Mr. Speaker, I found overwhelming favour with the position of the member for Yukon. He has a very clear understanding of the importance of an independent judiciary and he appreciates the importance of having an independent commission determining the level of remuneration for the judiciary as part of maintaining that independence of the judiciary.
Given how cogent the member's arguments were and how clear an understanding the member seemed to have on why the independence in the judiciary must be maintained, I am totally buffaloed as to why he would, at the beginning of his comments and again at the end, say that he will be supporting the bill, a bill that is being widely criticized for doing precisely what he has indicated is indefensible and unacceptable.
I know he said that he would be doing it under extreme duress, and I guess I would like to hear him explain that a little bit more. The only other argument that I heard for why he was rationalizing support for the bill was a sort of pragmatic argument. It was not based on the important principles that he himself showed an understanding of. I guess I find this doubly puzzling because, if there were ever an important principle worth fighting for and worth preserving, and refusing to allow to be eroded in any way, it would be the independence of the judiciary because it is a fundamental cornerstone of a democratic society.
I do not want to misinterpret the member's comments, which is why I am asking for further interpretation. I think the member said that three years has now gone by since the four year independent review process was set in motion. As an argument, I could say that since we are almost at the end of the four years and we need to start the process over again, why not just hold our noses and pass this under duress and then we will...what? Respect the independence of the commission the next time around?
I do not want to be provocative about it but it seems that the Liberals did not really act on what needed to be dealt with and now we are three years into the process. I find it terrifying what the government is up to because it is not just an isolated thing. It is about a frontal assault on the judiciary on many fronts: the elimination of the court challenges program and the Law Reform Commission.
The government has only been in power for eight months. Where have the Liberals been in dealing with this with dispatch?