Status of Women Committee on April 4th, 2017

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

In terms of the training, I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about what we can do about sitting judges, then.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

We worked really hard to make sure, as I mentioned before, that we didn't infringe on judicial accountability, because of the constitutionality of it. We wanted to make sure that this bill could pass and that it would be viable, but that we could also make it effective and try to effect some change.

That is why we target lawyers and the criteria for a lawyer to be appointed to the bench by the justice minister. They would, as I said, have to meet the criterion that they have had comprehensive training in sexual assault law.

Furthermore, concerning the reporting mechanism for sitting judges, we're not directly telling the Judicial Council that they have to mandate training, but we're trying to effect some level of accountability and transparency by making the case that they make the type of training known very transparently, because right now they don't; that we know how many trials a judge would oversee before receiving the training; and that we know how many judges have received the training. That's about as close as we could come to imposing some level of transparency and accountability without infringing on judicial independence.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Will your bill be able to deal with poor judicial appointments that are made, such as in the case of former Justice Camp?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

There are mechanisms for that—you saw this take effect, obviously—when a judge makes a bad ruling or there are issues. There are reviews, and there is a process. This is about training for judges.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I only have 20 seconds left, so....

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll go to Ms. Vecchio for five minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you so much for appearing today in front of our committee.

Last week I was at a grade 10 civics class where we were discussing the reports and the fact that one in four young students has a sexual assault case in the first eight weeks of going to school. We started talking about the judges. I don't believe many Canadians know—I know that the teacher, who is very up on what goes on in Canadian law, could not believe it—that Canadian judges do not already have experience in understanding sexual violence when appointed to the bench. I explained that you could be a bankruptcy lawyer, or somebody who does real estate law—you could be any of those things—so I think it's really important.

But recently we have seen the Province of Ontario coming out—I think it was on March 15.... This is how the conversation continued with the students. They were concerned too: why would we see some provinces say they were not going to make this happen, when we know that we have had cases in which it's very obvious that because of a lack of training and a lack of understanding we aren't getting appointments that provide the best results for the judicial system?

What do we do when some provinces do not want to do this? I recognize that we're talking about specifically new judges here, which is great, but what about current judges who are sitting on the bench? Is there anything we would be able to do, or is that area going to be 100% within provincial jurisdiction?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

One thing we can do without infringing on judicial independence is to advocate and put pressure on the judiciary and even on governments—sitting ministers of justice—concerning, for instance, the administration of the court. I think there's nothing wrong with shining some light on whether the chief justice is assigning sexual assault trials to a judge who doesn't have any training. The more transparency we can impose and the more pressure we can put on the provincial system, the more helpful we can be, and advocates are already doing that. There are many advocates who have picked up on this bill and have started to put pressure on provincial governments.

I've had very good conversations with Premier Christy Clark, who's very supportive of this bill and is looking to see what she can do at the provincial level. I've had conversations with Premier Brad Wall, with Premier Brian Pallister, and also with leaders in the Atlantic region, and I've either sent a letter or spoken with every single premier and also sent letters to all of the ministers of justice and attorneys general about how this can be done without imposing or infringing on judicial independence and saying why this would be important. It's as simple as amending the criteria.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you so much.

At the very beginning of your comments you talked about the court watch program, and I think that must have been a fascinating time. What were some of the things you saw during your time as a student, looking at what happened in the courtrooms to some of the issues?

My question is twofold. When we're looking at this bill, there has been talk about whether this will make it biased towards the complainant rather than the accused. What are some things we should look at there?

Could you talk about the court watch program and why this is really balancing the judicial system rather than putting it towards one side?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

To expect that people who are involved in the justice system have the appropriate training seems a no-brainer to me. That someone would say that somehow this would bias the system is ludicrous. We're talking about basic knowledge of the law in sexual assault, and then furthermore, a level of comprehension and understanding of rape mythology, stereotypes, and language—all of these things. It's not present right now.

I've spoken to a lot of people in the system who would welcome this, who think it's a wonderful idea, that it's a long time in coming and will be a good thing. These people are judges, lawyers, police, and advocates.

I can't see why we wouldn't do something such as this. But no, it's not about creating bias; it's about creating a more informed, educated, trained, and transparent system.

On the issue of the court watch program, that was just an example. I've done lots of advocacy work in my life, but that just happened to be one project I was involved in. In every single case that we sat in on, we heard things such as that, particularly around sexual abuse cases. Those stereotypes are still prevalent. That's the problem with stereotypes and myths: unless people learn differently, they bring that to the courtroom. So I think training goes a long way, and that's what this is about. It's about making our system more transparent.

Really, to be honest, for me it's about building confidence. Women do not have confidence in our justice system when it comes to sexual assault law.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but that's your time on that question.

Very good.

We'll go to Ms. Vandenbeld now for five minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ambrose. I appreciate very much your evident understanding and appreciation of the severity of this issue and the systemic barriers that women are facing in the judicial system. Also, thank you for your acknowledgement of this committee's report on violence against young women and girls.

First of all, before I get to my questions, I'd like to go to something you said, that you've been advocating on this since you were in grad school. You were the Minister of Status of Women. Your government was in power for 10 years. You just said that it didn't occur to you that judges weren't getting training, but it has been in the media. Advocacy groups have been pushing for this for a number of years. Was it never considered in your government, over 10 years in the previous government, to act on something such as this?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I was a minister for 10 years. I didn't have a chance to do a private member's bill. I've worked in the area of ending violence against women my whole life. After this research project that I did at university, I didn't turn my attention back to training of judges until the last few years that I've been the leader of the party and an MP again. When I had an opportunity to have a private member's bill, I started to look at ways to amend the Criminal Code around sexual assault. As I said, the more research I did, the more I realized that our laws were robust, so I started to turn my attention to how we can make the system better.

The truth is that there is a widespread consensus now that the way to make the system better is through education and training. This is a very basic thing for us to be able to do.

It's timely. I truly believe that it's not just advocates anymore; it's people in the judiciary as well who welcome this change.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Then, you would also welcome in budget 2017 the gender-based violence strategy of $100 million, including the creation of a centre of excellence to address gender-based violence, and the $2.7 million targeted towards supporting judicial education, ethics, and conduct relating to gender and diversity. Can we count on your support for those measures in the budget?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I think those are great measures, and one thing I spoke with Sheila about is the hope that you consider, when you talk to some of the experts in training, that perhaps some of that $2.7 million be used with some of the NGOs who have the opportunity or really want the opportunity to give advice on how that training should look.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'd like to pick up on some of the things that Ms. Damoff said.

You talked about the need for change in the system. In terms of the criteria and appointment of judges, we have implemented an independent judicial advisory committee. That committee has 70% women on it, and will only look at making merit-based appointments. They are provided training on diversity, on unconscious bias, and the assessment of merit.

Just going back to the fact that the previous government appointed somebody who was on the public record as having told a woman to keep her knees together, with this change in the system, this independent merit-based system that takes into consideration all of these issues, do you think that kind of appointment would happen under the current system that our government implemented?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

There's a very good chance it would, because, look, there was a judicial committee before, and it was not MPs or partisans who were sitting on it. It was made up of independent members as well. It's all well and good that the people sitting on your judicial action committee have diversity training, but we still haven't amended the Judges Act to make sure.... I don't see on the application form, a specific question being asked of everyone who is going through that committee if they've taken comprehensive training on sexual assault law.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In the very premise of your bill, which we all agree with, I think this is the minimum we can do. Training is the very foundation of that, the fact that people do need training, including the people who are appointing the judges.

I would very much like to think that at a minimum a Google search would be done to see what kinds of statements judges have made before a minister would appoint someone like Justice Camp. I think, at this point, having that training is just as important for the judges as it is for the people who are selecting the judges. Wouldn't you agree?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Look, I think the more training the better, but at the end of the day, I have seen people appointed who come with incredible CVs and who then do things that surprised everyone, so it's not enough. It's just not enough because you can't control who applies. You can't control the flow of people who apply, and you're not necessarily going to get people who have strong criminal law backgrounds.

At the end of the day, regardless of who gets through those committees, we need them to have training.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Yes, and I think we all—

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

They need to have the training, because they're the ones who are not being held accountable when it comes to the training part of this.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Yes, and I think we all agree on the training. We definitely need that, and we appreciate that you brought that forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

I think we have five minutes left, and we'll go to Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you so much. I think we're going to split our time.

Ms. Ambrose, I'm wondering if you can comment on the following. Right now there's been a bit of a stall in the appointment of judges. It would appear to me that, in addition to a lack of training, that would have quite an impact on hearing these cases adequately.

Can you comment a little on that?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Well, there are a number of factors, but, yes, not only are a number of the judicial action committees not constituted or took a long time to be constituted, but there is also a lack of judges appointed. Yes, we've seen a number of cases dismissed for very serious issues and, obviously, that's a big concern for people who are seeking justice in the courts.

To the point that everyone wants to see this happen, we just had a slate of people appointed, and did they all take training? I don't know. The good will is wonderful, but we need to get this done so that it's clear that everyone gets the training. These are different kind of cases. The reality is that the kind of trauma that women and men go through in dealing with sexual assault and sexual abuse lasts a lifetime, and the least we can expect is that when people go to court, they will be in front of a judge who has adequate training and who especially understands the stereotypes and the mythology around these issues.