Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your comments. I'll get right to the quick, to the chase here.
I think there's a case to be made that this gerrymandering of the judicial advisory committees—the JACs, let's call them—is done to give the new government an opportunity to stack the committees, the JACs, and to therefore influence the recommendation process unduly, in a way not seen during the time of the Liberal government, and certainly not even during the time of a previous Conservative government in which you served, namely the Mulroney government.
Just taking the case of New Brunswick, which I know a little more about than the rest of the provinces, I put it to you that there were seven committee members. In short, three of them were from the federal side. Let's put it that way. They were federal appointees, lay people, generally speaking. They all came from different walks of life. The other four were from various stakeholders, including the Attorney General, although I think we're all familiar with the makeup.
What you have done here, what the previous minister has imposed upon you, is an eight-member committee in New Brunswick, with the addition of the police representative. I'm not going to ask about the merits of having the police alone visited on the committees, but I am going to ask about what is really the central issue for me. The concern I have is that with the chair being non-voting except in the case of ties—correct me if I'm wrong in the case of New Brunswick—that would mean four direct federal new Conservative government appointees effectively can overrule or outvote, if you like, three members from the rest of the legal community. Let's put it that way. That's my first question.
My premise on the question, really, is this. It's on the comments of the recent appointee who represented the police interests, so to speak—and it's a whole other question whether the chiefs or the rank and file should be represented. The comments made by the representative were that there's nothing wrong with the judiciary. She's had no problem with the judiciary in her life as a police officer. That would imply to me that there's no reason to change the system that has served us so well.
I am wondering if you, by implication as the new Minister of Justice who has served in this chamber as a parliamentary secretary and now as the minister, over a long political career, Mr. Minister, think there was something wrong with the quality of the judiciary, thus leading to its meriting this stack-the-committee, political gerrymandering proposition that's before us.
That's just a light question to start with, Mr. Minister.