Mr. Speaker, may I first express the sense of horror and sadness that all members of this Chamber must feel at the tragic death of Sarah Dutil. Our hearts go out to members of her family.
There are two aspects I would offer to the hon. member in response to the important question she has raised. First, my understanding of the traditional practice is that whenever a trial court judge is to be elevated to the appellate level, inquiries are made by the minister of the chief justice of the relevant court to be sure that the appointment will not interfere with the completion of any proceeding or trial that is under way. That is certainly the practice I intend to follow as long as I have any involvement with the appointment process. As to what happened in June of last year with respect to the appointment in question, I have no personal knowledge.
There is a second aspect as well. The Department of Justice will soon be introducing an omnibus amendment to the Criminal Code and among other things it will propose a change to section 669.2 of the code, the effect of which will be to ensure that a criminal jury trial can proceed notwithstanding the disqualification of the presiding trial judge for any reason and the substitution of another judge so that such a circumstance may never happen again.