The effect of the amendment would be that it would open up the potential of candidates.... There are two steps, I guess.
First, if you said “current”, then the effect of the amendment would be that someone would in essence be holding two jobs that are both supposed to be full-time. That creates a bit of a technical problem, certainly.
But for the other part of it, to say “or a person who has demonstrated expertise in any of the following”, Mr. Chair, would certainly be broadening the scope of candidates. You could in essence be looking at, in addition to the former judges, any Canadian who has any expertise in conflict of interest, financial arrangements, professional regulation and discipline, or ethics. So it would broaden substantially the number of candidates.
Just to go back to the point about the “current” and “former” and only holding one job, proposed subsection 83(2) of the Conflict of Interest Act specifically states that the commissioner has to engage exclusively in the functions of the commissioner. That's again the reason why you're seeing “former”, because once you're in the job of commissioner you are going to be in effect a former judge; you can't be holding both positions.
The only other aspect to this, which I guess is a bit of a wrinkle, is that when you open to other persons who are not judges or former members performing quasi-judicial functions, it has the impact I mentioned earlier about the review level. Having a person without a quasi-judicial background, if you will—who doesn't have the background of being a judge or the background of participating in a board, commission, or tribunal—would raise that issue of the level of judicial review. Currently under the proposed act it's the Federal Court of Appeal. For that particular type of person, it would be inappropriate that the Federal Court of Appeal be the level of review. The level of review for that particular type of a person should be the trial division of the Federal Court, because they don't have that quasi-judicial background.