Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Attorney General and all of the rest of the witnesses, for being with us here today.
Mr. Attorney General, you're the top lawyer in the land. It's good to have you here at the justice committee.
Canada is a rule-of-law nation. We function well only if citizens of the nation have confidence in the administration of justice. That's your job. This is true for the criminal justice system, as it is for the civil justice system.
That's why it's so shocking to hear from a credible organization like the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association, in a letter from four years ago that was addressed to your predecessor, Mr. Lametti, the following:
Our Supreme Court of British Columbia is presently 7 judges below complement. As a result, parties are regularly arriving at court for trials and hearings [and they're] being sent away because of a lack of judges to hear the cases. [The] parties have...spent substantial time and money preparing for court appearances, and witnesses have also been inconvenienced.
Then it goes on to talk about the financial and emotional costs.
There's an example from a lawyer. You'll appreciate this, of course, being a lawyer yourself. It was, “I have had this problem [of delays] five times I can remember in the last 18 months. [...] It happened twice in Cranbrook [Supreme Court] resulting in the client being unable to enforce a restrictive covenant” before it expired. It's difficult enough to enforce a restrictive covenant, but this person never even had an opportunity to try, so they feel that justice has been denied.
My question to you, Mr. Attorney General, is why is justice being denied to people in my home province of British Columbia?