Mr. Speaker, I am glad to know that the member is paying close attention. It will certainly be a different experience for some of us on this side of the House.
In order to get around the inconvenience of the prohibitions in the Judges Act with respect to the appointment of Madam Justice Arbour, as it gets around a number of other inconvenient standing orders and conventions and laws that might impede the way the government wants to do things, the Minister of Justice simply had the cabinet pass an order in council approving the appointment of the justice to work for the UN commencing July 1. We are only now debating legislation that would actually legitimize the work of this justice. Of course the Senate did not approve of the legislation which it received from the government and amended it.
Again the pattern appears, where clear laws and conventions are simply ignored at the wish of the government. Canadians need to be extremely concerned about the way the government deals with issues, legislation and conventions that are inconvenient to it.
The government is using closure almost on a daily basis. That is a procedure which the government, when it was in opposition, called morally wicked and railed against. We have closure on this bill. Closure cuts off debate. The government is not allowing the voice of duly elected representatives to be heard. We cannot voice our concerns, voice our criticisms or voice our alternatives to the way this issue is being handled. That is not something the government wants to see. It is not something which my colleague who keeps getting up and trying to interrupt the remarks and the concerns that I am bringing forward wants to see.
I hope that Canadians watching this debate will wake up and realize that we are seeing the erosion of the democratic process. It is the erosion of the commitment to follow the rule of law. I find that reprehensible.
An order in council is legitimizing what is clearly prohibited by an act of Parliament. After the fact the government is trying to ram something through in order to deal with the situation.
Also, there is an exemption for a particular person which is being dealt with in this bill. Such an exemption has always been dealt with by a private bill. Public policy goes through the House as a public bill, but this sort of policy goes through the House as a private bill. Again, the rules of the House are clearly being contravened by forcing this bill, this amendment, through as a public bill.
We see the disdain of the government for the democratic process in the way this whole thing is being carried out. We see the disdain
in so many ways, by bringing in closure, in the way committees are simply run as kangaroo operations in many cases and ignoring clear democratic conventions.
Last night we saw that the government does not even want to allow Canadians to decide who to support in their own ridings for their own candidates for the Liberal Party. I think it is very clear that we are going to have to speak out more loudly and more pointedly so that Canadians can begin to realize we simply must insist that when issues are being dealt with and when legislation is in place that it is respected and not simply ignored or dealt with in the most expeditious way possible in order for the government to get what it wants. This is dangerous.
Surely government members must be able to see how repugnant their actions are by their support of closure, interruptions of speeches that try to point out how the process needs to be tightened up and even their support of this bill which clearly contravenes legislation that has been passed by the House simply because the government finds it inconvenient. It does not allow them to do what they have decided they want to do. Therefore the legislation in this instance has to be changed.
This is a very difficult situation which must be dealt with. We must look at the larger issues which are being raised about the way the bill through the government is dealing with the issue.
Canadians who are watching this debate should take the time to phone the office of their representative and find out how the process is being carried out. Where there is a prohibition for something the government wants to do, the government does anyway by an order in council. When the matter is finally dealt with in the House, the government does all sorts of things to ignore democratic convention by bringing in closure in order to ram through what the government has decided on. This is very dangerous and very unfortunate. I hope Canadians will speak out against this sort of thing.
In Bill C-42 we have a situation where a whole legislative scheme is being changed to allow one situation to be dealt with. No matter how good the end result is which is being sought, the means can do nothing but raise concern and disapproval in the minds of Canadians and some members in the House who have a duty to represent Canadians and make sure that the process dealing with their interests is fair, open and balanced. We need to spend some time considering not only some particulars of the bill but the way it is being dealt with.
We have a Judges Act which protects the impartiality, the structure of our judiciary. There are provisions in the act to deal with the very important integrity and operation of our justice system. Because of the anomaly, a different situation, that whole act is being amended in this way in a very unconventional way for one individual.
We in the Reform Party have tabled a multi-point amendment that puts conditions on this kind of leave by a member of our judiciary. The judges of our country are here to serve Canadians in an impartial, unbiased and unimpeded way. We have, as the House knows, put forward some amendments in order to make this kind of absence more stringent to make sure the conditions under which our judges are able to mix some of their priorities are dealt with in a way that makes it very clear that the interest of Canadians, the interest of our judicial system and judicial duties are carried out as clearly and unimpeded as possible.
I urge this House to consider those amendments carefully, to look at the fact that these amendments are intending to serve the process of this House and respect the legislation of this House and also to make sure that our judicial system does not have mixed priorities, a mixed focus, that the interest of the people of Canada come first and foremost with those who serve us on the bench. I would urge the members of this House to support the amendments that we have put forward to Bill C-42.