I am not going to accuse the Supreme Court of Canada of political decisions. I think that when the Supreme Court of Canada made the decision as it related to the impracticality of these mega-trials, the court realistically saw that they were in fact that. We found that out first-hand in Alberta.
There has to be another way. I'm not too sure what the other way is, but if we clog up our whole system with mega-trials in Quebec, Alberta, and Ontario, we frustrate the whole judicial system. It undermines the whole system. One way or another, we have to find a way to deal with these kinds of trials in a way that allows us to bring them to a conclusion in one way or another. I think Alberta in part has done some of that.
We've had conferences. I was on the reform committee for the justice department. It consisted of three members of the Canadian Judicial Council and attorneys general in Canada. One of the big things we were dealing with was the mega-trial. We studied the mega-trial. There's a good paper on the mega-trial out of that committee. I think that committee is still meeting. I am not on it any longer, but I was on it for about five years; there was Justice Kennedy from Nova Scotia, me, and Associate Chief Justice Pidgeon from Quebec.
So this is being studied from the judges' point of view as well. We're also studying case management, which I think will solve a lot of the problems. We're also dealing with possible reform of the jury system, which we haven't looked at for years.
Justice reform is going on at the same time that your committee is studying one aspect of it. This is relatively new, and I'm pleased that a committee of Parliament is looking at this issue, because if we had organized crime in this country of the type we have in some other countries, God help us.
I'm a proud Canadian. My grandparents came here from the old country. As far as I'm concerned, we're living in the best country in the world. I've taught in Russia and I've taught in the Ukraine, and boy, we're ahead of everybody. What did the Ukrainian judges do after the fall of the Iron Curtain? Out of all the countries, they came to Canada, because they said they wanted to adopt a system that was similar to Canada's. They went to Hamilton. They went to Winnipeg. They went to Edmonton. There were 30 of them. They came back two years later, after going back to Ottawa to review what they had learned, and said we were doing great in Alberta and that they were coming back to Alberta. In a way they adopted us.
What it really indicates is that our system is imperfect--it can't be perfect unless we have a dictatorship--but we can be very proud of our record when it comes to handling cases. We should be prepared to adapt and adopt and to change if necessary, and change is necessary in this particular area. I'm therefore very pleased that something is being done.