Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 2 was put forward by the Reform Party and adds a few lines after line 34 on page 3 of the bill:
“(6.1) A report that is tabled in each House of Parliament under subsection (6), shall, on the day it is tabled or if the House is not sitting on that day, on the day that the House next sits, be referred by that House to a committee of that House that is designated or established by that House for the purpose of considering matters relating to justice”.
The amendment goes on with two other parts related to getting some accountability into the system.
Some years ago there was an attempt to roll back judicial salaries as part of the cost cutting measures of the government. The supreme court actually ruled that any attempt to roll back judicial salaries was an interference in the independence of the judiciary.
It is amazing that rolling back salaries is an interference in the independence of the judiciary but increasing its salaries is not. Is that not amusing, that one is an interference and one is not?
The court ruled that the government had to set up a commission to set judicial salaries. It issued it as an order to the government. Theoretically the government does not actually have to obey the order. It could say we are certainly not going to take orders from the judges. But if the government did not accept the position put forward by the supreme court, it would find itself in court. What a sort of rigmarolic circle we would get into then with the government trying to legislate itself out of court and the court trying to take the government to court and all from the starting point where the judges felt the government had no right to set their salaries.
Many of the examples my colleagues have given throughout the day indicate quite clearly that the general public is quite dissatisfied with what is happening at the judicial level in this country. The poll mentioned in July 1997 showed more than 50% of the population dissatisfied with the performance of judges. The examples I gave in my speech earlier today are just from the North Vancouver area over the past few months. They are decisions people were outraged to see, short sentences, failure of people to appear in court, no arrest warrants issued, simple instructions, please turn up next time.
Judges are acting as if they are running classrooms and not courts of law. This lack of confidence in judges has caused the opposition to look at this bill and ask what on earth is going on. Judges are telling us what to do while as the supreme level of justice in Canada we should be setting the rules. That is the reason for the number of motions being put forward to alter this bill. It is unfortunate that as usual the government will not accept any of them. It will overrule all of them. No matter how good the ideas might be, no matter how logical the arguments, it will use its voting power to overturn anything we propose.
We can get up and talk to the bill or speak in favour of any of the amendments here but we know in our hearts that none of them will pass. If nothing more, at least we can get the message out to the people of Canada that we are speaking on their behalf, that we are telling the government side and this place that people are dissatisfied with what is happening in this thing called the justice system which the average person is now calling the legal system and is not even respecting it anymore for what it should be. It is time we took action in this place to correct the problems. That is the main thrust and the main reason the opposition is taking a position of opposition to this legislation.