Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be afforded the opportunity to speak today to Bill C-37, an act to amend the Judges Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.
Today I would like to deal with four specific topics: first, the issue of the pay raise for our judges; second, the issue of the establishment of a judicial compensation and benefits commission; third, the Judges Act itself; and fourth, a particularly troublesome definition within the legislation.
On the issue of the pay raise I must state how disappointed I am. Once again we witness this government going to great lengths to look after what some might refer to as the upper class or the elite of our society. At the same time, what is it doing for the ordinary citizens other than taxing them into the ground?
Just a few weeks ago this government announced pay increases for the executive levels of the civil service. Those who occupy the upper echelons of our civil service were well looked after. Meanwhile, those in the trenches, the clerks and receptionists who form the first line of contact between the government and its citizens, are again expected to do without.
I would like to illustrate my point with a specific example from my own community of Surrey, British Columbia. When this government provided pay increases to the executive levels of the civil service it included the person who we in Surrey might refer to as our chief of police, even though he is with the RCMP and they do not use that title.
Chief Superintendent Terry Smith, the officer in charge of the Surrey detachment, the largest in the country, came within the qualifications for a raise in pay. In fact all chief superintendents, assistant commissioners, deputy commissioners, as well as the commissioner himself received raises in pay. The constables and the corporals did not. Those men and women charged with keeping our communities safe were passed over. It was not until this past Friday that the lower ranks obtained raises in pay after a five year freeze.
I would suggest that this raise came about primarily as a result of the leadership shown not by the government, but by the upper management of the RCMP itself. Chief Superintendent Smith and his colleagues, to their credit, had refused to accept their pay raises until those in the lower ranks received the long overdue and much needed increase in salaries.
I have spoken with Chief Superintendent Smith on several occasions and he has expressed concern over significant staffing problems within the Surrey detachment. If he has a problem, then the citizens of my community definitely have a problem. If my constituents have a problem, then it is my duty to bring it to the attention of those who are in a position to do something about it, namely the officials of this place.
What is happening is that experienced members of the RCMP are leaving the force in droves. They are being lured away by other police departments. The Vancouver Police Department and the Calgary Police Service are just two of the organizations which have been quite eager to obtain fully trained and experienced RCMP officers. In Vancouver an RCMP member can leave the force on Friday, start with the Vancouver Police Department on Monday and, in effect, receive a $5,000 a year raise. Some go to the special investigations unit of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and some go to B.C. Transit. Indeed, the Surrey detachment just recently lost a much respected and experienced member to the Municipal Bylaw Enforcement Department, one presumes for better pay, better hours and in all likelihood significantly less stress.
Chief Superintendent Smith is plagued with almost perpetual vacancies. He is forced to fill positions with either raw new recruits or with personnel of lesser experience. In fact, when last we spoke he estimated that between 25% and 28% of Surrey's finest were rookies. That has the effect of reducing the overall efficiency of the detachment.
I regularly go on ride-alongs and I can assure members that it is not an easy community to police, partly because Surrey has one of the poorest if not the poorest police-to-resident ratios in the country.
Where does this leave the residents of Surrey, a large, sprawling, diverse municipality with both urban and rural aspects and a very large immigrant community? Terry Smith has every reason to be concerned, as do my constituents.
Residents of the lower mainland of British Columbia will tell everybody who wants to hear about it that it is the most desirable place in the country in which to live, primarily because of the climate, although we would never know it the way the weather has been here for the last few days. However, there is a price to be paid, which is the high cost of living. For that very reason it is well known within the RCMP establishment that the lower mainland is not an enviable posting. Experienced police officers are not compelled to accept transfers to Surrey and they do not do so because it is just not a practical financial decision.
What did the RCMP rank and file receive after five years of waiting? They received 2.75%. They have to wait until next October to benefit from the whole package. Even then they will still be approximately $3,000 behind their Vancouver counterparts.
I compare the increase in pay received by the already well compensated judges with the increases afforded our RCMP officers. As I said, the Mounties get 2.75%, payable in increments, retroactive to January 1 of this year, while the judges get 4.1%, retroactive to April 1, 1997 and then get a further 4.1% compounded to their new 1997 salary figures, payable on April 1, 1998. They already receive, on average, in the vicinity of $140,000 per year. The government seems to believe that it needs to retroactively come to the aid of these poor, financially strapped judges all the way back to April of last year.
Does it come to the same conclusion when compensating our police officers? No. The government throws a few pennies at them, retroactive to January, gives them a few more pennies in April and then tells them to wait until October for the remainder.
Another example is the violent crime linkage analysis system, or ViCLAS. ViCLAS is a computer database developed by the RCMP, used to analyze, research and search out potential links between violent crimes. It has the potential to save enormous amounts of investigative time and effort. More important, since it targets serial killers and sex offenders, the potential to prevent future victims is invaluable. Used by police forces throughout the world it has already been proven successful and is recognized as the best.
Yet in speaking with E Division ViCLAS representatives, the project is in serious danger of going under due to lack of funding and inadequate staffing. How ironic. This is a world class crime solving and crime prevention tool originally developed by the RCMP, but the RCMP will not be able to use it. Why? The government says it does not have the money, yet there appears to be plenty of money available to give judges a raise.
This government appears to have its priorities all out of sync. It falls over backwards to look after its friends, but fails to look after those who need it most. It likes to talk about public safety and crime prevention, but it seems to have a difficult time putting its money where its mouth is.
I will now move on to the issue of the judicial compensation and benefits commission. The government wants to set up yet another bureaucratic agency merely to concern itself with the salaries and benefits of judges. I see, as well, that the governor in council will appoint this new commission. The Minister of Justice gets to make another political patronage appointment. It is just what this country needs, more patronage, more friends of the government to carry out governmental responsibilities without being accountable to the citizens of this country. What we need is less patronage.
If we must establish a commission why is it not set up to conduct public hearings into judicial appointments? Yes, it could also govern pay and benefits, all subject of course to parliamentary approval.
How much is the judicial compensation and benefits commission going to cost Canadian taxpayers? What do we get for this money?
We are going to appoint three people at, no doubt, fairly attractive salaries to carry out their duties. They will be paid fees fixed by the governor in council. In addition, they will be paid travel and living expenses which are also fixed by the governor in council. There will be no parliamentary review or control of these salaries and fees.
It gets worse. Under section 26.2 as proposed by the bill the commission may engage the services of any persons necessary for the proper conduct of the commission.
Once again we are being asked to create a new agency of bureaucrats and provide them with all the financial resources to have others do the work for them. There are obviously other portions of this bill which deserve comment, but my limited time will not permit me to discuss them today.
I will now move on to the third issue I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the Judges Act itself. This is the third time this act has been before the House in the last couple of years. Bill C-2 was passed in March 1996. Bill C-42 was passed in June 1996. We now have the Judges Act back once again for amendment. One must ask: Was the previous minister of justice so incompetent that he had to bring the same legislation before the House twice within a matter of months? Did he still not get it right as it is now back again?
I hope we do not have other acts of parliament like this. I am sure Canadian people would not be too impressed if it came to their attention how much time and debate is devoted in this place just to our judges. No wonder our country has a $600 billion debt. In the last two years legislation regarding judges has been brought before the House three times.
One must wonder about the misplaced priorities. Maybe we should not be too surprised. Last June, eight months ago, the Minister of Justice stated that the young offender legislation was her top priority. We have not seen it yet.
The former minister of justice promised almost two years ago to bring in victims' rights legislation. This past summer the present Minister of Justice told Canadians that it was also one of her priorities. Victims are still waiting.
But the Liberals are certainly wasting no time in looking after the judges. Imagine.
I will now move on to the fourth issue. As I mentioned earlier, a definition within the legislation causes me some difficulty. It appears at the first clause of the bill. It amends section 2 of the act to include the definition for surviving spouse. What attracts my attention is that the definition of spouse is limited to a person of the opposite sex. It seems to me that this Liberal government has gone to great ends to foist the whole issue of same sex benefits onto Canadians, but it would appear as though this legislation creates an exception for judges. Regardless of one's personal opinion, I have to ask why there seems to be one rule for judges and another rule for the rest of us.
There is another reason to be concerned with legislation which proposes to give judges an increase in pay. Recent surveys have shown beyond a doubt that Canadians have lost confidence in the courts; not just the justice system, but the judiciary itself. That is extremely troubling. Canadians are telling us that they have no faith in judges to uphold the law.
There are those who will undoubtedly argue that people who say such things do not understand the system. There is that elitism showing through again. Certainly most citizens are unfamiliar with the intricacies and the vagaries of the justice system. My goodness, I know lawyers who become confused. What the public does understand, however, are dubious decisions which come from the bench, like decisions to sanction violent offenders by sending them home on conditional sentences. Even the Alberta court of appeal was extremely critical of some of their peers in this regard.
What about this one? A man suspected in the kidnapping and forcible confinement of two young women while fleeing from the police attacks a third woman, puts a plastic bag over her head and wraps a length of wire tightly around her neck. The judge ruled that this could not be viewed as an attempt to kill her. The man was eventually convicted of not only the initial offences but two murders in another province.
What Canadians also understand are outrageous comments from the bench, comments suggesting that a three-year old child was sexually provocative, implying that she was in part responsible for an assault against herself; comments suggesting that rape is acceptable in some cultures; comments implying that the sexual assault of three young girls by their teacher was not as serious as the “buggery of little boys”.
We know that most judges conduct themselves in an extremely responsible and thoughtful manner, but in this climate of public mistrust to grant our judiciary such a generous increase while other public servants receive nothing or a pittance at best merely invites more cynicism.
With that note, I will end my comments on this legislation.