Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the Senate amendments to Bill C-37.
I reviewed some of the comments that I made on behalf of my party some time ago when this bill was first introduced. I compared this piece of legislation to a recipe that my grandfather brought to this country from Italy some time ago. I said that as much as my grandfather would try to pass that recipe onto his children, when he would taste the sauce he would say “You got a little bit of it right and whole lot of it wrong”. I said that this bill was very similar to that sauce.
The Senate has added a dash a salt but nothing particularly to improve the flavour of this legislation. What remains tragic is that with this legislation there was an opportunity for the government to address some fundamental issues.
I will pick up on the comments of my colleague from Charlesbourg. He talked about cutbacks in the provinces. He talked about hospital beds. He talked about the kinds of things that matter to Canadians at a time when this government is determined that we should give judges a substantial increase in their salaries.
I am not going to talk so much about hospital beds. I am going to talk about the justice system and where those funds might be better funnelled at a time of increasing demands on the courts, at a time when we are looking at a role for victims to play in the courts, at a time when crown prosecutors who have to enforce the laws are finding their hands tied because of lack of resources, and at a time when the RCMP and law enforcement agencies are finding their budgets slashed.
When we are determining how the very sparse funds have to be divided up, increasing the judges' salary at this point in time when this country has other problems is perhaps not the wisest and most judicial, if you will, use of funds.
I sit on the custody and access committee. One complaint we have heard continually is that when there is a dispute in family law it cannot be resolved for months because of the backlog in cases. There is a lack of legal aid availability for parties who are seeking to bring their matters before the court. There is a lack of court clerks. There is a lack of all kinds of necessary instruments to bring matters to court and to have them resolved quickly. When matters are not resolved quickly before the courts, it results in increased tension between the parties. The parties take matters into their own hands and there is increased concern.
These funds might have been better spent in improving the justice system in the provinces. That is in the family law courts. Let us look at the criminal courts.
More and more powers are being delegated to provincial court judges with fewer and fewer resources. Again this means longer waiting times for court hearings. It does no good for the accused, who lives under a cloud of suspicion while waiting for his or her day in court. It does no good for the victim, who waits for months and months in a system he or she never asked to end up in in the first place.
The cuts to the provinces have resulted in increased waiting times in both the criminal and family courts.
Also, as has been raised by this side of the House, the RCMP training centre out west is being closed down. I am meeting with a group of people in my own riding next Monday when the House is down. Seniors in my riding have been told that when they press an alarm, it will only be responded to if the person pressing the alarm can guarantee that there is a break and enter.
I practised criminal law for some time. It was a rare occasion when one could say to the criminal breaking into the home “Hold on for a minute while I call the police to confirm that you are here. Would you take the phone and let the RCMP know that there is a reason for them to come”. I do not blame the RCMP officers for this. The reality is that they do not have the resources to respond unless they can be sure there is a crime taking place. At the same time that this is happening, we are increasing the wages for some of the wealthiest people in this country. I again question whether that is the best use of resources.
There was also a golden opportunity, which I have spoken to the Minister of Justice about, to review the method of appointment of judges. The parliamentary secretary has said in support of some of the Senate amendments that the criteria in terms of determining judicial compensation ought to be accepted and it is something the government looks favourably on. I would suggest we ought to revamp the criteria for the appointment of judges before we revamp the criteria for increasing their salaries and determining whether they ought to get it.
This country has some very good judges. I do not want to diminish that for a moment. The late Justice Dickson was an example of a fine judge. He moved this country forward in his position as a supreme court justice. There are hundreds of good judges in this country.
Every now and then we hear about an appointment to the court that is simply a patronage appointment. It is well known certainly on the east coast and in the province I come from that part of how one gets to the judiciary is to make the right contributions to the parties in power.
Just this summer there was an appointment of a judge to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. Prior to her being a judge, she started her career as a lawyer and a keen organizer for the Liberal Party. The reward for that was an appointment to the public utility board in Nova Scotia which paid some $75,000 a year up until the age of 75. This was a pretty nice plum and everybody thought she was satisfied with that. As it turned out, she was a classmate of the Minister of Justice, I think the year behind. She was not too happy on the utility board and found herself appointed to the supreme court. That appointment met with considerable criticism in the province. It was not the only one.
That is unfair to the judges who legitimately serve this country well, who achieve their appointment on merit. We need to have a discussion about this. I have indicated to the Minister of Justice that there ought to be a subcommittee of the justice committee that can explore and ensure a fair method of the appointment of the judiciary. Citizens look to the judiciary in some ways to set the moral standards of the country. They look to parliamentarians. They look to people in authority.
This is a time when we are talking about youth crime and young offenders who appear before judges. It is very difficult to present to them the argument that the society we want them to participate in is one that is fair and just if some of the very people they appear before received their positions on the bench not because of their understanding of criminal, family or contract law, but because of their connections to particular parties. This was a missed opportunity.
Some of the amendments that were put forward by members of the justice committee from the Reform Party and the Bloc party were good. It is too bad that the government could not have supported them. It did support one of those amendments. The amendment put forward by the Bloc which had to do with the actual pay increase would have been well received. It is too bad that the government did not choose to accept that in the same way it accepted the amendments from the Senate.