I hear some squawking on the other side. I know I am hitting home when that happens. I know they are sensitive to this issue.
Despite all these problems with their process, nonetheless the Prime Minister has been democratically elected. If we can choose the Prime Minister democratically in the country, who then goes on to appoint people to the supreme court and to thousands of other positions, many of which are patronage positions including the other place which I like to rant about every now and again, and if he seems to accept the will of the people for his nomination and for his choosing, then by what rational argument do members across the way or anyone in this place say that judges, or any other position for that matter, cannot be democratically elected?
If we choose the man who is supposed to be the head of the government in this place, the Prime Minister, and he is democratically elected as one of the most important decision makers supposedly around, then why would we not choose judges or senators or many other people by democratic election? This makes absolutely perfect sense to me. Yet we have people across the way who will argue one side and then the other side, equivocate and try to muddle this issue by saying it is complex.
Fundamentally it comes down to from where people believe the power is derived. I happen to believe, and I will state it squarely today, that the power is derived from the people. I think they generally make pretty good decisions when they are given the chance.
I have asked many people today about the appointment process, what they think would be a better process than the one we have now. I happen to think that vetting them before a committee at least would be better than what we have. In my ideal scenario I would probably want to have them democratically elected.
I know right now with the process as it stands that people are given justice positions because of political favours they have done for a government. There are people in this place that can try to sideline that by saying that is not the case and by asking how dare I raise questions about these things.
Every one of the people in here, especially the practising lawyers in this place, know all too well that there are people who are given justice positions because of their political favouritism, of their stripe, of their donations or some mishap like that. Frankly there is a better way to go about it and I think the wisdom of the people is a good way to go.
I know that one of my NDP colleagues in this place asked why we would want to have these people determined by committee because the Liberals would just use that as a rubber stamp anyhow; they go ahead and do whatever they want in committee so why would we want a committee to vet it.
I realize that the Liberals abuse the committee process in this place better than pretty much anybody could. They are experts at abusing the committee process, even for their own members like the member for Mississauga East where they severely abused the committee process to try to kill her bill.
I recognize that if these appointments had to go before committee at least they could be some form of questioning. Hopefully we could shed the light of day on some of these appointments. If we cannot actually change what the Liberals decide they want to shove down peoples' throats, we could point out to the public that a person has made large contributions to the Liberal Party or has some sort of connection to someone in government.
It is an issue that deserves a lot more time than what you are giving me, Mr. Speaker. Nonetheless, there are ways we can improve the process by vetting through committee and possibly electing them.