Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee, Minister and Mr. Giroux.
Good morning, all.
It is a great privilege to serve as chairperson of the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments and to address you this morning.
I was fortunate in my work to be joined by seven colleagues, namely Riel Bellegarde, a lay member nominated by the Minister of Justice; Aimée Craft, nominated by the Indigenous Bar Association; Justin E. Kingston, nominated by the Canadian Bar Association; Justin Robichaud, King's Counsel, nominated by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada; the Honourable J. Michael MacDonald, former chief justice of Nova Scotia superior court, nominated by the Canadian Judicial Council; and Dean Laura Spitz from the University of Calgary's law school, nominated by the Council of Canadian Law Deans.
Each member has brought to our work a career path full of accomplishments, a wide range of experiences, as well as regional, community and national perspectives. We all share a deep commitment to the rule of law, the institutional importance of the Supreme Court of Canada and what is in the best interests of our country, Canada.
The advisory board's mandate was to identify candidates from applications received who would be suitable for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada for the western region to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sheilah Martin of Alberta. I will add my comments to those of the minister. I've known Justice Martin since I taught at the law school at the University of Calgary, and she was dean, and she was indeed an exceptional jurist.
The process was launched on March 30 of this year and was open to candidates from western Canada, namely Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The western region has two justices on the Supreme Court of Canada.
Following the launch of the process in March, the commissioner for federal judicial affairs reached out to Canadian legal and judicial organizations to ask them to tap into their networks and knowledge of the judicial and legal community to identify qualified candidates and encourage them to apply.
Candidates were invited to submit their applications by April 27 of this year. In all, nine applications were received. In order to be considered, each applicant was required to fill out an extensive questionnaire. A copy of such questionnaire is available on the website of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs. Relevant portions of Chief Justice Joyal's application are also available on that website.
The members of the advisory board were appointed by order in council on May 13, and we all got together on a Teams meeting to immediately begin our work. In the following days, each member of the advisory board reviewed all of the applications on their own and in depth. The advisory committee then met in person in Ottawa for an intense four days, from May 20 to May 23.
The board's mandate, as set out by the Prime Minister, was to identify candidates who are jurists of the highest calibre, who are bilingual in both of Canada's official languages and representative of the diversity of our country and who possess the experience and the judgment required to serve on our highest court. In carrying out this mandate, the advisory board was guided by its terms of reference, section 8(e) of which required it to consider the institutional needs of the court in order to evaluate how each candidate could best meet the court's current and future needs. To ascertain this, we met with Chief Justice Richard Wagner at the beginning of our deliberations.
In his advice, the chief justice emphasized the importance of the selected candidate having extensive legal and judicial experience in various areas of law, being collegial in their relations with their colleagues, being willing and able to take on an intense workload, as well as being able to represent the court in domestic and international proceedings.
Board members reviewed all applications exhaustively. The questionnaire, as you will see when you read it, goes well beyond a traditional curriculum vitae, and it is very thorough. In addition to addressing personal skills, experience and professional qualities, it delves into professional and non-legal experience, community involvement and written work.
Following its deliberations, the advisory board decided to establish a list of candidates to be called for an interview. Together, we prepared a list of questions to ask each of them and began contacting people, both in the judicial and non-judicial fields, who could provide references and were familiar with the work and personalities of the candidates, including chief justices.
The advisory board members conducted the interviews directly by phone, with a two-person team on each call, following a consistent and structured approach to ensure fairness and comparability among candidates.
After careful review, four candidates were invited to participate in personal interviews in Ottawa, which were conducted here on May 23. The advisory board assessed these final four candidates against well-established criteria, including extensive and superior knowledge of the law, intellectual contributions as witnessed by their legal writing and judicial opinions, analytical ability, integrity, collegiality, judgment, and the capacity to begin immediately to perform the work of a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Following the individual interviews, each candidate took a language test, administered professionally by the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs, to verify that the candidate is functionally bilingual. Bilingualism is defined as the ability to understand written and oral texts and arguments in English and French, as well as the ability to converse with colleagues and litigants in Canada's two official languages, English and French.
Following a comprehensive review and extensive deliberation, the advisory board reached unanimous consensus that it should recommend only two candidates for the Prime Minister's consideration. A report of our decision was then provided to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Justice for their consideration and decision.
I am pleased that Chief Justice Joyal from Manitoba was selected from the names we submitted to the Prime Minister. The advisory board considered Chief Justice Joyal to be an exceptional candidate, distinguished by his deep legal expertise, his wealth of professional and judicial experience, and his interpersonal qualities.
We were particularly impressed by Justice Joyal's thoughtful, articulate and forward-looking perspective on the role of the Supreme Court of Canada and its many challenges, as well as by his strong commitment to public service.
I would be remiss to not mention here that all of our board members are deeply grateful for the exceptional support we received from the commissioner for federal judicial affairs and his highly skilled and dedicated staff—I'm going to take one of your secretaries, if I can, to help my husband—whose contributions were invaluable to the successful completion of our mandate.
Thank you, Mr. Giroux.
I've enjoyed the challenge of acting as chair of this independent advisory board and working alongside such dedicated and thoughtful colleagues throughout this process. Their spirit of collaboration, professionalism and shared commitment guided our work throughout and made this entire process a success.
If you have any questions afterwards, I will be pleased to answer them.
