Yes, I'll move NDP-1, Mr. Chair. It is one in a series. They're all consequential. The effect of this amendment would be to start that process of reinstating the report that we have from the commission.
I want to make two points. One is that the position the government has taken in the bill before us is one that is obviously inconsistent with the commission's recommendations. That's obvious on the face of it, but it's also inconsistent, I believe, with the law as to how Parliament is to deal with the commission's recommendations when it appears before it.
I won't go back through the legal arguments. We saw those I think particularly in the brief we got from the Canadian Bar Association, but we certainly got similar indications from the commission itself when it was here.
Mr. Chair, I have to put on the record that the effect, if my amendments don't go through and the government's proposal does, is to seriously undermine, if not destroy, the system we have established as the best way of dealing with judicial compensation in this country for appointments by the federal government to our judiciary. The consequences of that are quite serious. The methodology that was established I think is quite clear. If the government is not going to accept the recommendations of the commission, it has to meet certain criteria. The criteria it has posited, on the face of it, seem to be below the standard that the courts have ruled in a number of other cases. So it hasn't met the criteria. This committee has a responsibility, I believe, to reinstate the commission's recommendations and, hopefully, have that adopted by Parliament.
That's our role here. We can get into all of the arguments over how much judges should be paid. I don't think that's our role. Our role here is to either accept the commissioner's recommendations or understand why, and accept why we're going to reject them. The material that's been put before us by the government does not give us any reasonable basis, based on the facts, for us to reject the commission's report. Therefore, we should accept it.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.