Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the speech by my colleague from Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, in order to understand his arguments.
I listened very carefully to the social justice arguments that were put forward on behalf of the Bloc Québécois that has allowed the Bloc to rationalize why it is supporting the government position with regard to Bill C-17.
I have a lot of sympathy for that social justice argument. I think there is every reason to be concerned about the growing gap. There is every reason to be concerned about paying exorbitant, excessive salaries to one segment of the population, even if we can make a case for a higher level of education and so on as compared to working people. The member knows that the New Democratic Party is very much seized with the same arguments.
I am extremely surprised frankly that the member chose not to address at all what I think is at the heart of the government's actions with respect to the bill and that is the serious erosion of the independence of the judiciary.
I listened carefully when the member made the arguments on the basis of comparability of salaries and so on. However, what I did not hear was any suggestion whatever coming from the member about whether his party had any concerns about the independence of the judiciary which is being severely compromised by the government's actions.
It has been described that we are involved in a farcical process because the government knows that we do not have the means to actually act on even a decision that might represent the majority of this party because it is holding the power and the purse strings to do that in the processes.
I did not hear the member acknowledge that, taken in and of itself, the encroachment on the independence of the judiciary represented by the bill is problematic enough, but taken together with the elimination of the court challenges program and the Law Commission, we are seeing a very serious, dangerous and devious pattern.
I wonder if the member would address those aspects of concern that have certainly been identified as a very serious aspect of what is going on with the government's decision to basically throw out the independent process for determining the level of remuneration for judges.