Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-37. It deals with the salary and the annuity benefits for our judges along with establishing a judicial benefits and compensation commission. It also authorizes additional appeal court and unified family court judges.
I believe that judges should get a raise and that the increases in the number of judges are probably justified according to the government's recommendations. We cannot always believe all the statistics, as was recently seen in the firearms act trial in Edmonton. However I will believe them this time that we could use more family court judges.
A government's legislative actions should always reflect a consistent and fair approach to everyone in the public sector. I agree that judges' pay should be set by an independent council. However their salaries are the ultimate responsibility of Parliament. The setting of salaries can be delegated by the government but once again ultimate responsibility and accountability rests with the government.
I find it hard to support this bill because judges are getting a much larger raise than those employees on the lower rungs of the public service who make $30,000 a year. Public service employees will get maybe a 2% raise which is around $600 on $30,000. Previous governments have taken and the current federal Liberal government takes a very extremist view on these kinds of issues. They prefer to take care of the higher echelons and forget the little people who are trying to get pay equity and a better raise to feed their families.
The independent pay council is of concern to me. I refer to it as independent but I do not think that is quite the word when I look at its make-up. The council should be made up of more middle income people who could better reflect what the average person sees is a justifiable salary for judges. They would be more inclined to give raises in keeping with what the rest of society is collecting.
I am not talking about the gross amount paid. Certainly judges have a very responsible job in society. A salary in the $140,000 range is very acceptable. It is the times that count. It is the percentage of the raise that the average person gets compared to the percentage of the raise that those in the upper strata of society get that is the problem. I will probably get a question later on about members of Parliament on that issue and I feel the same way about members of Parliament. We should not be setting ourselves above the average person who is struggling to make a living in Canada today.
Let us look at the judicial compensation and benefits commission. Under section 26.1(1), one person will be nominated by the judiciary, one person will be nominated by the Minister of Justice and one chairperson will be nominated by the first two nominees. If any member can convince me that is going to be an independent committee, I would like to have a long discussion with that member.
In addition we certainly do not need to appoint five people to sit on a committee to decide compensation. Three is plenty. They are certainly going to be well compensated so costs will go up the more people we have on the committee.
Where is the independence and fairness of this judicial compensation and benefits commission? As was pointed out, it really is not. As I said before, the patronage and payment of higher increases are more extremism on the part of the Liberals. They take care of their own and to heck with the little guy.
Once again I agree that judges should get their raise. The salaries of the commissioners who will sit on the independent pay commission, as I like to think of it, should not exceed $60,000 to $80,000. They too must understand what the average person is trying to get by on.
The question of how the other two members could be appointed was dealt with a little bit by a Progressive Conservative member. A case could be made for having one judge on this board to reflect the judges' view. Maybe the government would even look at having the official opposition and maybe the second largest opposition party appoint the other two. We might see a little independence there.
I will comment on the surviving spouse situation. In the annuity section, section 44(4) it is stated under subsection (5):
No annuity shall be granted under this section to the surviving spouse of a judge unless the surviving spouse
(a) married the judge before the judge ceased to hold office; or
(b) commenced cohabiting with the judge in a conjugal relationship before the judge ceased to hold office.
There are a couple of good things. It will address these gold-digger marriages that happen to come along after the judge is out of office. Also, in the definition under subsection (2), the surviving spouse has to have cohabited or have been married for a minimum of one year before the judge's death. That is a good part of the bill. The surviving spouse definition confirms what is the law in Canada today, that a spouse is a person of the opposite sex and then it goes on to cohabitation.
The total salary for all of the increases in the number of judges will have a significant impact on our judicial system. I have made rough figures which indicate that the added judges will bring the total salary compensation up into the $5.5 million range associated with all the other expenses in setting up the courts.
Justice is certainly not cheap. We do not want to try to get by on a real cheap court system but we do want to keep it reasonable. Salaries, particularly raises, should be in keeping with what the average Canadian gets.
In conclusion, the government may want to consider the suggestions I had for this bill before it pushes the bill through.
The government should amend the section dealing with appointment of members to the commission and to try to eliminate the patronage that will be going on.
The second amendment is to try to have the salary increases more in keeping with public sector pay raises. Fairness is really important. In court the judges tell us that not only does justice have to be done but it has to be seen to be done. I think a lot of people would say that a $600 raise for a person at the low end and a $5,000 raise for the person at the high end in the salary scheme of things is not fair. The government should not be reflecting that type of unfairness to Canadians.