Madam Speaker, the comments, although they may be commendable, are perhaps off the topic of what we are debating today. Mainly we are talking about judicial activism and the basic concern, now that we have a charter, of who does the deciding is as important as what is being decided.
We have in our party a specific position about the constitution of the supreme court and the appointments to the higher courts of the provinces which states:
A. The Reform Party supports more stringent and more public ratification procedures for Supreme Court Justices in light of the powers our legislators are handing the courts. We believe that an elected Senate should ratify all appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada and all Courts where the judges are appointed by the federal government.
B. The Reform Party supports efforts to secure adequate regional representation on the Supreme Court, and that nominations should be made by provincial legislatures, not provincial governments.
C. The Reform Party supports the appointment of judges at the Supreme Court of Canada level for fixed, non-renewable terms of ten years.
It is a concern about the appropriate role of the court that ultimately parliament must be supreme. If we are to get into those kinds of policy debates which the member opposite seemingly wanted to get into today, that is fine and well, but those issues must be decided by parliament and not by the courts.
Now that we have a charter court, we must look very carefully at who is doing the deciding as well as what is being decided. Hopefully the court will stay appropriately within its bounds and allow parliament to do its work.