Present.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will answer the minister, who is not here. I imagine that his parliamentary secretary will report all this to him.
I certainly have no intention of becoming a judge. Indeed, with the number of bills the government will be tabling, the courts will be so clogged that I will have a lot of work in a few years as a lawyer, especially as a criminal defence lawyer.
The following comment is addressed to the members of the Commission. Allow me to congratulate you on the work that you have done. I am sure that is very arduous and complicated. Being familiar with a similar system in Quebec, I can say that establishing judges salaries must have been a huge task. I find it regrettable that the government rejected your conclusion out of hand. I would like to ask you a question that, even if it is rather general in nature, defines the debate rather well.
The court described as follows the three step analysis intended to assess the rationale for the government's refusal. First of all, we must determine if its decision to reject the Commission's recommendations was made on legitimate grounds, that is to say, comprehensive and concrete. Then, it must be made clear that the reasons given had a reasonable factual basis. Finally, given the overall perspective marked by restraint, it must be determined wether or not the review mechanism was respected.
Do you believe that the government, in rejecting your report, has complied with these three steps? Or do you rather believe that it was acting for purely political reasons, that is that it did not wish to increase judges' salaries? Good luck!