Let us hope, but we'll see in a few minutes.
I'll speak to a couple of points that were made.
To Mr. MacGregor's point, I wholeheartedly agree with you that filling judicial vacancies is not the be-all and end-all, but it is the easiest thing. It is the most straightforward thing the minister can do, which is to get these vacancies filled in a timely manner. As for the Jordan decision, it doesn't mean that we won't continue to see cases that are thrown out due to delay, but we can help solve the problem, as a first meaningful step, by doing the obvious and simple thing, which is getting these vacancies filled.
Mr. Fraser made a couple of points. The first point he made was that the minister is, in fact, appointing judges. Well, obviously it's not fast enough—not fast enough when there are 60 judicial vacancies across Canada; not fast enough when it has taken the Minister of Justice a year and a half, and she has managed in that year and a half to fill only one of the new judicial posts in Alberta; and not good enough in the face of the Jordan decision, whereby the whole landscape has changed in terms of cases being thrown out due to delay. She has introduced a bill, Bill C-75, which in fact is probably going to make the situation even worse, but we can have that conversation another day.
In terms of the minister doing her job, to the first point that Mr. Fraser made, it in fact took the minister more than six months to appoint a single judge. For more than six months, she sat on her hands. Indeed, for a minister who is supposedly doing her job and filling these vacancies.... This is a minister who has presided on several occasions with a record number of vacancies, so it is not the case that the minister is dealing with it. To the degree that the minister is going to hide behind Bill C-75, I say it is too little, too late.
With respect to there being a lack of evidence that these vacancies are perpetuating the backlog, which in turn is perpetuating a crisis that is resulting in these cases being thrown out, with the greatest of respect to Mr. Fraser, for whom I do have a lot of respect, it is an absurdity. It is a matter of common sense that 10 or 12 judges in Alberta, for example, but also in other provinces, can hear a lot of cases. With respect to Mr. Fraser's point on that, I would suggest he tell that to former chief justice Wittmann of Alberta, who rather unusually, spoke out publicly expressing his deep frustration at the minister's inaction when it came to filling judicial vacancies.
With respect to his comments about the previous Conservative government, there was no Jordan decision under the previous Conservative government. We have now lived with Jordan for almost two years, and nothing has changed in terms of the manner in which the minister has been moving to expedite the appointment process. Clearly, once the Jordan decision was rendered, there should have been an emphasis on the part of the minister to expedite the process to see that these vacancies were filled in a timely manner. When you have 60 that are vacant across Canada today, and it's taken a year and a half and all the minister has managed to do is get one of the new judicial spots filled in Alberta, the only conclusion one can come to is that the minister is not taking seriously her responsibility of filling judicial vacancies in a timely manner.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.