Justice Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Good morning. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 94 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is continuing its study of the proposals for the 2023 corrective act.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Some members are attending in person and others are attending remotely by using the Zoom application. There are no witnesses today for this meeting.

I believe the members who are attending on Zoom know the rules very well, so I won't go over them.

I just want to say that the sound tests were successfully completed with the members attending the meeting via the Zoom application.

With us today from the Department of Justice for our study on the proposals for the 2023 corrective act are Madame Riri Shen, deputy assistant deputy minister and chief legislative counsel of Canada in the public law and legislative services sector; Monsieur Philippe Denault, senior counsel, advisory and legislative initiatives services, public law and legislative services sector; and, from the same sector, Madame Victoria Netten, legal counsel.

They are present along with many other officials in the room who are all prepared to answer questions related to their respective departments.

To the additional officials who are at the back of the room, if there is a question posed that one of you wishes to answer or will be answering, there's an empty chair right there. Please take that seat with the microphone in front of you.

When we adjourned the meeting last Thursday, the officials had made their opening remarks. We're now ready to begin our study on the proposals.

Before we finish, I'll save about five to 10 minutes at the end of the meeting to discuss Thursday's meeting, and specifically whether the committee wishes to hear from witnesses in the second hour of Thursday's meeting or simply wants to have only the sponsor of the bill for the whole two hours. I'm saying that we'll leave a few minutes at the end of that meeting just so the clerk knows what the intent is.

We can begin the questioning. I'll ask everyone to address their questions through the chair. Let us know you want to speak and we'll make a list.

Go ahead, Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There was just recently an article in the Toronto Star newspaper about a human trafficking case that has collapsed as the latest casualty of a failure to appoint enough judges.

While it is important that we deal with today's topic, it's also important that we be attuned to what Canadians are concerned about.

Last year Richard Wagner, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, spoke about judicial vacancies and the challenges that were being caused by not having enough vacancies filled. We know that a few weeks ago, former minister of justice David Lametti blamed the slowdown in judicial appointments directly on the Prime Minister's Office, so I introduced a motion that we call on justice minister Arif Virani to appear at committee to discuss the issue of judicial vacancies in light of the concerns Canadians have with the justice system.

Because of the constraints we're under due to Supreme Court decisions, justice delayed can absolutely mean justice denied. In this case, it was a human trafficking case that collapsed because of an insufficient number of judges.

This is important. Canadians are concerned about the justice system. I think it's the responsibility of this committee to take a look at the issue of these vacancies, so I would like to move my motion at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

I'm sorry; was there a separate motion?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Yes. I had put forward a motion for the Minister of Justice, Arif Virani, to appear for one meeting, and I—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Okay. This is the motion that you had already put forth. Thank you.

Mr. Moore, just for clarification of your motion, can you give us what you have in front of you? Can you give us what you read, please?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Sure. It's in the motion log.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

That's what I thought.

Mr. Clerk, it's not this....

Mr. Moore, if I understand correctly, the motion that you've given me is one of the four submotions that I have already ruled on and that you have challenged. It is not admissible because it has already been ruled inadmissible.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Chair, if I may, taking your ruling to its logical conclusion, this committee, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, in spite of new evidence that is arising around the problems with vacancies in the justice system— could never consider this issue. I do think that it is a misinterpretation of the rules to suggest that somehow because we—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, if I understood what you just said, you've ruled on whether the motion is admissible or not. I don't think it is for Mr. Moore, in light of that, to now argue why you were wrong.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

On the same point of order, Madam Chair, I don't believe you've actually told the committee why this motion is not to be debated, because I don't remember this motion being discussed or debated around this table. There was a Standing Order 106(4) meeting about it. There was a notice pursuant to Standing Order 106(4) that was given, but that is different than Mr. Moore's motion, so with the greatest of respect for the chair, if the chair is going to say that this motion is out of order, I would at least ask for articulation as to why that is.

Debate on that motion, as far as I understand it.... Perhaps I stand to be corrected, but as I understand it, we haven't ever debated this motion that Mr. Moore has put forward. We did discuss this under the Standing Order 106(4) notice, but that is different from what Mr. Moore is doing.

I would just ask why the motion is out of order and when it has been ruled upon here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you.

Are we ready for my decision?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I thought we already had it, but sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

We do have it. I'm going to restate it.

We've already discussed this. A decision has been made, and “A decision once made cannot be questioned again but must stand as the judgment of the House.”

We did already deal with this. Unless you have other motions, I will continue with taking questions for the witnesses.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Chair, on that, we considered a larger study on judicial appointments that called on a number of witnesses. This motion is for a much narrower study, calling only the Minister of Justice, who I know would like to speak about this. It is our role as a committee to look into this issue of vacancies, particularly around federally appointed judges.

I do, at this point, have to challenge the chair's ruling, because what it does is limit our ability as a committee. It binds our hands to study things as new discoveries are made. We could hear something tomorrow that might cause every one of us around here to say, “We want to study this”, but your ruling would suggest we can't study judicial vacancies for a year.

I profoundly disagree with that interpretation of the rules and I challenge the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

I respect that. It's not a problem. You can certainly have a motion, and you do, to call the minister, and the minister will come and you can question him, but on this one, the decision has been made, because we dealt with it previously.

Mr. Clerk, I will ask you to please take over and proceed with the vote.

(Ruling of the chair sustained: yeas 6; nays 5)

Thank you very much.

I have a speaking list.

Go ahead, Madame Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am disappointed, because I know this has been a chronic problem since 2015 under all three AGs. Even back in 2017, they were reporting that murder cases and sex assault cases were being let go because of Jordan's principle.

Anyway, we're here to talk about the 2023 MSLA proposals. These are supposed to be cleanup changes to make sure that the English matches the French and that the changes are not controversial.

Has there ever been an example in history of amendments brought forward and passed that subsequently resulted in somebody having a conviction that was controversial?

[Riri Shen, Deputy Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Legislative Counsel of Canada, Public Law and Legislative Services Sector, Department of Justice]

I'm not aware of that, but we will undertake to look into it to see whether there is anything.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

That's it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Caputo.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I was just going to speak on Mr. Moore's motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the officials for their work on this. When I went through this package, there were 11 sections where I had some questions. Then I turned to the explanatory notes, which I found excellent, and I was left with only one question. I have to say that I then consulted our Library of Parliament analyst, who pointed out what I had missed and saved me from embarrassment. I want to commend everybody for the strong staff work that went into this.

Also, I am a former member of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. I believe there are four clauses here that implement recommendations from that committee. I have to say that members of that committee often felt like we were shouting into the wind and that these things would never happen, so I'm quite pleased to see those clauses.

I have no questions on this package. I urge us to pass it and move it forward. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

Go ahead, Mr. Van Popta.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you to everyone for being here.

We're talking about the MSLA program, the miscellaneous statutes law amendment program, which I understand has been around since 1975.

I'm reading the briefing notes prepared by the Library of Parliament. They say that the miscellaneous statutes law amendment program is “a periodic legislative exercise to correct anomalies, inconsistencies, outdated terminologies or errors that have crept into the statutes.” They are all supposed to be “minor non-controversial amendments” that are not to “prejudicially affect the rights of persons”.

I looked at quite a few of the sections, and I would agree that they are completely non-controversial. The name of a port has been changed or the name of a tribunal has been changed, and we need to make consequential amendments.

I was a little bit surprised to see in a couple of sections that the French version was not amended. I'm looking at section 154 of the act, on the Safe Food for Canadians Act. I'm looking at pages 55 and 56 of the report.

For example, subsection 154(1) of this act would amend subsection 31(1) of the Safe Food for Canadians Act to change the name from “Tribunal” to “Canadian Agricultural Review Tribunal”. I have no argument with that. It makes sense to do that, but then subsection 31(2) in the English version does the same thing. It defines the “Tribunal” as the “Canadian Agricultural Review Tribunal”, but in the French version there's no change, although in the French version of the previous paragraph there is that same change.

I wonder why that is. I looked up the French version of subsection 31(2) of the Safe Food for Canadians Act. It has the same intent and purpose, but the wording is completely different.

Why would you not have taken the opportunity to amend the French version to align more closely with the English version?

[Riri Shen]

I'm just looking at the proposal.

I'm advised that in the French title, the word is not there, so it's not required to amend the name of the tribunal.