Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to extend my congratulations to the member for Prince Albert. I believe this is his first parliament. Of course, he has a very distinguished pedigree in terms of the constituency but I do not know about the party. Members have represented Prince Albert in the past, some from my party and also a couple prime ministers, I believe.
In any event, the member makes a good point. It is certainly not a point that I was wanting to disagree with. I just did not talk about it.
He is asking me what I think about the view that perhaps we should have a way of appointing our supreme court which gives Canadians more of an opportunity through the appropriate parliamentary committee to hear what they think. This is not to politicize it or get them elected or anything like that, and not to uncritically imitate the American system necessarily, but something to take into account the fact that judges, since the inception of the charter, have a lot more say about a lot more things than they used to.
Perhaps an appointment process that was created before the charter is not adequate to that task. I am sure that is a matter of debate within all political parties as we try to wrestle with the increased role of the judiciary in our society and what we welcome, what we have reservations about and what we should have concerns about as parliamentarians. Some people have more concerns than others. I think the point the member raises is a legitimate.
With respect to criticizing judges, I did not criticize any judges. In fact, it is members of the hon. member's own party, some of whom have made a political career out of criticizing, not judges in the abstract, but specific judges and specific judgments. I would hope he might share the advice he had for me in terms of contempt of court and exercising caution with respect to criticizing judges with some of his caucus members at some point.