Mr. Speaker, I certainly hesitate to bring this exciting exchange of opinions to an end, but perhaps those two members will be able to engage themselves fruitfully in some other context without the benefit of an audience.
I have a few remarks to make before we send the bill off to committee, as I think we should probably do with some expeditiousness. It is something that had progressed quite far, if I understand correctly, in the last parliament and there does not seem to be a great need to beat it to death in this one, particularly at second reading. If there are amendments to be suggested or made, or if further discussion is needed on the details of the bill, it seems to me that is something that can be done in committee.
A few remarks would nevertheless be in order. In the context of our overall opposition to the bill, the NDP does see some merit in some aspects of the bill, particularly those aspects that have to do with the creation of unified family courts and justices to deal with them, as well as the division of annuities, which is also found to be a positive element.
However the major thrust of the bill, which is where we have some reservations, is to provide judges with big raises. It is not that judges should not be well paid. I think most Canadians would contend that they are well paid. It is a question of whether they should be paid even more.
I have noticed that one can never separate out discussions about pay raises, not just with respect to judges' pay raises but also with respect to remuneration for MPs and various other categories of people, from the context. The context in which the NDP operates with respect to the bill is the way in which so many other aspects of our justice system are being starved for money.
We have a bill before us that gives an 11.2% increase to people who are already making well over $120,000 or $130,000 a year when there are so many other people within the justice system, equally important to its proper functioning, who are not getting this kind of increase and are not making that kind of money. They may also have to deal with many of the stresses and strains that come from years of cutbacks to the justice system. When these raises come in that context, it is a little hard for us to stand up and say amen to this without taking the opportunity to bring forward some of these other concerns which I think are quite legitimate.
Many would contend that there is a crisis in the justice system and that if money can be found to increase the salaries of judges then money should also be found to address some of the other very serious problems that exist within the justice system.
In many provinces crown attorneys do not have sufficient resources to prosecute the crimes that come before them. Surely that should be a priority if we are concerned about justice. In many parts of the country legal aid lawyers do not have sufficient resources to ensure proper fundamental freedoms are met and that trials are done in a proper way. That results in many injustices not only for the accused but also for the victims and those involved in the justice system.
Anything that tends to increase and aggravate delays within the justice system is a problem. Certainly a lack of resources contributes to a lot of the delays that people experience. We are saying that if there are resources to deal with pay raises for judges then why are there not resources to deal with these other problems in the justice system.
These are just some opening remarks. I look forward to a further study of the bill when it gets to committee. I must say though that I found the exchange between the Alliance member and the Liberal member somewhat interesting. I think the Liberal member makes a point when he says that we would not want a situation in which judges felt they had to please politicians in order to maintain their remuneration or in order to be eligible for raises in the future. I do not think that would be a good thing because that would imitate, to some degree but to a much lesser extent, the flaws of the American system where they elect their judges. Here we would have judges answerable to people who were elected. That would introduce an element of politics into it but it would be qualitatively different than the politics that are already in the justice system.
The Alliance member quite properly pointed out that judges tend to be appointed, not always but in many cases, from the ranks of the ruling party. If the same party is in power over many years, it tends to create a situation whereby people begin to see the judiciary as politicized in the sense of the appointment process.
Once people are appointed then presumably they have a great deal of independence and their appointments cannot be revoked. To the extent that good appointments are made, even if they be appointments from within the ruling party, the politics is removed from the system to a certain degree after the appointment.
I think people are fearful when they hear some of the things the Canadian Alliance member said. He said that people would like the politics to stay throughout the judicial process and that there be some answering to the political process at certain stages or at some critical point in the life of a judge.
Having said that, I think it is quite legitimate for Canadians, whether they be Alliance members of parliament or others, to be critical of decisions that judges make. I do not think that there is anything wrong with that. Judges are not beyond criticism or above criticism. I think all Canadians from time to time, including myself, are somewhat bewildered sometimes by the judgments some judges make.
However I do not think that is a matter that should effect a debate on how to compensate judges or remunerate judges. It may be an opportunity for somebody to get up and get a few things off their chest. That is okay. That is what parliament is about and that is the context in which to do that.
The Alliance member was quite within his rights to use a bill on judges to talk about what he did not like about judges or what he did not like about certain decisions or pattern of decisions that judges make. There is no problem there. To suggest a connection between meeting a certain political criterion and remuneration I would think would be something that everyone, and perhaps even the Alliance member himself, would want to reject.
I find it interesting that the bill responds to a recommendation that the remuneration of judges be taken out of the political context altogether and that parliament from here on in accept uncritically or without amendment the recommendations made by the commission.
To the extent that the Alliance finds itself against this there is a certain irony. If I have heard correctly over the years, this is the very thing it has advocated for members of parliament. Those members have said that we have to take the politics out of the determination of the salaries of members of parliament: take it away from members of parliament, give it to an independent commission and be prepared to accept the recommendations of that commission. If I am being unfair to what they have said over the years I hope somebody will correct me, but it seems to me that is what I have heard many times, that this is something that should be decided independently.
The bill does just that with respect to judges. Either we have some inconsistency in principle with respect to how we allocate or set up independent commissions to make these kinds of judgments or we have an interesting variety of opinions on the matter as we sometimes get from members of the Alliance.
It struck me as ironic that this issue should be criticized. Would people suggest that it constantly be a decision of parliament to determine what judges are paid? I have seen that for 20 years. Every time the government feels we have to give judges a raise, we have a debate about judges and the same old speeches are trailed out.
Perhaps the idea of giving it to an independent commission is not such a bad idea after all, but it does not mean that we have to agree necessarily with the way in which the government handles these particular recommendations. For our part we feel that the government would be on a lot stronger ground if at the same time it was committed to addressing a lot of the other inadequacies in the justice system.