Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member said that while this is an aberration it is just one judge, but this is another example of a series of problems perceived by the community which leads to a basic distrust. A gap develops between what the community expects and the results that are delivered through the judicial system. This is only the latest example of the basic lack of community confidence that judges are reflective of mainstream Canadian values. Part of it is not so much what is being decided but also who is on the bench and who gets to be decidee.
I refer to a time when the chairman of the justice committee agreed with Reform on that issue. I said on that day as a backdrop in a general sense we detect that there is not a lot of public confidence in the judiciary itself. One of the mysteries is that the average public does not know how judges get to be appointed.
The late Shaughnessy Cohen, God bless her, said: “We all know it is the committees that want to keep the process secret. We all know they do not want to face an applicant. They do not want to have someone who is applying for a judicial appointment put his face right in front of them because God forbid they should be accountable for this decision”.
She went on to say: “If this committee wants to continue to keep this secret, perhaps they should reconsider the process and reconsider whether they want to be on the committee or not. Maybe it is turning into a star chamber. There is a big difference. There are politics at play here other than Liberal politics or Tory politics. There is also the politics of the bar which is unaccountable and really nasty. It gets down to who is deciding”.
She also said: “In the final analysis who is on the hook if a judge screws up? It is the Prime Minister and the justice minister”. That opinion was very well considered based on experience. The opinion and the evidence we got in this Chamber today was unaccountability, that we should let the system work, that it is all okay. Our point today is that it is not working and changes have to be made.