We obviously part, as you rightly say, on some very basic issues of policy. I see it as an urgent task. I don't see it as an issue of whether I disagree with the appointment of police officers as part of the advisory committees. My issue is this: Who's going to decide? Is it going to be individual governments, whether this government or another government, or is it going to be part of the legislative process?
The Harper government made a unilateral decision to make changes to the composition of the committees and changes as to the type of devices the committees would say.... My whole rationale has been that it should not be a prerogative of individual governments; it should be a matter of proper legislation, and the legislation should be transparent, and members of Parliament of all parties should be involved in making the ultimate decisions. The judges themselves are supposed to be part of the law of the land and are not supposed to be just handmaidens of individual governments. I don't see the recommendations as long-term at all; I see them as very much overdue.
As I pointed out right at the end of my submission, we inherited our system of appointments from the United Kingdom, because that was the practice at the time of Confederation. The British have moved way beyond that. In fact, they were never as partisan in their appointments as we have been, at least not over the last century. As a result of profoundly important legislation adopted two years ago in England, all questions of judicial appointments are now decided by a judicial appointments commission, whose powers go considerably further than the recommendations that appear in my submission.
The point I'm making is that if the British, from whom we've inherited our set of judicial appointments, have gone way beyond this precisely because they're concerned about the public perception, because of complaints, even under the enlightened British system, that fairness did not result from the previous system of appointment, then I think, at a minimum, we in Canada should follow the British and the provinces, at least to the extent of having legislation that spells out both the role and the powers of the advisory committees and their relationship with the actual appointments made by the government.