Justice Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Colleagues, I see a quorum.

We are on time and online. We are now reviewing Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Judges Act and certain other Acts in relation to courts.

We have today witnesses on that bill, continuing our hearings of yesterday. From the Canadian Bar Association, we have Robert Leurer and Tamra Thomson, whom I recognize from many appearances here at the justice committee. We also have an individual, Patrice Garant, who is a professor at the University of Laval.

Let's begin. I would ask the witnesses to make a presentation of relatively short duration, and we'll take the witnesses in sequence, beginning with the Canadian Bar Association. Then we'll have questions following that.

The floor is yours.

[Tamra Thomson, Director, Legislation and Law Reform, Canadian Bar Association]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you for the invitation to address you today concerning judicial compensation and Bill C-17. I will start with a brief overview of the Canadian Bar Association's interest in this issue. Then my colleague Mr. Leurer will give more detailed comments on the various aspects of the government's response to the recommendations of the 2003 Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission that we believe warrant your close scrutiny.

The CBA has approximately 36,000 members across the country. Our mandate includes a commitment to an impartial and independent judiciary, without which there is no rule of law. That is the lens through which we have analyzed Bill C-17, and it governs our comments today.

While this bill looks to be about money, the underlying issue is that Canadians have a right to have disputes heard by impartial judges who can act freely and without interference.

The CBA's approach to judicial compensation is process-oriented. The right process is one that is objective, dispassionate, and rational. Some describe it as being depoliticized.

Judicial compensation commissions are established to provide a non-partisan method of reviewing and setting judicial compensation. Parliament's deliberations on commission reports involve special constitutional considerations, and these should not be endangered by a politicized and partisan approach. Judges cannot and should not be drawn into the political fray through the setting of judicial salaries, nor should this process be used to gain political points.

I would now turn to Mr. Leurer and ask him to explain in further detail the constitutional deficiencies in the government's response.

[Robert Leurer, Member, Judicial Compensation and Benefits Committee, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you, Tamra.

Let me begin by indicating that the CBA recognizes that the role of this committee puts politicians in the unfamiliar position of leaving political considerations at the door. You must, because public confidence in the justice system is at stake. Canadians should not be left with the impression either that judges are beholden to their boss, who decides their salary, or that judges are predisposed against government because of a salary dispute.

Depoliticizing judicial compensation isn't simply an ideal; it is a constitutional requirement. Every person in Canada involved in the justice system must receive a hearing by a judge who is fair and impartial, and as importantly, who is seen to be so. This principle is a cornerstone of our democracy.

Judicial compensation is one of three pillars on which judicial independence is based, the other two being security of tenure and control over court administration. When this committee reviews the bill before it, the CBA believes it should do so with an eye to whether the government has respected the raison d'être for the commissions: preserving judicial independence and depoliticizing the process for determining judicial compensation. In the CBA's view, the government's response to the commission's report—the foundation for the bill—does not do so.

However, there has been an inordinate delay in implementing the commission report. The CBA cautioned against any delay in the last Parliament, when it considered Bill C-51, saying that delay undermines the commission's effectiveness and consequently, judicial independence. Therefore, we recommend that the bill be amended without delay to reflect the commission's recommendations.

If it is not possible to make these amendments in a timely way, then Bill C-17 should be passed, to avoid more harm to judicial independence. If the latter course is taken, the CBA urges that the committee take the opportunity to comment on the deficiencies in the government's response. This is particularly important given that the next commission is following shortly, to which the government will also need to respond.

I'd now like to turn to the detail of the government response.

As the members of the committee will be aware, the government has refused to implement the salary recommendations of the commission. The government has expressed two reasons for not doing so. First, it concluded that the commission did not give sufficient consideration to the criterion in subsection 26(1.1) of the Judges Act relating to prevailing economic conditions in Canada. Second, it disagreed with the comparator groups chosen by the 2003 commission. In this aspect of its response, the CBA believes that the government has articulated a legitimate reason for departing from the commission's recommendation and a reasonable factual foundation for its decisions.

The CBA's concerns, therefore, are limited to the first of the two reasons given by the government. The unfortunate fact is that while the government has articulated two reasons for the government's salary recommendation, it has failed to articulate the degree to which each influenced its overall recommendation. The inference from the ordering of the considerations is that the first was dominant. Our concern is that this reason, then, permeates the entire response.

Constitutionally, the government must articulate reasons for departing from the recommendations made by a commission. The constitutional requirement to give reasons is illuminated by three further principles, two of which I want to briefly touch on.

First, the government must give rational reasons for departing from commission recommendations; this has also been described as the need to give legitimate reasons. In the words of the Supreme Court of Canada, reasons must be based on facts and sound reasoning, and bald expressions of rejection and disapproval are inadequate.

Second, reasons given by a government to reject a commission recommendation must have a reasonable factual base.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Chairman, would it be possible for the witness to slow down a bit?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Excuse me. We are, of course, always in the process of giving simultaneous translation, and sometimes the French translations use 0 .113 extra words per paragraph, so if you could just slow down a little, the translation would be able to keep up.

[Robert Leurer]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies to member of the committee. It's a disability I suffer from, so I'll try to slow down.

Again to quote the Supreme Court, “...a mere assertion that judges’ current salaries are 'adequate', would be insufficient.” Together, these directions require specificity in reasons for rejecting a commission recommendation, and not just specificity in explanation of what is put forward as a substitute.

With respect, the CBA believes that the first part of the government response relating to the provision of the Judges Act is so generalized and so lacking in particulars that it fails to give meaningful effect to the 2003 commission report. The government response suggests a tension between the commission recommendations on the one hand and other social and economic priorities of the government on the other hand. However, it provides only generalized statements that other priorities exist, without supporting in any way the conclusion that implementing the recommendations of the commission would have any bearing on these priorities.

The evidence upon which the government relies to show that its words “economic pressures and [competing] fiscal priorities” were not properly weighed in the commission report is found in only two paragraphs of the government response. Reduced to its core, the government simply says that it has key priorities, which it lists, one of which is not judicial independence; it is committed to fiscal responsibility generally and reducing the national debt by $3 billion each year, and the President of the Treasury Board has been tasked to identify savings of $1 billion to support new and ongoing program expenses.

Although the government identifies key priorities and refers to other budgetary objectives, there is no explanation of how or why the implementation of the recommendations of the commission would impair or affect the ability of the government to pursue these goals or objectives.

The generality of the government's response is even more evident in the next paragraph of its response. It says, “Canadians expect that any expenditure from the public purse should be reasonable and generally proportional to all of these other economic pressures and fiscal priorities.”

In sum, the government does not believe that the commission's salary recommendation pays adequate heed to this reality. There is no substantive explanation or justification as to how or why the recommendation of the 2003 commission is not, in the words of the government, reasonably and generally proportional to all of these other economic pressures and fiscal priorities. In the absence of further explanation, with respect, the basis for the government's rejection of the commission report is a mere assertion, not a reason.

The CBA accepts that judges are paid from the government purse and that the competing demands on public moneys can mitigate the amount that might otherwise be paid for judicial salaries. The CBA further accepts that a dollar spent on judicial salaries or benefits is a dollar that cannot be spent on another priority, or collected. However, judicial independence is not just a government priority; it is a constitutional imperative. It is for this reason that any decision to deviate from a commission recommendation not only should but must be based on more than a mere assertion.

A reasonable reader of the government response is left with the impression that so far as the response relies on economic conditions and the overall economic and financial position of the country as a reason to disregard the 2003 commission report, the government simply thought the recommendation was too high and a lower salary level was adequate. With all due respect to the government, therefore, the CBA's position is that its response does not meet the constitutional challenge.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you very much.

We will now hear from Professor Garant, from Laval University.

[Prof. Patrice Garant, Professor, University of Montreal, As an Individual]

Mr. Chairman, members of Parliament, and members of this important Committee, I have already sent you some thoughts, some of which relate to the constitutional background. I may be somewhat behind on this topic, but I could not help appearing before the Committee to say--and this is the first time I've been invited--what I think of the new process for determining judicial compensation, as regards the Constitution.

In the Government of Canada's current response, I see the accomplishment of a constitutional obligation on the part of the Parliament of Canada to assume its constitutional responsibilities. However, I also believe that it has every right to distance itself from the Commission's report, and I would like to explain what I mean by that.

Constitutionally speaking, the Supreme Court has said that priority must be given to the wording of the Constitution, and that wording, as you know appears in section 100 of the Constitution, even though, as the Supreme Court has stated on a number of occasions, there are some underlying constitutional principles that may involve obligations for both governments and Parliaments. However, the Supreme Court said, in the Bodner decision, and repeated in 2005, that these unwritten, underlying constitutional principles are not an invitation to completely disregard what is written in the Constitution. “On the contrary--as stated in paragraph 53--we confirmed that there are compelling reasons to insist upon the primacy of our written Constitution.” Indeed, our written Constitution provides, in section 100 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as you well know, that “the salaries, allowances and pensions of the judges of the superior, district and county courts... shall be fixed and provided by the Parliament of Canada.”

In terms of the historical background of this provision, we know that in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation wanted judicial compensation to be Parliament's responsibility, whereas the administration of justice was deemed to be a provincial responsibility under the Constitution, as you know. Section 100 does not provide for any consultation whatsoever, not even consultation with the provinces. Therefore, if the framers of the Constitution had wanted there to be consultations provided for under the Constitution, they would probably have said so.

As you know, only Parliament and the provincial legislatures can amend the Constitution, and particularly the wording of section 100. There is a process for amending the Constitution, which you are aware of, under sections 38 to 49 of the Constitution Act, 1982. However, I believe that by requiring Parliament to create an independent commission that must be consulted and whose recommendations are binding on Parliament itself, except where Parliament provides grounds for deviating from them, the Supreme Court made a structural amendment to the Constitution, thus usurping--forgive me for saying so--a constitutional power that does not belong to it. I see that as serious, in a constitutional system of government.

The Court, of course, described the importance of these unwritten constitutional principles, but does amending Parliament's sovereign power or the formal wording of the Constitution truly amount to filling the gaps in the Constitution, as the Supreme Court suggests? Because the Supreme Court says that these unwritten constitutional principles can in fact help to fill in the gaps in the Constitution. Yet the sovereignty of Parliament, and thus of its elected representatives, over public finances, which include taxation--no taxation without representation--and government expenditures, is absolutely fundamental, and has been the most deeply rooted principle in our constitutional tradition from King John's Magna Carta to the present.

At the same time, setting the compensation of the entire public sector is a highly political issue, as the Supreme Court has stated. It is difficult to depoliticize this decision, for which government and Parliament are responsible. The Parliament and the government must be accountable to the electorate.

So, what are these independent commissions that the Supreme Court has invented, and imposed on us, in the name of the democratic principle? The democratic principle is enshrined. It is one of the four fundamental principles in the Constitution, as the Supreme Court reminded us in the Reference re Secession of Quebec in 1998.

Are these commissions democratic in nature? What is their democratic legitimacy? Of course, you may say I am a rather late critic of the system, but the fact is that this does give food for thought and, indeed, prompts me to agree with the position taken by the government, which is distancing itself from the content of the report.

Among government and parliamentary responsibilities can be included not only those actually identified, and which the McLellan Commission considered, but also much broader responsibilities. The government has to appreciate not only economic conditions in Canada, but also the country's overall financial situation, the share of financial resources that should go to the various government programs and, I would add, the extremely important role of Parliament in redistributing wealth, within the meaning of section 36 of the Constitution Act 1982, with respect to the spending power. A significant portion of the federal budget must be used for provincial transfers to support essential public services, and that is a concern which the so-called independent commission is not required to consider. Yet these are government and parliamentary responsibilities and, in that respect, I believe that Parliament has a right to distance itself from the content of these commissions' reports.

This commission, as the Supreme Court reiterated in 2005, performs an advisory function. But an advisory function is not a decision-making function, as you know full well. Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled, in a 1992 decision, that a recommendation is merely a recommendation, not a decision, and that it does not strip the holder of decision-making power of the power. Furthermore, section 100 entrenches the decision-making power of Parliament, which is a unilateral power.

On that point, it is interesting--and I will just briefly touch on this--to compare section 100 with section 99. Section 99 concerns the process for removing or terminating judges, and 30 years ago, the Judges Act was amended to establish the Canadian Judicial Council and a disciplinary and ethics process, whereby quasi-judicial committees of inquiry of the Council may recommend that a judge be removed or terminated. The constitutionality of this mechanism was raised before one of those committees, the committee involved in the Gratton affair in 1994, and subsequently Justice Barry Strayer had to study the matter in Federal Court. It was considered that this process did not alter the Parliament of Canada's unilateral power to remove judges. In that respect, one may wonder on the basis of what logic, if Parliament does retain its sovereign power to write an “Address of the Senate and House of Commons“ to remove a judge, it would be bound by the report of an independent commission with respect to pay increases for judges?

In one case, we're dealing with financial security, one of the essential ingredients of constitutional independence and, in the other case, we're talking about security of tenure, which is as important a component, if not more so, of that financial independence.

Now, I would like to say a few words about what has been written over the last five or six years in rulings of both the Superior Court or the Court of Appeal, and in reports at both the provincial and federal levels. I have done a considerable amount of reading on the subject, which has prompted me to give this quite a bit of thought and conclude that the process that has been put in place is cumbersome, complex, and cannot easily meet the objectives that those who designed it had in mind.

Consider the fact that in Quebec, the 2001 report is still under consideration by the Superior Court, the Court of Appeal, etc. According to a 2004 report, there may yet be legal challenges. And then the process will begin all over again, with the Federal Court, the Supreme Court, and so on, in order to apply criteria that are not that simple. As for the test of simple rationality, I will spare you the explanation, because I have read things written by eminent justices of courts of appeal and superior courts that introduce all sorts of qualifications in that area.

What exactly is simple rationality when, with respect to the factual basis for the government's position, it is said that the government is providing rationale for its position? When you read these reports, it is clear that there can be respectful differences of opinion as to the choice of certain criteria or comparators. Some things seem to rely almost on a kind of mythology. Over the years, a certain number of concepts have been passed on. And I have to smile at times, for example, when I hear people suddenly make much--or otherwise--of the comparison between justices of superior courts and deputy ministers.

There are nine DM-3s in Canada and two DM-4s. There is no doubt that most of these DM-3s with legal training could easily become judges. There are some in the Supreme Court: the former associate deputy minister, and so on. But does it work in the reverse? I know a great many justices of the Superior Court and nothing on earth would ever prompt me to appoint them deputy minister of a major federal department. And many of them, when they see that they are supposed to have exceptional skills--or that, at least, is what it says in the reports--acknowledge that they are good judges, have a thorough knowledge of the law, are capable of moving litigation forward, and are human beings able to listen to what others have to say and write decisions, but they do not believe they have exceptional skills. And yet, this is what you see in the reports: in other words, judges must be exceptional, just as exceptional as our nine deputy ministers or our 11 deputy ministers who, naturally, have responsibilities of a completely different nature--and the reports actually state this--from those of a justice of the Superior Court. A deputy minister's responsibility is enormous: government programs, accountability, managing a large staff, and so on. I think that is one example of the myths that very often tend to be passed along.

In order to compare, we use standards of comparison applicable to lawyers in private practice working for large firms in large cities. As can be seen in the Commission's report, the compensation received by lawyers in the public sector is not considered. Let's compare that, for example--and this may be a bad example, because it's not particularly convincing--with the salary received by law professors.

[An hon. member]

It's not bad either.

[Prof. Patrice Garant]

True, it's not bad, but there is a considerable difference, when you see what some private practice lawyers at the top of the wage scale are earning. Furthermore, there is no requirement to perform only that job, meaning that you can engage in other activities, conduct research, and so on; but in order to earn $230,000 or $220,000 a year, I suppose a law professor would have to work seven days a week, 370 days a year. These are comparators about which people may have differing opinions, and when a government, for good reasons that have been considered by its officials, decides that it disagrees with these reports, well, I have to say that it doesn't shock me at all. And when a government that takes over from another one does not share the opinion of the previous government, I would say that it is perfectly normal.

So, I guess I could add a great many other things. But in terms of the quality of the justices serving on our superior courts, particularly at the trial level, the fact is there are many excellent judges there that do not come from the big law firms in Montreal or Quebec City; rather, they come from legal aid offices, the public service, and so on. So, I believe the net must be cast much wider than did the McLellan Commission.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your patience. I will be available to answer your questions later.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you, Professor Garant.

I want to thank both witnesses for providing their submissions in writing prior to the meeting. It's very helpful to members.

We'll start with our seven-minute rounds, and I'll go first to Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to begin by welcoming the witnesses from the Canadian Bar Association. As the Minister of Justice, I was very much the beneficiary of your counsel, including on the matter that is before us today.

I also want to wish a very warm welcome to Professor Garant, whom I met, in my capacity as Minister, at the Laval University Faculty of Law.

I appreciate that the fundamental constitutional principle that has underpinned the presentation of the Canadian Bar Association is that of the independence of the judiciary as the cornerstone of our democratic process, as being, in effect, the lifeblood of constitutionalism, a principle that has had a certain increased importance with the advent of the charter. Financial security is a basic component of that independence. Indeed, as your brief points out, an important and related principle is not only that the judiciary must be independent, but it must be seen to be independent, which is the raison d'être for the establishment of the independent commission. In effect, this independent commission--and here I reply as well to Professor Garant's statements--was established to protect this constitutional principle, to protect our constitutional democracy, because with the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we have moved from being a parliamentary democracy to being a constitutional democracy, where the principle of the independence of the judiciary has, as I say, an enhanced importance.

I saw the work of the independent commission to protect our constitutional democracy in that principle, rather than to be seen, Professor Garant, as usurping it, to depoliticize the process of setting judicial salaries and benefits, and to ensure that judicial salaries and benefits would be determined by an evidence-based inquiry conducted by a commission that was independent from both the government and the judiciary, but giving Parliament an important role to give effect to this principle.

The parliamentary role, as I understand it--and here I relate to Professor Garant's presentation as well as to yours--takes place as follows. The Constitution does not require that the commission's report be binding, but the government must give a rational or legitimate set of reasons to depart from the commission's findings, and those reasons must have a factual and evidentiary basis, all part of the protection of the independence of the judiciary. Therefore, when a standing committee of Parliament, such as ours, reviews the government response to a commission report, it's our responsibility--and this is why there is an important parliamentary role distinct from the parliamentary role being usurped--to ensure that the reasons given by the government, as the Canadian Bar Association put it, are not incomplete, generalized, or lacking in particulars.

Here I come to the essential point. It is your view, as I appreciate it and as you expressed it today in terms of the Canadian Bar Association, a view which I share, that the government response is so generalized, so lacking in particulars, that it fails to give a meaningful effect to the 2003 commission report. The alleged reasons given by the government do not demonstrate how or why the implementation of the recommendations of the commission would somehow, as you put it, impair or affect the ability of the government to pursue its economic and social priorities as set forth in its budget of 2006, which could not have been before the commission in 2003.

To sum up, there's no justifiable explanation to reject the commission's findings. My question to the members of the CBA here today is this. Is it fair to say that, between what I call the constitutional imperative of protecting the independence of the judiciary, as against the lack of a demonstrably based justification for rejecting the commission's decisions, this standing committee should support the recommendation of that independent commission?

Either one could answer.

[Robert Leurer]

Thank you, Mr. Cotler.

You have summed up well two things. First of all, you have summed up the position the Canadian Bar Association has attempted to articulate in its reasons, and second, you've drawn out of the government response the conundrum the Canadian Bar Association had with respect to the two reasons given by the government in its particular response. Without question, the statute entitled the government to look at the overall economic and current financial position of the federal government. But when we looked at the three paragraphs of the response, which was the first response given, we couldn't slot it into the constitutional mandate that was articulated by the federal government, which was to develop a rational and logical reason to depart from the commission.

Again, and we say this with all respect to the federal government, something more than a bald expression is required constitutionally. That presented a difficulty, because we then didn't know how, and the extent to which, it ended up influencing and infiltrating the remaining reasons that were given by the government in its response.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

You say, as well, that there's also the process, namely that we need to move on this and make a decision with all deliberate speed, to use that phrase, because the independence of the judiciary also gets prejudiced the longer we go without a decision to in fact adopt the recommendations of the independent commission.

[Robert Leurer]

The Canadian Bar Association is certainly concerned. And we would invite members of the committee to take into account the fact that the next commission is going to be meeting in 2007, so it's important to get this process right, and it's important to move on. Otherwise, we're simply compounding a problem that presently exists.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

There is half a minute left, Monsieur LeBlanc. You have half a minute.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Perhaps my question was a very specific one that I hear from former partners of mine who practise law in New Brunswick and from other members of the bar in my province. They were quite distressed that the government chose to remove the provisions of the previous legislation that created additional seats in the Unified Family Court. It's not precisely with respect to compensation, but the previous legislation had included that.

I'm wondering if you have any views on whether in fact the removal of that prejudices, for example, the many child custody cases and protection cases in my province that may be backlogged and would benefit from an increased capacity in the family court. This was a national issue, but I hear about it in New Brunswick.

I'm wondering if any of you have any views on that having been taken out of the legislation.

[Tamra Thomson]

Certainly members of the CBA have noted the problem of backlogs in family courts in provinces other than New Brunswick, as well. We see it as a problem across the country, and we certainly supported the additional complement of judges for the unified family courts that were in the previous bill. We have asked the minister if he would bring those complements forward, and we hope he will do so.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Monsieur Ménard, pour sept minutes.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses to the Committee. I am particularly pleased to see Professor Garant here. Unlike my colleague, I did not have the pleasure of directly benefiting from his teaching. However, I am sure that he is a very dynamic professor and is greatly appreciated by his students.

Professor, I would like to explore two questions with you.

The Commission does exist and, of course, we have to deal with that reality. We cannot simply ignore it. However, I was a little disappointed with the group that appeared before the Committee. The fact is, we do need to have comparators. Judges must be compensated. We want them to be well compensated, to be free from corruption or the vagaries of politics, and to enjoy tenure, except in cases of improper conduct. And of course, we also want them to be impartial.

I could go so far as to ask you how much a law professor earns in his best earning years, but instead, I will show restraint, unless you yourself are prepared to lift the veil on that matter. You state in your brief that within the legal profession, lawyers who make a good living earn approximately $150,000. And I liked your comparison with Level 3 and 4 deputy ministers.

But, in order to set appropriate compensation for judges, what kind of base of comparison are you suggesting? How much does a Level 3 or 4 deputy minister with the federal government earn? And finally, if you could also answer the following question, I would like to know what you see as the qualifications for being both a good judge and a good deputy minister.

[Prof. Patrice Garant]

I believe a whole host of criteria should be considered, not only those relating to Level 3 and 4 deputy ministers or a certain category of private practice lawyers who, because they earn a fortune, are considered to be very successful.

I believe there is a need to broaden our palette, and that is what the government seems to be saying in its report. There is a real need for comparators.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Give us some examples.

[Prof. Patrice Garant]

The legal profession does not only comprise lawyers working for large firms in big cities. There are also public servants. We've been talking about deputy ministers, but there are also a large number of professionals. There are several thousand in Canada. In every department of justice and even in other departments, they practice law and fulfill very important responsibilities, including advising their minister. In their case, the salary scale may vary, but their compensation does not exceed $150,000.

And there are also the law professors. Of course, this is an area where people negotiate collective agreements. However, it is rare for a collective agreement to provide for compensation of more than $100,000 or $120,000. In addition, because there is no requirement for exclusivity, professors can hold copyright or engage in consulting. But here we're talking about amounts that may vary between $25,000 and $50,000, approximately. That is probably the most that a professor could receive by way of compensation, unless he or she happens to be a big star. I think Mr. Cotler could confirm that.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Yes, but Mr. Cotler is not interested in material things. That's why I didn't ask him that question.

I'd like to move now to my second question. In the Bloc Québécois, we are interested in tying the mechanism for increasing judges' compensation to the one for elected representatives. This is a principle that we defend, and in the circumstances, we have the benefit of the subtle but clear leadership of our House Leader. As members of the Bloc Québécois, we are quite indignant at the idea that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would, if this bill passes, be earning $3,000 more than the Prime Minister. We also believe that, in accordance with the principle of democratic legitimacy, judges should not earn more than members of Parliament.

Now, I wouldn't want you to immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm seeking a 10% wage increase. However, I am interested in hearing your opinion. Do you think we should consider linking salary increases for members of Parliament to those of judges?