Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We know there are a number of important criteria. When the government selects a candidate for a position of Supreme Court justice, it must consider a lot of things. The principles of merit and excellence are paramount, but it has to be vigilant and look for language skills in both official languages.
That is indeed a criterion that is not mandatory, but it is nevertheless a criterion. The two essential criteria are merit and excellence, according to the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice and the minister himself.
In addition, when the Commissioner appeared before us last week, he said he acknowledged that Minister Nicholson's practice of consulting the chief justice of the court concerning the court's specific bilingual capacity needs was a step in the right direction. He acknowledges that we're doing a good job and that we have put good processes in place, and he is satisfied with that.
One of the difficulties I have with this motion, Mr. Chair, is that it really shows the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party.
The ship is sinking.
They know they're sinking. Basically, they have no policies. And with a motion such as this, they actually criticize their own performance when they were the government.
I want to pick up on what Monsieur Petit said. Here we have the Liberal government that over the past 13 years, most of which it ruled as a majority government, was in a far stronger position, when we count the number of MPs, than we are in now, and this was never an issue. It never came up. All of a sudden they've latched on to something, and it has become very, very important to them. Yet in doing so, they criticize their performance over the past 13 years.
A motion like this lacks sincerity and it lacks integrity. We see this lack of integrity in many other facets, particularly in the House. How many times have we seen the Liberals absolutely change their position? They vote against us, then they're voting for us, then they're voting against us again, but not in enough numbers to actually defeat us. They want to defeat us, but they won't defeat us. They won't show up in the House to vote. When they do show up in the House to vote, they sit on their hands.
Mr. Chair, I'm getting to the motion when I'm talking about the lack of sincerity related to this motion. What I'm saying, Mr. Chair, is that the Liberals are indecisive, they lack integrity, and there is a great amount of hypocrisy that concerns their party these days in Parliament, and it concerns this motion. As we said, all of a sudden this motion is being tabled, when over the last 13 years this was never an issue.
Monsieur Coderre was a cabinet minister. He sat in cabinet. Mr. Chair, I'd like Mr. Coderre to explain how it is that this was not an issue when he was sitting in cabinet. If he made this an issue, I'd like to know why it was never adopted by the Liberal Party. I'd like to know how Mr. Rothstein made it onto the Liberal short list when Mr. Coderre feels so adamant about this issue. How was that?
Monsieur Petit raised a very good point, that Mr. Rothstein.... Yes, we appointed him, but we chose him from the short list that the Liberals put together. So how is it that Mr. Coderre allowed that to happen? How did his colleagues allow that to happen?
Mr. Chair, this is where the hypocrisy comes in, where the lack of sincerity comes in. I'm saying that it actually shows itself again in the House every time we vote. This is not an isolated instance here. This is a pattern, and we're simply seeing it present itself here at the official languages committee.
It's my hope that when Monsieur Coderre takes the floor--because I know he's on the speaking list--he will actually answer these very valid questions I have. What did he do as a cabinet minister? Why was Mr. Rothstein on the Liberal short list when he is a unilingual judge? How did that happen? What did Mr. Coderre say about that publicly at the time? I'd like to know.
Merci.
