Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing here today.
I think I join with all members of the committee in giving our best wishes to the retiring judge, Justice Thomas Cromwell. We wish him all the best and thank him for his service to the courts of this country.
Minister, you talked about the list that will be considered and you indicated that there would be a judge on there, or judges, from Atlantic Canada. You referred to the process by which judges from Atlantic Canada or from different parts of the country have been submitted and considered in the past. You referred to it as a custom. Wouldn't you say that something that's been in place since 1875 is more than just a custom, and that it could be more properly characterized as a constitutional convention that Atlantic Canada will have one member on the Supreme Court of Canada, as allotted across the country? Wouldn't you say that's a constitutional convention?