Mr. Speaker, the member from Nova Scotia touched on a number of areas that I think are of interest here.
One of the comments was in regard to the question of bribery. I would have thought that for most men and women in law school who were told that some day they would have the privilege of serving on a court of appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada the first thing that would come to mind would be service above money.
Second, it seems to me that the need to have this vetting process is very important in order to make sure that the people we are appointing to the courts are people who we are satisfied have high levels of integrity and personal behaviour. That is something I think this process could identify. Even if they have different ideologies from mine, I can respect that they are honest people and of good integrity.
Actually if money ensured high levels of integrity in our world, Hollywood would be the best place in the world to go to find that. The sports world would be another area. Presumably the people who are getting the most money would be the people who would conduct themselves with the highest standards of integrity. I am not exactly sure the money issue is as big as people make it out to be. I am willing to guess that $190,000 a year would put someone in the top 1% in the country. In some provinces it would be one-tenth of 1%. In Saskatchewan there are not many people who make $190,000 a year, and I am sure that in the province of Nova Scotia they are few and far between as well. In Toronto or Calgary it may be a different situation.
There is another area I am concerned about, and I raise it for my learned colleague from Nova Scotia. It is the vast disparity in lawyers' incomes in this country. I practised law in Saskatchewan for 25 years and I looked in envy at the income levels of lawyers in Toronto and Calgary. There are big differences. Maybe in a place like Toronto, where a $500,000 a year income level is not unusual for skilled lawyers, there may be a problem attracting people, but in Saskatchewan there would be no shortage of competent lawyers available for judicial appointments at a salary of $190,000. They are competent people and the lineup would be a long one. I am not exactly sure that the bill addresses that sort of concern about the vast disparity in incomes.
I cannot explain this vast disparity in incomes in these regions. I know that Alberta and Ontario are like the beacons on the hill in this country. They have booming, growing, prosperous provinces that attract thousands of people and lawyers from other regions of the country in massive numbers, and they do very well economically. However, I am not from one of those areas. I am from one of those areas where we have had a different philosophy and a different way of doing things and our standard of living and our incomes are much lower. Maybe the member from Nova Scotia could address this concern. Maybe we need some flexibility in our levels of remuneration based on the region of the country one comes from.