me get here, my family and the impact this has on them, and those who mentored me, I truly am very blessed and thankful for the opportunity to serve in this place.

I appreciate the latitude given me for a moment to share some thoughts on three years of being able to serve in this place.

To the substance of Bill C-9 before us, I would note that this is the sort of bill that should have been passed a while ago. I know there have been a few questions asked about why Conservatives are speaking to this bill. I am speaking for myself, and I think for many of my colleagues, when I say we like to do our jobs to make sure that we comprehensively look at, evaluate and examine everything that comes forward in this place.

When the government talks about this bill in particular, I believe it was Bill S-5 in the last Parliament, and there is a constitutional intricacy that the government, especially, likes to dismiss or not elaborate on when it blames Conservatives for somehow obstructing the democratic process by doing our jobs. Bill S-5 was something that died on the Order Paper when an unnecessary election was called in the summer of last year.

I could certainly get into the many aspects of that, with our returning to this place with almost an identical makeup, the frustrations that were felt by so many Canadians and the erosion of trust in our institutions. I will expand on that a bit more. I would share with the member for Durham how many of those frustrations manifested themselves over the course of that last campaign, with the selfishness of a Prime Minister who tried to use what seemed to be a few polls bending in his direction, even when he promised to do the exact opposite of what he did.

The reason I bring that up today is not only to highlight the hypocrisy of government members. They seem to want to blame everybody but themselves for some of these things. I suggest they would be best positioned to look in the mirror to truly self-evaluate some of the reasons we find ourselves in those places.

This is a bill that addresses a very practical issue, which is that over the course of the evolution of our legal system we have the need for changes to be made. Specifically, Bill C-9 addresses that there would have to be a review process, even though a judge is and should be a lifetime appointment. Certainly we see the consequences of when politics are injected into the selection of judges and some of the challenges associated with that, but there could be the need for a review. We saw that need in the case that brought this whole conversation forward a number of years ago, when a judge made some very disparaging comments that certainly called into question the integrity of his ability to oversee that specific court case. There has to be a process. There has to be the ability to discipline individuals on the bench.

Of course, we all need to have accountability and integrity checks within each of our professions, whether it be in this place as members of Parliament, in Canada's Senate or in our judicial branch of government. We have created many instances of this with the Ethics Commissioner, the Lobbying Commissioner, reporting requirements and all of those associated things. Bill C-9 is just a practical response to ensure that we address one of the key aspects of where we have seen what I alluded to earlier, which is that erosion of trust in our institutions.

There are many reasons for that erosion of trust, certainly some of which are very political and some of which are very practical. Many of which, I would suggest, need to be unpacked so that we can truly get to the bottom of them. Because this is a justice bill and specifically relates to the Judges Act, I am going to focus on some of my constituents' experiences when it comes to how they perceive the justice system.

I have been asked a number of times by the Minister of Justice and other Liberal members why I do not trust judges. This bill actually speaks to why there has to be firm parliamentary oversight. In the Westminster system. Parliament is supreme, and I am thankful for that. That is one of the things that makes our system of government the best in the world: that Parliament and the voices of the people ultimately have that final say.

One of the comments that is often made to me is that we do not have a justice system anymore, but we have a legal system and that legal system is failing. That is not my perception. That is the perception of many constituents who share with me those feelings and their experiences associated with it.

I mentioned before that there are 338 different paths to get here, but I have no doubt that each and every person in this place will have heard from constituents who have had their own experiences when it comes to the way that the legal system, Canada's justice system, is not serving them well. I am going to highlight a few of those instances from the perspective of being a rural Canadian.

I mentioned in my observations of being in Parliament for three years that I represent a large rural area. My constituency is 53,000 square kilometres of what I would suggest is the most beautiful countryside in the world. When somebody asks me what the area I represent is like, I say it is a lot like cowboy country. It is the beautiful rolling hills and wheat fields as far as the eye can see. The only thing dividing one piece of land and the next is a simple barbed wire fence, and even then sometimes it is hard to find those with how vast the space is. I think about the many people who live there, and although sometimes it is sparsely populated, it would work out to be about two individuals per square kilometre. That is the density of my constituency, approximately.

We have some significant challenges. Specifically when it comes to our justice system, we see how the dynamics associated with rural crime have changed significantly in the last number of years. From both when I was elected in 2019 and also my work being involved in politics in the community prior to that, I have seen the crime severity index increase dramatically.

It is astounding, some of the stories I hear from constituents, members of the community and law enforcement officers who are on the first line. There are crimes that just a few years would never have been thought possible to be committed in a small town of only a few hundred people, yet with the Internet and access to gangs, drugs and all of these associated things, some of the things that happen are astounding. Then, there is the revolving door of the justice system.

Before I get to the revolving door of the justice system, I will share that I was invited to attend a town hall in a small town. It was about 200 people in this community. There were about 100 people who came to the town hall. It was on rural crime, organized by the mayor and council. They had invited their member of Parliament and their MLA, who was not able to make it, but also their local law enforcement, the RCMP.

I got there and, as is often the case, the RCMP had planned to be there but got a call, so they were not able to be there when the town hall started. I listened for probably an hour to story after story, and we were not just talking about hypotheticals. We were talking about real lived experiences and tragic instances where people's homes were broken into and where individuals were terrorized, and after multiple instances of calling the police, somebody would be arrested and taken away, but a few days later they would be back in that same community terrorizing the streets again.

There were dozens and dozens of examples, and there was a lot of frustration there. There was a lot of frustration at lawmakers and there was a lot of frustration at local law enforcement. It was one of the things I endeavoured to highlight during that time, and I was thankful that the RCMP came for the last third of the meeting. I would suggest it was providential that, when I stood up and said, to the room of about a hundred people, to be sure not to blame those men and women in uniform for some of the challenges and that they were working as hard as they possibly could, only a moment later the Mountie who serves the area, in a detachment with only three officers, walked into the town hall.

I was happy to cede the floor to him, and it was amazing. We could see in the eyes of many that they were frustrated, because sometimes it would be a four- or five-hour response time after calling 911. With something like a serious break-in with a firearm, it could be four or five hours before a police officer even got to somebody's door. We are talking about serious stuff here, but that Mountie started to unpack what his days looked like and some of the rules and restrictions he, as a law enforcement and peace officer, was forced to abide by.

I saw after that instance many others like it. I highlight specifically that town hall in the community of Amisk, but there have been many other instances like that, where we see that erosion of trust taking place within specifically, because we are talking about the Judges Act, the legal system in our country.

Therefore, when the Minister of Justice stands up and says something like those who do serious crimes in this country will serve serious time, it is almost laughable. It is laughable I would suggest in a tragic way, because the experience of so many of my constituents speaks to the exact opposite of that.

When I look back as a political observer, although I would have been quite young when there was a change from a past Liberal government to a Conservative government, I know that crime was a big issue. One thing that was interesting is this. The Liberals like to blame Stephen Harper somehow for imposing mandatory minimums. However, some of the mandatory minimums of Bill C-5 that the justice minister blames Harper for have actually been around significantly longer. I believe some of those were put into place by former prime ministers, including Chrétien, Mulroney and even Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Often the demand for mandatory minimums is something that comes from a true frustration from the public. I would suggest that if we are not careful, we will end up seeing that erosion of trust take place to the point where people may end up taking the law into their own hands. I do not think anybody in this place, regardless of party, wants to see that happen. When we see a government focus more on demonizing law-abiding firearms owners than dealing with smuggled guns coming across our border, that is a problem and it is demoralizing for those who have been robbed by a firearm or been the victim of a crime that should involve serious time.

Therefore, when it comes to Bill C-9, we need to do everything we can to ensure that we address some of the erosion of trust within our institutions and, in this case, make sure there is a mechanism to ensure that those on the bench are held to a high account, as Canadians expect us to do.

I believe we should expect those who are appointed as judges to be held to that higher account, and Bill C-9 is part of a practical mechanism to ensure that.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

October 21st, 2022 / 10:25 a.m.
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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Madam Speaker, this bill would have been passed, had the Prime Minister not called an unnecessary election back in August 2021. Bill S-5 would have likely passed the Senate. I do not want to prejudge the work that it would have done, but it likely would have passed. Many of us had been looking at the bill beforehand, and I am sure it would have gotten due review in the House.

As the member knows, the Speaker can recognize any member who stands up and wants to speak to a bill on behalf of their constituents, just like I did. I would never want to stop members from speaking up on behalf of their constituents.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

October 21st, 2022 / 10:05 a.m.
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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Madam Speaker, Bill C-9 would amend the Judges Act, and I know that many of my constituents will be wondering what exactly the act does and what the government is proposing to do.

Over the past few years, I think many of our democratic institutions and civic institutions have come under stress, such as different courts of law, given how the process works. I think what the government is doing here, to its credit, as I will give it credit sometimes, is shoring up an institution, the federal courts in this country, which I think need a little shoring up to ensure that my constituents can continue to have faith in them. The judges would be held accountable, but I note that the bill goes a bit beyond judges and would impact others who are federally regulated.

If we look at the summary of the bill, and a couple of points at the back end of the bill, there are provisions for a new process that would apply to “persons, other than judges, who are appointed under an Act of Parliament to hold office during good behaviour.” The bill actually goes a little beyond judges to provide a process to make sure that those people are held accountable for their behaviour while they hold office. Whenever someone does something wrong, rather than forcing them to completely resign, if they have not done something so bad they need to resign, it would allow for their careers to be salvaged through better education, with perhaps a public reprimand or a public apology. I like to think that in public life a little grace given to people is a good thing.

How judges work today has drastically changed, as the judicial council that oversees them was created back in 1971. I was not alive back in 1971. My family was not even in Canada at the time and neither were my parents. I would say that the way judges behaved in communist Poland would fall far short of the expectation of fair behaviour in Canada nowadays. However, a judge's work today includes things like case management, settlement conferences, judicial mediation and frequent interactions with people who want to self-represent, the litigants who do not believe they need the assistance of a lawyer to have proper counsel and to be properly represented before the court.

I will say, as I have said before in the House, that I have not been burdened with a legal education, which allows me an opportunity to see beyond what the law says. I apologize to all the lawyers in the House, those who have joined the bar, but I think those of us without a legal education can perhaps weigh in on the worthiness of certain matters.

Some of the responsibilities that judges have invite further consideration with respect to things like ethical guidance. In the same manner, the digital age, the phenomenon of social media, the importance of professional development for judges and the transition to postjudicial roles all raise ethical issues that were not fully considered 20 years ago. Social media especially, and its implications, apply to all of our jobs, all of our institutions and the behaviour of, for example, large multinational, publicly traded corporations as well. Everybody has a different responsibility when it comes to behaviour online and what we are posting and sharing. Whom we are sharing it with is, I think, equally important.

Judges are expected to be alert to the history, experience and circumstances of Canada's indigenous peoples and to the diversity of cultures and communities that make up this country. It is in this spirit that the judiciary is now actively involved with the wider public, both to enhance public confidence and to expand its own knowledge of the diversity of human experiences in Canada today.

The Canada of 50 years ago, when the council was first set up, is very different from today's Canada. There are many more laws that have been created by Parliament. If we look at the statutes of Canada, there are reams and reams of laws that are joined with regulations, which are even longer. Oftentimes, I find in this place that we defer a lot to the administrative state, and I have complained about this multiple times since the 42nd Parliament. I probably sound curmudgeonly at my age, but I will say that we legislate too much through regulation and allow the cabinet to set regulations. The state therefore gets to decide things, and civil servants in our departments have an incredible amount of leeway to set the rules. I do not know if that is the best we can do for Canadians in the House, and we could amend bills in a better way.

However, Bill C-9 would bring about new changes. There are 41 members on the council, which is headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and it is supposed to provide guidance and discipline to judges who fail. By my count, there were about eight cases, and one was being reviewed in Quebec, but I have not been able to catch up on the outcomes.

The proposed changes in Bill C-9 would affect federally appointed judges, who are the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada, the federal courts, the provincial and territorial superior trial courts and the provincial and territorial courts of appeal. This would not impact provincial justices in any manner, but it could set, perhaps, an example for them.

At the time this legislation was first proposed, which I think was in the Senate, it was called Bill S-5. That was dropped because an election was called. I will judge harshly the member for Papineau, the Prime Minister, for making that decision, because it was mostly an administrative exercise. It is also about priorities of the government. It kind of showcases what is important to the government and the types of legislation that it elects to have tabled before the House but also moved for debate. I will mention that it is on a Friday that we are debating this particular piece of legislation.

At the time that Bill S-5 was being debated, the position of victims ombudsman was still vacant. I do want to mention that the government finally appointed one. I think it was just a few weeks ago; I have the press release right here. It was Sept 27 when it appointed a federal ombudsman for victims of crime.

I will say that in a previous life, I worked for the Hon. Steven Blaney, who is not a member of Parliament now so I can say his name. He was a great mentor to me at the time. He hired me because my father happened to have been a shipyard worker in communist Poland and was a shipyard worker at the Sorel shipyards near Montreal. Thanks to the Sorel shipyards, he was able to stay in Canada. When the Sorel shipyards went on strike, my father was one of very few workers on the floor who voted against it. He is a contrarian and that is probably why he became a Conservative.

The bill for this ombudsman for victims of crime was one of the pieces of legislation that Steven Blaney worked on, and I worked on it as his legislative assistant at the time, trying to make it work. It is gratifying to see so many years later that the government has filled the position, although it was late and many victims' rights groups were saying that the position needed to be filled right away. There was a federal ombudsman, I believe, for federal offenders, and that position, when it became vacant, was filled immediately the day after it became vacant, again due to priorities. I would look to the Minister of Justice to ask why those were the priorities he set. Perhaps he will rise in the House to correct the record and tell me why that decision was made.

I have a Yiddish proverb, as I always do: What will become of the sheep if the wolf is the judge? It is about judicial behaviour and judgment. It sounds way better in Yiddish than it does in English, but no one wants to hear my Yiddish. I think the expectation from judges has changed over the last 50 years. I think it is unfair to judges to say that as soon as they make the smallest of mistakes or transgressions, the only solution is to fire them.

The proposals in the legislation, short of dismissal, are in proposed section 102 of the legislation:

If the review panel does not refer the complaint to the Council under section 101, it may dismiss the complaint or take one or more of the following actions if it considers it appropriate to do so in the circumstances:

In a previous life, as I have mentioned in the House a few times now, I used to work for a professional association for human resources. It was a voluntary professional association, and as part of it, I was a staff assistant to the disciplinary committee. We had an excellent chair who used to work for Syncrude. He was an excellent gentleman who really knew how the process should work. I think he had at the time a 25-year career in human resources and labour negotiations. He really knew his stuff.

What I am glad to see in this bill are things as simple as a public expression of concern from a supervisor to an employee so that everybody knows they transgressed but not to the level of being terminated. There is also a public warning and a public or private reprimand. Under proposed paragraph 102(d), we can “order the judge to apologize, either privately or publicly, by whatever means the panel considers appropriate in the circumstances”, and under proposed paragraph 102(e), we can “order the judge to take specific measures, including attending counselling or a continuing education course”. This one is oftentimes what professional associations do, and I think it is perfectly reasonable for us to introduce it into law.

I am going to segue into a previous private member's bill from a former member of Parliament whose name I can say in the House, the Hon. Rona Ambrose. I am sure she is happy in her retirement in Calgary.

As I said, that is oftentimes what professional associations do. When there is a shortcoming and a disciplinary hearing, often these disciplinary panels say that what was done is just an indication that judges need better training, better education or a refresher. Even at my age, I sometimes need a refresher on basic economics, Excel spreadsheets or even how Outlook works. I know the House has had trouble of late with its IT systems and we all had to reset our passwords. It is infuriating to have to do once someone forgets which password they are using at any one time. I see a bunch of members smiling who know it is true. It happens to all of us.

There are a lot of good ideas in proposed section 102 that would offer the public an opportunity to see judges go through what other professionals, such as engineers, nurses, doctors, surgeons, optometrists, chiropractors, human resources professionals and labour negotiators, go through with their professional associations. I think it is perfectly justified.

I want to draw everyone's attention to something interesting I found at the back end of the bill, which is that removal is justified under proposed section 119, “Removal justified”. It states, “If the full hearing panel determines, on a balance of probabilities, that the judge’s removal from office is justified, it shall make a decision to that effect.”

I would like to draw members' attention to the wording of “balance of probability” because it is not beyond a reasonable doubt. The final decision-making will be on a balance of probabilities, which is 50% plus one. Whether a reasonable person would believes this to be true is not the metric we are using. It is 50% plus one.

Could this happen and, without using the term “reasonable”, would a person looking at the facts of the case say, yes, this probably happened on the balance of probabilities? That is a lower threshold than what is used in the Criminal Code. It is actually a lower threshold in many civil cases involving large amounts of money. That should give the public some certainty that Bill C-9 is not a piece of legislation that seeks to protect judges, but simply seeks to update the system that governs how judges are disciplined, the oversight body, as I mentioned, and what the oversight body was going to be.

Proposed division 3, as I mentioned at the beginning, is the request concerning office-holders, the removal from office of those who are not judges but appointed by an act of Parliament. It goes into some detail. There are several sections that will govern their behaviour, such as leave of absence with salary, and orders and reports laid before Parliament. Usually those officers are the ones who would provide them to Parliament, and if those positions are not filled, who would physically provide us the reports, electronically in this case?

There are provisions for removal from office and establishment. The bill reads, “The Minister may request that the Council establish a full hearing” to review someone. The reasons for a removal would be:

(a) infirmity;

(b) misconduct;

(c) failure in the due execution of their office;

(d) the person has been placed in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of their office.

I raise that because it is timely and, back to the Yiddish proverb, what would happen to the sheep if judges are in wolf's clothing. I do not think the word “sheep” is being used necessarily in the derogatory sense here, because I would be one of them.

Those in power have a special responsibility to those over whom they have power. We are all servants of the people, servants of our ridings especially. That is what public service is supposed to be about. It is duty and sacrifice. The reason we call it “service” is because there is a portion of sacrifice in it. We know that our jobs and roles are not forever, and we are simply stewards for the next person.

This brings me to the RCMP commissioner and the Globe and Mail article that just made public yesterday an audio recording of a meeting she had. The RCMP commissioner has a special responsibility before parliamentarians to always tell the truth. At the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security many months ago, the RCMP commissioner said one thing, and this audio recording proves it was the complete and utter opposite. There is no other interpretation one could have.

My interpretation is that the commissioner lied before the parliamentary committee. That is a heavy word to use in the House, but I certainly believe it. That is the only way I can interpret that audio recording. If the audio recording is truthful, if it is an accurate reflection and has not been modified in any way, I do not believe there is any other way one could look at it, except to believe that she misled the members of that committee who are trying to get at the truth.

Parliamentary committees are like the House of Commons. They are the grand inquest of the nation. The reason that courts and judges have all these powers is because we delegate those powers to them. The House of Commons has all of those powers. Every parliamentary committee has the power to not only invite witnesses, but also summon witnesses. They can be told to take oaths to force them to tell the truth.

People cannot deny a committee of the House of Commons the truth by saying they will self-incriminate themselves. That is actually is an American concept that we do not have here in Canada. People must tell the truth the way they know it, even if it may be harmful to them. The House of Commons can offer that protection, like the courts do. They can provide measures for witnesses to give evidence and have their identities protected.

That very famously was done multiple times in the province of Quebec during the 1990s. I remember when the Sûreté du Québec and the government were pursuing organized crime, and very effectively I might add. Oftentimes they were extending protections for those who were coming forward with critical information but needed to be protected, and later on many of them made it into the witness protection program. I have actually met one person who was in the witness protection program, and her story of how she made it into the program and her experience therein was just incredible to listen to.

I did mention I would go back to just one point about judges and training especially. It was a former leader of the Conservative Party, the hon. Rona Ambrose, who introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-337, back in 2017. What I like about Bill C-9 is that some of those ideas are being embedded in here. At the time, that private member's bill passed here, and it went through the Senate on the second try, when Rona was not here anymore. It made it so judges needed to get specific sexual harassment and sexual assault training.

I have known people in my life who have been assaulted or sexually harassed, and it is incumbent upon judges to not use common stereotypes when judging these cases. We do expect more from them because they are in the public service. They are weighing facts and situations. What I like about this change in Bill C-9 is that a lot of the ideas embedded in Bill C-337 are now going to be made broader and available for all types of situations that might apply, where a judge could be told after a panel hearing that they should get more training.

The panel could say that a particular judge has erred in law, in a particular situation or maybe in dealing with a particularly difficult litigant, and they could say that they need some more training. It could be four, five or six courses or a half-day mediation, whatever that is, and I think that is perfectly reasonable. It is actually a good thing, and it will improve sexual assault trials. It will improve the system. It will improve outcomes for victims. It will make sure women are heard. That cannot be a bad thing. It is only a good thing, so I am pretty happy to see portions in there.

I know I am getting short on time, so I want to make sure I briefly go over the government's priorities now. Bill C-9 is a good piece of legislation. I am hoping when it gets to committee members will be able to do further reviews, and if any errors are caught in the bill that they can be corrected at committee. My experience has been that sometimes there are errors in legislation. The French and English sometimes do not quite match up, and sometimes there are new ideas that come forward when witnesses testify before the committee that things could be made better.

The Canadian Bar Association is supportive of this bill. It thinks it is fair and reasonable in terms of its process. What I want to talk about in my last few minutes is the government's priorities. The gun grab against lawful firearms owners is going to do nothing to stop the shootings in our cities. It is happening in Calgary, and it is happening in Vancouver, Surrey, Toronto, Montreal and Laval. We have had three police officers murdered in the line of duty just in the last 10 days. More needs to be done against organized crime. Lawful firearms owners are not the problem. A gun grab, where provinces now are refusing to set aside provincial resources to support the federal government's actions, should the blinking red light telling the government it has erred and is on the wrong track.

The Minister of Justice, over the last two Parliaments I have been here, has hybridized many offences. Some of them are heinous offences that should never be hybridized but eligible for a summary conviction, where someone could get fined or a couple of months in jail. It is not enough. The minister repeats that serious crimes will get serious time. I do not believe that, not based on his track record. That is not the case at all. Crime is up in our country. Violent crime has only been going up since 2015.

I think he still lives in Mahogany, but the president of the Calgary Police Association lives in my riding. There are many police officers who live in my riding. Policing is a difficult line of work to be in, just as it is a difficult line of work to be a judge. The Parliament of Canada, our legislators, should be supporting frontline officers by ensuring we put the criminals behind bars and keeping them there to keep the public safe.

I support Bill C-9. I welcome questions.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 16th, 2022 / 5:30 p.m.
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Conservative

John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, a bill that was originally introduced last year, and I may have referenced earlier that it was October 2021, but it was actually in December 2021.

I will begin, and I know he is not going to like this because he is sitting just over my right shoulder here, with some praise for our shadow minister for justice, the hon. member for Fundy Royal. Since his re-election in 2019, he has had to deal with pieces of legislation, government legislation, government fixes to legislation that have been beyond any expectation of what any opposition critic, or shadow minister, as we now call them to mirror what the parliament of Britain calls their shadow ministers. He has done incredible work holding the government to account, and it is a complicated file to be able to disseminate what all of these pieces of legislation are, how they impact Canadians, and how they impact the judicial process and the court process. He has done that honourably and with great conviction.

As we know, when we are dealing with these sorts of pieces of legislation, it is not just us, it is also policy advisors within our offices and legislative staff who comb through many of these pieces of legislation to try to make them better, to try to come up with legislation that is good for Canadians. I would argue that there is nothing more important when we deal with pieces of legislation than those dealing with our court system, those dealing with judges, those dealing with Criminal Code issues. I really want to thank our shadow minister for justice, the hon. member for Fundy Royal, for the work that he has done on many of these files.

It is difficult because, when we are dealing with pieces of legislation like what we are dealing with today, Bill C-9, we know it was introduced in December 2021. This is a bill that has obviously languished in the legislative process. We are now at second reading debate on the bill and these hours of debate today are the first for this piece of legislation, but it is piece of legislation that has received broad support right across the country. My expectation is that it will move through the legislative process rather quickly.

Some of that support has come, for example, from the Canadian Bar Association, which has expressed its support for the legislation. As I said earlier, it aims to change the judicial complaints process, which was first established 50 years ago. This is a piece of legislation that requires an update to reflect the realities of the current environment in this country. Bill C-9 proposes changes to the Judges Act to restructure the process for dealing with misconduct allegations against federally appointed judges.

In particular, the bill will amend the process through which the Canadian Judicial Council reviews the conduct of these judges in three significant ways. One, it will create a process for reviewing allegations not serious enough to warrant removal from office. Two, it will improve the process by which recommendations on removal are made to the Minister of Justice. Three, it will ensure that the determination of pensionable service for judges ultimately removed from office reflects the actual time of service and excludes the time for review.

As I said earlier, the Canadian Bar Association is clearly in support of this, and I expect that, when it gets through second reading and eventually ends up at committee, we are going to hear from the Canadian Bar Association. We will hear from other stakeholders as well, showing their strong support for review of a piece of legislation that has not been updated over the course of the last 50 years, so it is about time.

One of the most important things about this place is that we have those voices of Canadians. There are 338 members in this place who are elected to express the views of their constituents. Those are important views, and these type of debates become increasingly important in a polarized society, so we can reflect on what the pieces of legislation can do and make these pieces of legislation better. I expect, at committee, the strong voices of those stakeholders and advocates who are for the bill or against the bill will perhaps come together and really reinforce or make this piece of legislation that much stronger.

This is not the first iteration of what we have seen. The bill was originally introduced in the Senate as Bill S-5 on May 25, 2021. I went through the criteria of what the bill actually does fix, but again, like every other piece of legislation that was introduced, not only here in the House, but also in the Senate, before September of last year, this bill fell off of the Order Paper.

If we look through some of the issues with the bill, one of the things that it focuses on is the issue of process reform and consultations as well. Bill C-9 follows the 2016 federal government's public consultations on potential reforms to the federal judicial discipline process. Within the consultation report, the judicial discipline proceedings had been marked by significant increases in costs and delays, and reforms were necessary to ensure that the process was cost effective, efficient and transparent, and to preserve public confidence in the judicial system.

Under the current system of CJC, interim or final decisions can be challenged through three layers of judicial review. One is the Federal Court, the other is the Federal Court of Appeal. There is also, with leave, the Supreme Court of Canada. As a result, the judicial conduct inquiries can be subject to multiple, drawn-out legal challenges that can take years to resolve.

I mentioned the judicial conduct and review process, but there are several other key points in this legislation. It also addresses complaints. Under both existing and new processes, anyone may submit a complaint about a judge's conduct to the CJC. Under this new process, the CJC may make a complaint only when there are at least two of its members who have reasonable grounds to believe that the public's confidence in the judge's impartiality, integrity or independence, which is critical as we know, could be undermined for any of the reasons stipulated in proposed paragraphs 80(a) through (d). An anonymous complaint, for example, would face the same threshold test as a complaint made by the CJC.

The other aspect of this bill is that it proposes a screening officer be added to the existing process. The CJC's executive director screens complaints and may dismiss those that are clearly without merit, do not involve a judge's conduct or are not in the public interest. Under the new process, the CJC designates a screening officer, who may be a judge, to conduct an initial assessment. This is proposed section 88 in the bill. Complaints may be dismissed if they are clearly without merit, are not related to one of the reasons listed in new section 80 or do not meet other screening criteria that may be established and published by the CJC under proposed section 90.

A reviewing member, as in the existing system, and this is another important piece of the new process, holds the complaints that are not dismissed after being screened by a member of the CJC. That is in proposed section 91. The judge whose conduct is the subject of the complaint may make written submissions at this stage under proposed section 93.

There are more aspects of this bill that are important, but after 50 years, it is time for an update to this review system. I am glad that we are here today debating it in our House of Parliament, and I will be glad to answer any questions that anybody might have.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 16th, 2022 / 5 p.m.
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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise here today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Nation. Meegwetch.

I really had hoped to be allowed to ask the member for South Surrey—White Rock a question, and I will tell members why, because I think they might enjoy this.

The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock mentioned that she used to practise law, and I used to practise law. However, the member was actually part of the governing party when we were both first elected in 2011 when she helped me with a family law case. I just wanted to put that out there.

One of my constituents had a grandchild pretty much kidnapped by a non-custodial father who took the toddler to New Hampshire. I was going crazy, as were the mother and other members of the family, trying to figure out how to get the baby back. Speaking of judges I do not like, I would mention the family court judge in New Hampshire who thought that a court order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia for full custody of the little girl was something out of a Cracker Jack box that the judge was free to ignore. It was quite the case. The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock gave me some very good advice, which helped me get the baby back. She is now 16 and living with her proper family, and so it all came out quite well.

I want to talk about Bill C-9, which would reform the Canadian Judicial Council.

As I was speaking of a U.S. judge, it reminded me of this whole experience when I was at Dalhousie law school. We had one professor who challenged us on a case one day. We spent hours trying to figure out the rationale for the judge's decision. It made no sense to us. Obviously, the judge had ruled it, and so we had to figure out the legal reasoning, because there must be legal reasoning. It was a contract case and it made no sense. After about an hour of us tearing our hair out and putting forward solutions, our professor asked, “Is it permissible to ask if the judge was bribed?” The judge was, which is why the decision made no sense, and he was thrown off the bench for it.

This was an episode for us in real-life judicial reasoning. Sometimes the judge is bribed. Now, I do not know if this has happened in Canada, but it might happen sometime, and this is why we need a judicial review process. This particular process has been in place since 1971, and there are good and real reasons that it needs to be fixed.

There is another real-life case that I found explanatory. For the general public who may be watching this debate today, it has been a little dry, so I figured I would give a real-life example, which some members may know.

The judge is from the Quebec Superior Court, Michel Girouard who, I think 13 days before being elevated to a being a judge, was caught on video buying cocaine. This is similar to a Netflix true-crime story. Judge Girouard was challenged in 2010 when there was a complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council.

It is pretty clear that when a judge is caught on video buying cocaine from one of his clients who was then before the courts that we really do not want that particular gentleman on the court. If we want to talk about something that brings the justice system into disrepute, that would be it.

The case started in 2012 and did not end until 2021, when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Judge Girouard's appeal. At that point, he had managed to use every possible legal avenue to fight the finding that he was not qualified to be a member of the judiciary. He fought it, and for those of us who are trained in law can imagine, there are many ways to be creative and litigious, and this gentleman was very litigious. Not only that, under the previous law that we had, the people of the province, the taxpayers, had to pay all of his legal fees, because he was a judge and it was under the judicial complaints process.

I will point out one thing that Bill C-9 would do. We obviously learned a lot from that experience, and we do not want to have someone who is challenged dead to right who should not be a member of the bench, able to keep exploiting every possible appeal and then charge the taxpayer for the legal fees. Also, there should be a way of limiting how many accesses to judicial review through the federal courts someone in this situation should have.

Bill C-9 would do something quite straightforward that I have not mentioned yet today. If a judge going through this process wants to find ways to appeal, they are all in Bill C-9. The only court that a judge who is being challenged in this way can get to is the Supreme Court of Canada, at the very end of the process. The judge cannot keep finding a judge somewhere to hear some aspect of a complaint the judge is fighting.

Just to make it clear, under this legislation, there would be complaints, a screening officer, a reviewing member, and they can create certain kinds of review panels and hearing panels together, but they are not clogging up the regular court system. The judge that is the subject of the complaint is precluded from going to any other court, but at the very end, has the right to an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The law also gets rid of the idea that the people have to pay for the legal costs of a judge. The opportunity to appeal to the courts under the new process, proposed section 158 of Bill C-9, specifically bars any legal challenges or other forms of judicial review. This is a very helpful change.

Everything about the way the bill has been constructed has been the subject of a great deal of consultation due to cases, and there have not been a lot of cases. Let us face it, in the 40 years since the Canadian Judicial Council was created, as far as I could find, and it was the same figure that the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke used, which means it is probably right, was that there were only 14 reviews in the last 40 years. This speaks to a very high level of ethics and integrity within our judiciary.

However, if someone does have a problem, there are very large stakes in getting this right. We do not want frivolous complaints from, for instance, people who have lost cases in front a judge and that disaffected previous litigant having the right to make a judge's life hell, to pursue them and subject them, in social media or wherever, to unfair charges. The judge subject to a complaint clearly has rights and has to be treated fairly. That side of getting the balance right is well reflected in Bill C-9.

The other aspect is we do not want public confidence in our justice system to be shaken by having someone serving as a judge who clearly does not meet the standards of ethical conduct, the way it is expressed in this new bill. The ones that used to be there are infirmity, misconduct, failure of due execution and, this is the new one that is relatively traditional, the judge is in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.

In the time remaining, I want to mention that all of us here should think about the benefits of this new approach. The system we are currently under really has a binary choice: The judge is off the bench or the judge is on the bench. This new system says that maybe the judge needs some training, some counselling or a warning. There is a different approach here, again something short of the kind of misconduct that says the judge must leave the bench altogether, that allows for help.

One can imagine these are stressful positions. Mental health issues affect everyone in every profession, so there could be conduct that is questionable, but, on the other hand, overall the person is a good judge. Bill C-9 would allow that judge in that circumstance to be treated fairly, but it also protects the public and the taxpayer from judges who would do absolutely anything to stay on the bench, even if, as in the case I cited, they have been caught on video buying cocaine.

With that, I hope we can expedite the passage of this bill. It has been around even longer than some members have mentioned, because it was Bill S-5 in the last Parliament in the Senate and died on the Order Paper when the last election was called. Let us get this bill passed.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 16th, 2022 / 4:30 p.m.
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Conservative

Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC

Mr. Speaker, like some others in the House and like my colleague who was just speaking, I am a lawyer, and the practice of law has been a large part of my life. My son and two of my daughters followed me into the legal profession, and it is a source of pride to me as they pursue their professional careers.

I continue to be grateful to have been appointed a Queen’s Counsel some 23 years ago, and to have been elected president of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association the year previous. I have a deep appreciation and passion for the law and its unbiased application.

In the plainest of terms, Bill C-9 amends the Judges Act to replace the process through which the conduct of federally appointed judges is reviewed by the Canadian Judicial Council. It establishes a new streamlined process for reviewing allegations of misconduct that do not reach the threshold for a judge’s removal from office, and the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made to the Minister of Justice.

These provisions also apply to persons other than judges who are appointed under an act of Parliament to hold office during good behaviour. This bill was previously tabled in the Senate as Bill S-5 on May 25, 2021. The legislation before us is the result of consultations conducted by the federal government in 2016 on reforming this process. That is six years ago.

It is incredibly important that the judicial system be just and fair, holding accountable those who are both behind and in front of the bench. Increasing public confidence in the judicial system, while ensuring the independence of the judiciary, is necessary for the foundations of our justice system to continue to function as intended.

Many will recall that in response to comments from Justice Robin Camp at a sexual assault trial in 2014, former interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose introduced a bill to require seminars on sexual assault be taken by federally appointed justices

At the time, the Alberta Court of Appeal panel ruled that Justice Camp seemed not to understand laws on consent and an alleged rape victim’s sexual activity, and that his acquittal of the man may have been coloured by “sexual stereotypes and stereotypical myths, which have long since been discredited.” Justice Camp’s ruling was thrown out and a new trial date set. Justice Camp went on to resign from the bench in 2017, after the Canadian Judicial Council ruled he should be removed from office.

Before this case, there were volumes of case law and newspaper columns about jurists who misapprehended sexual consent or post-assault behaviour, who then went on to preside in court and rule again on other such cases.

An earlier version of the bill received royal assent on May 6, 2021. This bill can be viewed as an attempt to increase confidence in the judicial system, which had been shaken by the words and actions of Justice Camp and others.

Fairly representing victims' rights is an integral aspect of the proper functioning of the judicial system. One important aspect of the court process is the submission of victim impact statements: written statements from a victim or victims that describe the physical or emotional harm, property damage or economic loss that the victim of an offence has suffered. Our courts take these statements into account when an offender is sentenced. This gives victims of crime a voice in the criminal justice system.

The government has not been prioritizing victims' rights, and it is failing Canadians and the integrity of our judicial system as a result. Inexcusably, the role of the federal ombudsman for victims of crime has been vacant since October 1, 2021, with the justice minister’s office saying it will be filled “in due course.”

The ombudsperson has a critical role in highlighting and reviewing systemic issues that negatively affect victims and emerging issues. This vacancy is simply unacceptable, and sends a message to survivors and Canadians alike that they will not necessarily be represented fairly in the justice system. Adding to concerns that victims of crime are not being heard is Parliament’s failure to complete a review of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights. The review was supposed to happen in 2020.

Canadians’ perspective of the judicial system reflects, in part, these failures. According to the Justice Canada studies, regardless of whether their cases did or did not go to trial, participants were asked to rate their level of confidence in the police, the court process and the criminal justice system in general.

Few stated that they were very confident. Indeed, approximately two-thirds of the responders stated that they were not confident in the administration of justice in general. This data is not coincidental. It is imperative that our judiciary system continues to adapt to effectively represent Canadians fairly.

A Department of Justice report stated that:

For the 2016/2017 fiscal year, 42% of all sexual assault case decisions (levels 1, 2, and 3) in adult criminal court resulted in a finding of guilt.

According to StatsCan, statistical evidence classified 14% of level 1 sexual assault incidents as unfounded in 2017. In comparison, the more serious levels of sexual and physical assault were classified as unfounded in only 9% of level 3 sexual assaults, 7% of level 2 sexual assaults, 3% of level 2 physical assaults and 1% of level 3 physical assaults. Why is there a difference?

This bill would modify the existing judicial review process and allow for sanctions such as counselling, continuing education and reprimands. Improvements in the administration of justice will result.

The bill states that the reasons a judge could be removed from office include:

(a) infirmity; (b) misconduct; (c) failure in the due execution of judicial office; (d) the judge is in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.

In the case of a complaint that alleges sexual harassment or discrimination, it would not be dismissed. The full screening criteria would be published by the Canadian Judicial Council. The minister and Attorney General may request that the Canadian Judicial Council establish a full hearing panel to determine whether the removal of a judge from the office of a superior court is justified.

The council would submit a report within three months after the end of each calendar year with respect to the number of complaints received and actions taken. This is a prudent measure that would ensure transparency and accountability from a senior group of jurists exercising quasi-constitutional duties.

Such provisions in this bill would enhance and strengthen the Canadian legal system as a whole. As a former parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice, I welcome this legislation. Bill C-9 is a move in the right direction. It is not the end of the journey, but the start of the journey.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 16th, 2022 / 11:50 a.m.
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NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Madam Speaker, I will turn to the substance of Bill C-9 in a moment, but first I want to talk about how we got here, a process that for me illustrates disarray on the government's side in this 44th Parliament. Some days it still seems almost as if the Liberals really did not expect to have to govern after the last election.

Certainly, the bill was essentially ready to go well before the pandemic hit. For unknown reasons, the government decided to have it introduced in the Senate on May 25, 2020, as Bill S-5, and it died there when the unnecessary 2021 election was called. Then it was reintroduced by the government leader in the Senate as Bill S-3 on December 1, 2021. After a dispute over whether the bill could actually be introduced in the Senate as it would require a royal recommendation to allow expenditures by the Judicial Council under the bill, the bill was withdrawn from the Senate on December 15, 2021, and reintroduced as a government bill, Bill C-9, in the House on December 16, 2021, if members can follow that bouncing ball.

Despite the disarray on the government side, the bill still seemed to be a priority for the Liberal government as it was included in the December 2021 mandate letter for the Minister of Justice. There, the Prime Minister directed that the Minister of Justice, “Secure support for the swift passage of reforms to the judicial conduct process in the Judges Act to ensure the process is fair, effective and efficient so as to foster greater confidence in the judicial system.”

That's fair enough, and no doubt there is important work for us to do on improving the process by which complaints against federal judges are handled. However, here we come to the question of priorities of the Liberals and their effectiveness when it comes to addressing, in a timely manner, the pressing crises in our justice system and, of course, the question of the persistent obstructionism of the Conservatives, as the official opposition, in this sitting of Parliament.

While I remain disappointed that the government chose to ensure the defeat of private member's Bill C-216 from the member for Courtenay—Alberni, which would have decriminalized personal possession of small amounts of drugs, we have made some progress on the opioid crisis. Pushed into action by the impending vote on the private member's bill, the Liberals, after months of delay, finally granted an interim exemption to the provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for British Columbia, in effect decriminalizing personal possession for small amounts of drugs for the next three years.

That's a good thing, yes, but it only raises the question of why wait another six months. This delay seems likely to ensure that 2022 will eclipse the appalling record set in 2021 in British Columbia for the greatest number of overdose deaths in B.C. Also, why only British Columbia? The epidemic of deaths from toxic drug supply continues unabated across the country and in all corners of the country, both urban and rural. Passing Bill C-216 would have allowed us to begin to apply the tools we know that work right now: decriminalizing the personal possession of small amounts of drugs and guaranteeing a safe supply of drugs for those suffering from addictions. Bill C-216 would have brought a permanent change to the law to guarantee that addiction is dealt with as a health matter and not a criminal matter.

The crisis that demands urgent action is, of course, systemic racism in our criminal justice system. The most prominent evidence of the reality of this crisis is the over-incarceration of indigenous and Black Canadians in this country. All members by now are familiar with the shocking facts that indigenous people are more than six times as likely as other Canadians to end up incarcerated and that Black Canadians are more than twice as likely. Most shocking I think to all of us is the fact that indigenous women make up 50% of women incarcerated in federal institutions when they are less than 5% of the population.

Of course, injustice does not end with incarceration, as there is the legacy of the resulting criminal record. Not only have indigenous and racialized Canadians been disproportionately targeted for investigation, prosecution, fining or imprisonment, the most marginalized among us then end up stuck with criminal records. These are criminal records that make getting a job almost impossible, criminal records that often restrict access to affordable housing or even ordinary rental housing because of criminal record checks, criminal records that make volunteering with kids and seniors impossible, criminal records that restrict travel and criminal records that even make it difficult to get a bank loan or a mortgage.

The good news is that we have taken some steps to address the systemic racism in our court system with the passage of Bill C-5 yesterday. As soon as the Senate acts, we will see the elimination of 20 mandatory minimum penalties, most importantly those in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which fell very heavily on indigenous and racialized Canadians and have been a major contributor to over-incarceration.

Again, we would have liked to see bolder action here with the expansion of the existing Gladue principles to give judges discretion to waive all remaining mandatory minimums when it would be unjust to impose them on indigenous or racialized Canadians due to their circumstances. Unfortunately, this was not in the bill. One may ask why I am going on so long about this. It is judges' discretion that will make a big difference, so people have to have confidence in the judiciary.

Despite the public image that we never co-operate in Parliament, we had good co-operation in the justice committee. That co-operation allowed the passage of my amendment to Bill C-5, which will see the elimination of criminal records for personal possession of drugs within two years through a process called sequestration. What this means in practice is that these records will no longer show up in criminal record checks.

Today, we are moving on to debate Bill C-9 and finally, some members may say, I am coming to the substance of this bill. This is a bill to reform the process for handling complaints against federal judges. As I said, it is important in our system to maintain public confidence in those judges. Is this a crisis? Clearly it is not. Is it as urgent as decriminalizing drugs or removing systemic racism in our justice system? Clearly it is not. Is this as important? I would argue that in fact it is, because trust in the integrity of our justice system is integral to the fate of our democracy, especially in these trying times. We have to have faith in the integrity of the justice system and that means in the judges themselves, so we have to do better when it comes to holding the judiciary accountable, but we have to do so in ways that respect their fundamental independence and protect the system against government and political interference.

Bill C-9 suggests ways in which we can do this and, as I mentioned at the outset, measures have been ready to go on this for a very long time. Can we do better on holding judges accountable? Yes, we can, but it took well over two years for the government to get this bill before the House today and many of the ideas in it were first proposed in Canadian Bar Association reports as early as 2014. Some appeared in private members' bills tabled in the House as early as 2017, so it is past time to get to work on this bill.

Let me distinguish just for a moment what we are actually talking about. We are not talking about mistakes in law that occur from time to time in the federal courts. There is a clear remedy for these kinds of mistakes, and it is the appeal process. Instead, we are talking about the failure of federally appointed judges to meet the high standards that have been set for them and that we naturally should demand of them. That is either when it comes to personal conduct or to maintaining impartiality on the bench.

I should say from the outset that the Canadian record is remarkably good when it comes to cases of serious misconduct warranting removal from the bench. In the history of Canada, the Canadian Judicial Council has recommended removal for only five federally appointed judges. Four of those resigned before Parliament could deal with their cases, and the fifth before Parliament could act on the case. Whether these judges resigned before being removed solely to protect their pensions, which has been alleged, or simply to avoid the stigma of being the first federal judge ever removed by Parliament, I leave for others to judge.

Leaving the process in the hands of judges themselves is probably necessary, as this is both a key and crucial feature of our current system. It is the one that guarantees governments cannot influence the decisions of judges by threatening to remove them from office. Complaints about federally appointed judges are handled by the Canadian Judicial Council, which is made up of the 41 chief justices and associate chief justices of federally appointed courts.

The Canadian Judicial Council is chaired by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, who appoints a committee to examine complaints. If a complaint is initially found to have merit, a three-judge panel examines the complaint and either decides to dismiss it, to recommend no further action because the misconduct does not warrant removal from the bench, or to hold a public inquiry. Again, this is relatively rare, with only 14 inquiries held over the past 40 years.

If there was an inquiry, the committee would then forward its findings to the full Judicial Council, along with a recommendation on the possible removal. If removal is recommended, the judge has the right to appeal to an appeals panel and, if needed, further appeal beyond that. The Supreme Court of Canada can choose to hear the appeal directly, but the current process is that the case would be heard at the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada could hear the case. This seems unnecessarily complicated and provoking of unnecessary delay. Bill C-9 would address the problem, but while the current system does work in the most serious cases of judicial behaviour, the process is long and drawn out.

Bill C-9 would also address the major gap in the current process, which is that it has proved largely ineffective in dealing with cases of misbehaviour that would not be serious enough to warrant removal from the bench. This is the fact: There is only one possible remedy in the current process, which is removal from the bench. Serious misbehaviour, though rare, is not hard to spot as it always involves law-breaking by the judge concerned or outright corruption.

Less serious complaints about misbehaviour are almost always about the question of impartiality. What would an example be of this less serious misbehaviour? A case in Saskatchewan in 2021 is a case in point. Five complaints were received about a judge who appeared in pictures with a group indirectly connected to a case on which, though he had finished hearings, he had not yet delivered judgment.

The judge in this case agreed this was a serious error on his part and that it could reflect negatively on perceptions about his impartiality in the case before him. The complaints did not proceed, as almost no one thought the judge should be removed and he had promised it would never happen again. Under the current provisions, no action could have been taken, if the judge had disputed the allegations, other than to recommend his removal from the bench for appearing in a photograph.

Bill C-9 would allow for additional remedial options other than the current sole option of recommending removal. The bill proposes the referral of complaints to a three-judge review panel, which might find removal to be warranted, and then the review panel could refer the complaint to a larger five-judge hearing panel. At the review stage, however, the review panel could still dismiss the complaint or impose remedies other than removal.

What would Canadians get out of these changes? Most importantly, they would get confidence in the judiciary that would be better maintained by having a process that was both more timely and could deal more effectively with less serious complaints. This should help prevent the judicial system from falling into disrepute and help preserve the very important trust in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Bill C-9 might actually save some taxpayer money on cases involving allegations of misconduct by federal judges, as the current process can stretch out for years. Cases involving serious misconduct now often take up to four years to resolve. Bill C-9 would expedite that process by removing the two levels of court appeals that I mentioned.

At the same time, there also may be an increase in costs for dealing with less serious allegations as there would be more options available that are currently dismissed early in the process. The benefit here is that less serious cases would no longer simply be dismissed, and instead sanctions for remedies would be possible.

In the end, and after hearing debate today, I believe Bill C-9 should prove to be relatively uncontentious. The Canadian Bar Association was part of the consultations that were held by the judicial council when Senate Bill S-5 was being drafted in the previous Parliament. There was a broader consultation that dealt with measures to clarify expectations on what constitutes “good behaviour” for federal judges that are largely set in regulations. Bill C-9 simply reforms the process for dealing with judges who fail to meet those standards.

Bill C-9 would also require more transparency with regard to how complaints are handled. The Canadian Judicial Council is responsible for administering this process, and Bill C-9 would require the council to include the number of complaints it received and how they were resolved in its annual public report.

In conclusion, New Democrats support modernizing the process for complaints against federally appointed judges, and we support adding alternative remedial options behind the current sole option of removal from the bench. The bill would allow for varied sanctions such as counselling, continuing education and other reprimands. New Democrats are supportive of streamlining and updating the process to handle complaints against federally appointed judges. This process has not been updated for 50 years. It is time for a modern complaint system for a modernized judiciary, and one that will help increase public confidence in federal judges.

The bill provides an opportunity for parties to work together to get an important reform in place, as it is yet another example of things that did not get done earlier because of the unnecessary 2021 election. We should get this done so that we can then turn our attention back to tackling the serious issues in our justice system that remain, and to confronting the opioid crisis that is better dealt with as a health matter than a judicial matter. I hope to see Bill C-9 advance quickly through the House and in the other place.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 16th, 2022 / 11:35 a.m.
See context

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand this morning to discuss Bill C-9.

While I was reading the bill, I had a bit of déjà vu. I remember driving on the 417 in the spring while listening to the speeches in the House on Bill S-5, which was sponsored by Senator Dalphond, for whom I have tremendous respect. I still call him “Your Honour”.

I know that Bill S‑5 died on the Order Paper because of the election. The fact that I was supposed to discuss Bill C‑9 in the spring but did not get a chance to shows that we may be a bit behind on the legislative agenda. That is the only criticism I will offer today. As for the rest, I am highly satisfied at least with the spirit of the bill we are studying, as is the Canadian Judicial Council, which strongly supports it.

We are talking about it today. One of the pillars or cornerstones of the bill is the importance of the separation of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches. This has been the case since 1971, when the Canadian Judicial Council was created and made responsible for reviewing complaints. This is maintained in Bill C-9.

To ensure the separation of powers, the ability to remove judges is also maintained, as originally provided for in section 99(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867, which states that “the judges of the superior courts shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons”.

If we relied specifically on this principle, it might appear as though the legislative branch and the executive branch, meaning us here in Parliament, had power over the removal of judges. However, since 1971, the complaint review process has been the responsibility of the Canadian Judicial Council, which must issue recommendations to the Minister of Justice in order for the removal to take place. This complaint review process has been around for over 50 years.

With respect to what has been done since 1971, the improvements in Bill C‑9 meet certain needs. In this case, better is not the enemy of good. We tend to think that if something is working reasonably well, we should not necessarily seek perfection. I think that this used to apply in this case.

There are three essential issues that the bill resolves. The first is that the current process is extremely long. Given the numerous opportunities to file for appeals and judicial reviews during the process, it can take a very long time to review a complaint. My colleagues mentioned that. Unfortunately, we saw proof of this with a Superior Court judge whose name I will not mention, but whose review process lasted from 2012 to 2021. If I remember correctly, the decision was handed down in 2021.

As my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord mentioned, the problem is that, during that whole time, the judge continues to receive their salary and benefits and contribute to their pension. That in itself can be an incentive to come up with endless stalling tactics and draw the process out in order to keep the financial benefits.

This bill makes certain changes. In particular, it modifies the process to include the creation of an appeal panel, the final body before the Supreme Court to which a judge who is at fault can apply. This eliminates the need to go through the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal to reach the Supreme Court, assuming it even agrees to hear the appeal. The bill streamlines the process.

As my colleagues mentioned, under the current version of the act, judges still receive their salary and benefits. Clause 126(1) of the new act remedies that situation. It states, and I quote:

For the purposes of calculating an annuity under Part I, if a full hearing panel decides that the removal from office of a judge who is the subject of a complaint is justified, the day after the day on which the judge is given notice of the full hearing panel’s decision is the day to be used to determine the number of years the judge has been in judicial office and the salary annexed to the office held by the judge at the time of his or her resignation, removal or attaining the age of retirement unless (a) the decision is set aside by a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, or by the decision of an appeal panel if the appeal panel’s decision is final; (b) the Minister’s response under subsection 140(1) provides that no action is to be taken to remove the judge from office; or (c) the matter of removal of the judge from office is put to one or both Houses of Parliament and is rejected by either of them.

As a result, a judge who is found to be at fault will not receive a salary during that period.

Another problem with the previous version of the bill was that there were no half-measures for lesser offences, so to speak. It was all black or white. The panel's only options were to issue a recommendation for removal or to not issue one. The only middle ground involved negotiating some sort of disciplinary action with the judge on a case-by-case basis. However, judges were quite free to say that they did not want any part in that process because it was not mandatory.

This bill remedies that situation. As soon as a complaint, which can be based on written submissions to the panel, has been examined, the panel can impose redress measures in cases where the reason for the complaint does not constitute grounds for removal.

The review panel can order the judge, for example, to take professional development courses or require him to apologize. In some cases, this can help more effectively remedy a situation when the judge is open to having certain sanctions apply. This may be sufficient, in certain cases, to avoid continuing with a full complaint process and public hearing, which could be long and expensive.

One of the options in the new bill is for the council to issue a private or public expression of concern. There is a certain transparency in the process. The council can issue a private or public warning, a private or public reprimand or order the judge to apologize. As I mentioned in my question to the member for Fundy Royal, the only thing that is a little unusual is one of the measures in clause 102, as follows:

(g) with the consent of the judge, take any other action that the panel considers appropriate in the circumstances.

Perhaps there are questions that should be asked when the bill is referred to a committee for study after second reading, if it gets to that stage, which should not be a problem. For example, why is the judge's consent required? Why do the victims have no say in choosing the sanction to be applied for an offence that is less serious than one that might lead to removal from office?

Another thing the bill deals with is how onerous the process is. Previously, the Canadian Judicial Council itself had to make a recommendation to the minister to have a judge removed. The way it was set up, there was one panel that reviewed the case and another panel that, if it received the complaint, had to pass it on to the Canadian Judicial Council itself. The whole thing involved about 17 chief justices or associate chief justices from courts that were not already part of the process. It diverted energy from solving other problems in the courts, and the process did not necessarily help ensure procedural fairness for judges. This bill fixes that. The review panel itself will now be able to make a recommendation to the minister to relieve a judge of her or his duties. This kind of short-circuits a process that was not necessary and did not guarantee procedural fairness.

All these factors significantly improve the process. However, as my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord explained, this is not the only way to improve people's perception that the justice system is impartial and create a clear separation between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

I think we also need to look at updating the judicial appointment process. The Bloc Québécois has called for this numerous times by suggesting things like creating a special all-party committee tasked with recommending a new selection process. I have not lost hope. Like my colleague, I believe that human nature is fundamentally good and is capable of doing good things, although I too am sometimes disappointed. Still, I am always willing to work with anyone who is equally willing, and I encourage the government to introduce a bill to review the appointment process.

Judges ActGovernment Orders

June 16th, 2022 / 10:55 a.m.
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Conservative

Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB

Madam Speaker, as we approach the final sitting days of the House before it rises, this is likely my last opportunity to speak before we all return to our ridings for the summer months. In light of this, I would like to start off my remarks today by acknowledging the great people of my riding of Fundy Royal, whom I am honoured to represent here in this 44th Parliament.

On the topic at hand, we are here today to discuss Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act. I will begin by going over a bit of a summary of the bill.

The legislation would amend the Judges Act to replace the process through which the conduct of federally appointed judges is reviewed by the Canadian Judicial Council. It would establish a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct that are not serious enough to warrant a judge’s removal from office and would make changes to the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made to the Minister of Justice. As with the provisions it replaces, this new process would also apply to persons, other than judges, who are appointed under an act of Parliament to hold office during good behaviour.

In short, the objective of the legislation is to update the Judges Act to strengthen the judicial complaints process. The existing process was established in 1971, so it is due for a refresh. We can all agree that strengthening and increasing confidence in the judicial system, and taking action to better respond to complaints that it may receive from Canadians, are good things. Canadians are really depending on this Parliament to strengthen our judicial system.

As it stands, the judicial system in Canada has been weakened by COVID delays and a lack of resources for victims in particular, like, as I have mentioned, the vacant victims ombudsman position. There really is no excuse today for that when we see so many stories ripped from the headlines that impact Canadian victims. We also see legislation like the bill the parliamentary secretary just mentioned, Bill C-5. The victims we have talked to, whom we have seen and heard from at committee, are concerned about that bill and its predecessor bill, Bill C-22. The victims ombudsman had a lot to say about it.

I would love the benefit of hearing from a victims ombudsman, except we do not have one. We were supposed to have that position filled back in October, so for many, many months it has been vacant. That is completely unacceptable, not only for victims and their families but also for all Canadians. I should note that when the position of the federal ombudsman for federal offenders in our federal prison system became vacant, it was filled the next day. We can see where the government's priorities are.

Bill C-9 was originally introduced in the Senate as Bill S-5 on May 25, 2021. The previous version of the bill did not complete second reading. We heard commentary across the way about delays, with some asking why we are talking about delays. Why was that bill not passed? Well, the Prime Minister called his snap pandemic election in August 2021. That is what happened with that version of the bill.

The bill was reintroduced in the Senate last year as Bill S-3, but the government had an apparent change of heart, dropping Bill S-3 from the Senate Order Paper in December of 2021 and introducing that bill in the House of Commons as Bill C-9. That is where it has languished for months until today, just days before we go into our summer recess.

The bill would modify the existing judicial review process by establishing a process for complaints serious enough to warrant removal from office, and another process for offences that would warrant sanctions other than removal, such as counselling, continuing education and reprimands. Currently, if misconduct is less serious, a single member of the Canadian Judicial Council who conducts the initial review may negotiate with a judge for an appropriate remedy.

It may be helpful at this point to provide a bit of background on the Canadian Judicial Council, what it does and who its members are.

Established by Parliament in 1971, the Canadian Judicial Council is mandated to “promote the efficiency, uniformity, and to improve the quality of judicial services in all superior courts in Canada.” Through this mandate, the Canadian Judicial Council presides over the judicial complaints process.

The Canadian Judicial Council is made up of 41 members and is led by the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Hon. Richard Wagner, who is chairperson of the council. The membership is made up of chief justices and associate chief justices of the Canadian provincial and federal superior courts. The goal of the members is to improve consistency in the administration of justice before the courts and the quality of services in Canada's superior courts.

Returning back to the bill itself, the reasons a judge could be removed from office are laid out. These include infirmity, misconduct, failure in the due execution of judicial office and “the judge [being] in a position that a reasonable, fairminded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.” A screening officer can dismiss complaints should they seem frivolous or improper, rather than referring to them to the review panel. A complaint that alleges sexual harassment or discrimination may not be dismissed. The full screening criteria will be published by the Canadian Judicial Council.

The minister or Attorney General may themselves request the Canadian Judicial Council establish a full hearing panel to determine whether the removal from the office of a superior court judge is justified. The Canadian Judicial Council is to submit a report within three months after the end of each calendar year with respect to the number of complaints received and the actions taken. The intention of this bill, as stated by the government, is to streamline the process for more serious complaints for which removal from the bench could be an outcome.

As I mentioned earlier, these amendments would also address the current shortcomings of the process by imposing mandatory sanctions on a judge when a complaint of misconduct is found to be justified but not to be serious enough to warrant removal from office. Again, such sanctions could include counselling, continuing education and reprimands. In the name of transparency, this legislation would require that the Canadian Judicial Council include the number of complaints received and how they were resolved in its annual public report.

To clarify, the Canadian Judicial Council’s process applies only to federally appointed judges, which are the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and the federal courts, the provincial and territorial superior trial courts and the provincial and territorial courts of appeal. The provinces and territories are responsible for reviewing the conduct of the judges at the provincial-territorial trial court level, who are also provincially appointed.

Since its inception in 1971, the Canadian Judicial Council has completed inquiries into eight complaints considered serious enough that they could warrant a judge's removal from the bench. Four of them, in fact, did result in recommendations for removal. A ninth inquiry is under way, but has faced delays due to public health restrictions imposed by the Province of Quebec, such as curfew and indoor capacity limits.

Under the proposed new process laid out in Bill C-9, the Canadian Judicial Council would continue to preside over the judicial complaints process, which would start with a three-person review panel deciding to either investigate a complaint of misconduct or, if the complaint is serious enough that it might warrant removal from the bench, refer it to a separate five-person hearing panel. If appropriate, a three-person review panel made up of a Canadian Judicial Council member, a judge and a layperson could impose such sanctions as public apologies or courses of continuing education. If warranted, a five-person hearing panel made up of two Canadian Judicial Council members, a judge, a lawyer and a layperson could, after holding a public hearing, recommend removal from the bench to the Minister of Justice.

Judges who face removal from the bench would have access to an appeal panel made up of three Canadian Judicial Council members and two judges and finally to the Supreme Court of Canada, should the court agree to hear the appeal.

I know that sounded very convoluted and lengthy, but believe it or not, this would actually streamline the current process for court review of council decisions, which currently involves judicial review by two additional levels of court, those being the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, before a judge can ask the Supreme Court to hear the case.

The amendments would provide for a funding mechanism for the new process. The financial impact of the review process has been raised by a number of stakeholders. I want to encourage the Liberal government to take its fiscal responsibility to taxpayers into consideration with all government policies, but this bill is as good a start as any.

I would like to take a moment to point out that we have the former leader of the Conservative Party to thank for paving the way to having this bill before the House of Commons today. The Hon. Rona Ambrose introduced her private member's bill, Bill C-337, in 2017. This legislation would require the Canadian judiciary to produce a report every year that detailed how many judges had completed training in sexual assault law and how many cases were heard by judges who had not been trained, as well as a description of the courses that were taken. It would also require any lawyer applying for a position in the judiciary to have first completed sexual assault case training and education. Last, it would result in a greater number of written decisions from judges presiding over sexual assault trials, thus providing improved transparency for Canadians seeking justice.

The original premise of Bill C-337 was in response to a complaint about the behaviour a federal judge who was presiding over a case of sexual assault in 2014. The Canadian Judicial Council of which we speak today launched an investigation into the behaviour of that judge. Ultimately, in March 2017, the Canadian Judicial Council sent a letter to the federal Minister of Justice recommending that this judge be removed from the bench, and the minister accepted the recommendation.

The bill before us today works to expedite and facilitate the complaints process so that extreme cases like the one I just referenced can be fully and properly reviewed without causing too much disruption in terms of time, costs and delays in processing smaller but still important complaints.

Earlier this year, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights received correspondence from the Canadian Bar Association stating its support for the legislation as written in Bill C-9. In part, its letter reads as follows:

The CBA commented on the state of the judicial discipline process in its 2014 submission to the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC). On the subject of judicial discipline proceedings, our 16 recommendations were to ensure that the objectives of balancing the independence of the judiciary and the public’s confidence in the administration of justice were respected in the process. The CJC and Justice Canada responded with its own reports, which culminated in the present amendments to the Judges Act proposed by the Minister of Justice.

The letter from the Canadian Bar Association goes on to say:

In the view of the CBA Subcommittee, Bill C-9 strikes a fair balance between the right to procedural fairness and public confidence in the integrity of the justice system with the discipline of judges who form the core of that system. The proposed amendments enhance the accountability of judges, builds transparency, and creates cost-efficiencies in the process for handling complaints against members of the Bench.

I would like to pause here briefly just to say that at a moment like this, looking at a bill like this, it seems to me that it would be a very good time to have a federal ombudsman for victims of crime to hear the perspective on how the judicial complaints process is or is not currently working and how this bill would or would not be able to meet those challenges or rectify those concerns.

In testimony given to the justice committee on June 3, 2021, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime at that time raised what she described as a “most critical” issue, which was the legal recourse or remedy that victims have if their rights are violated.

She stated:

Currently, victims do not have a way to enforce the rights given to them in law; they only have a right to make a complaint to various agencies. This means that victims have to rely on the goodwill of criminal justice officials and corrections officials to give effect to or implement their statutory rights under the bill. This means victims count on police, Crown prosecutors, courts, review boards, corrections officials and parole boards to deliver, uphold and respect their rights.

But my office continues to receive complaints from victims that are common across all jurisdictions in Canada. Victims report to us that they are not consistently provided information about their rights or how to exercise them, they feel overlooked in all of the processes, and they have no recourse when officials don't respect their rights.

While the bill we are discussing today is, as I said earlier, a step in the right direction, there is certainly more work that needs to be done to make sure our justice system in Canada works for everyone who comes into contact with it, and I will add especially victims. One way this can be achieved is by immediately filling the position of federal ombudsman for victims of crime, which has now been vacant for nine months. There is absolutely no excuse for this position to have remained vacant for nine months when other positions are filled immediately, including, as I mentioned earlier, the position of ombudsman for those who are in our federal prisons.

By contrast, as I was mentioning, when the offenders ombudsman position became vacant, the Liberal government filled it the very next day, as it should have been. It should be filled right away, but so should the position of the ombudsman for victims of crime.

In 2021, the Canadian Judicial Council published “Ethical Principles for Judges”. I would like to reference excerpts from this publication to add some context into the role and duty of the judiciary.

They read as follows:

An independent and impartial judiciary is the right of all and constitutes a fundamental pillar of democratic governance, the rule of law and justice in Canada....

Today, judges’ work includes case management, settlement conferences, judicial mediation, and frequent interaction with self-represented litigants. These responsibilities invite further consideration with respect to ethical guidance. In the same manner, the digital age, the phenomenon of social media, the importance of professional development for judges and the transition to post-judicial roles all raise ethical issues that were not fully considered twenty years ago. Judges are expected to be alert to the history, experience and circumstances of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, and to the diversity of cultures and communities that make up this country. In this spirit, the judiciary is now more actively involved with the wider public, both to enhance public confidence and to expand its own knowledge of the diversity of human experiences in Canada today.

As was just referenced, social context and society overall change over time, and critical institutions like the justice system must grow to reflect these changes. Much of the time, this simply requires education on emerging issues or a more updated perspective on older issues.

In order to grow, there is a crucial partnership that must be respected between the judiciary and Parliament. While the Parliament and the courts are separate entities, there is a back-and-forth conversation between the two that is essential to our democracy and our judiciary. We have recently seen examples in which that conversation, unfortunately, was desperately lacking. On Friday, May 27, of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the punishment of life without parole in cases concerning mass murderers.

When confronted on the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Liberal government is determined to stick to their talking points by telling Parliament and concerned Canadians that we should not worry about mass killers actually receiving parole, because that possible outcome is extremely rare. What that actually means is that this government is comfortable putting these families through a revictimizing, retraumatizing parole process, even though, at the end of the day, it is essentially all for show because, according to the government, we just need to trust that a mass killer will not receive parole anyway.

In the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling, the decision stated, “A life sentence without a realistic possibility of parole presupposes the offender is beyond redemption and cannot be rehabilitated. This is degrading in nature and incompatible with human dignity. It amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.”

What the court is saying here is that keeping mass killers behind bars for the number of years that a judge has already decided would adequately reflect the gravity of their crimes amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”. Personally, I and many others feel and believe that having the victims' families endure a parole hearing every two years for the rest of their lives is the real cruel and unusual punishment, and the federal government has a duty and a responsibility to respond to the court’s decision, something that it has not done and has shown no inclination to do.

Essentially, the Supreme Court also ruled on May 13 that one can drink one’s way out of a serious crime. We have called on the government to respond to that as well, and we look forward to debate on the response that needs to be coming. Just because the Supreme Court has made these rulings does not mean that this is the end of the road. What it means is that there is a discussion and a dialogue that has to take place, and now the ball is in our court. It is for us to deal with these decisions in Parliament. The Liberals can now create legislation that responds to the Supreme Court’s decisions, and this legislation can be used to make sure that victims, survivors and their families can live in a country where they are equally protected and respected by our justice system.

Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, is a step in the right direction. I will note that there is much, much more to be done to make sure that the justice system is fair and balanced for all.