Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We would consider that the committee should be aware of four significant concerns with this particular amendment as drafted. First of all, there is the issue of purporting to prescribe a hard and fast twelve-month deadline. Clearly that was the goal both of Justice Lamer and of the department, but one should be very careful, one would suggest, when prescribing in law a hard and fast deadline. But that's a policy judgment for the committee to make. However, there are I think a number of technical issues that the committee should definitely be aware of.
The second concern is that this is obviously meant to address the issue of delay. However, the committee should be aware that under the regulations prescribed, if a member chooses to take their grievance to another forum, for example, the Federal Court, that has the effect of suspending consideration of that grievance pending the outcome of that other process. If the goal of this is actually to expedite the consideration of grievances, that goal would not actually be achieved, because the Federal Court itself, of course, has a significant docket. There is a significant delay in actually getting a matter before the Federal Court, which we understand to be something in the order of fourteen months. So actually the practical effect of doing this wouldn't be to achieve the goal sought.
The third concern we have is that it prescribes costs on a solicitor-client basis regardless of the outcome. The members of the committee who are lawyers would of course be aware that there are a number of different tariffs, and solicitor-client costs are generally only awarded in cases where the court wishes to convey a punitive message. So that's a consideration.
Perhaps very significantly, the fourth concern is that this doesn't actually accord with the Lamer recommendation in the way that he made it. What Chief Justice Lamer said was that a griever should be entitled to his costs. In other words, those costs would be subsidized or paid for by the crown. But the amendment on its face says “the Federal Court shall award”, which we would suggest might actually engage some significant considerations about infringement on judicial independence of the Federal Court.
So taken all together, those are, I believe, some significant concerns with this amendment as drafted, which the committee should be aware of.