Debates of Nov. 9th, 2006

Literacy Programs

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present today a petition signed by many citizens of Edmonton Centre, Lethbridge and Westlock—St. Paul who are frustrated by the minority Conservative government that has slashed $17.7 million in literacy funding despite a $13 billion surplus.

On this, National Literacy Day, we understand their frustration with these cuts, given that some 38% of Canadians have difficulty reading and writing.

The international adult literacy and skills survey shows that nearly one in two Quebeckers between the ages of 16 and 65 have insufficient reading skills to function fully in society.

These petitioners are asking Parliament to reinstate funding to literacy programs cut by the Conservative government and to undertake a national literacy strategy to ensure that all Canadians have the opportunity to achieve this vital skill.

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask for unanimous consent to revert to presenting reports from committees.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre has asked for unanimous consent to revert to reports from parliamentary committees. Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Natural Resources

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in relation to supplementary estimates (A) 2006-07.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since we are all in a somewhat generous mood, I would seek the consent of the House to revert to reports from interparliamentary delegations.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The House has heard the hon. member's request. Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian Parliamentary Delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, PACE, for its meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs, in Paris, France, June 9, 2006.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from November 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Judges Act and certain other Acts in relation to courts, be read the third time and passed.

Judges Act

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on the third reading of Bill C-17, a piece of legislation that at least purports to incorporate into law, as is required by legislation, the report of an independent commission with regard to salaries and other compensation for our judiciary at the federal level, all the way from the Supreme Court of Canada to our superior courts across the country, as well as our federal court system. There are approximately 1,100 of those judges across the country.

Historically this has been a very difficult problem for legislatures, at both the federal and the provincial level. The problem we have is because of the structure of our Constitution, which recognizes the independence of our judiciary and, quite frankly, the importance of an independent judiciary to the democracy of Canada. We never have been able to satisfactorily deal with how we compensate those judges and maintain their independence from the legislative and administrative branches of government.

Approximately 10 years ago, a system was developed as a result of several court decisions, and one since then, that required the legislative branch, this House and government, to establish an independent commission, a commission that would be composed of an independent neutral chair, one person delegated from the government and one from the judiciary. That commission was to investigate the compensation paid to judges right across the country at the federal level and make recommendations in the form of a report.

That report then came back, first to the government, and to the House as well, to be dealt with in committee and encompassed in legislation. That is why the bill is before the House at this point. What happened to some significant degree, and I think shamefully, is that the process either has been ignored by the government in its proper sense or has been hijacked to some degree for ideological reasons by the government. I suppose we could use interchangeable terms here.

The report that came back recommended certain compensation levels, straight salary levels, while a number of issues around pensions and fringe benefits, if I can put it in that vernacular, were to be dealt with by way of these recommendations for the government to implement.

One of the travesties of what has gone on here is that this report is almost four years old now. The previous Liberal government, as was so common with that government, dithered on it and did not deal with it other than preparing some legislation to accept it. That government then basically just let it sit, ignoring its constitutional responsibilities to process the commission's recommendations in a reasonable timeframe. That had been part of one of the court decisions, that whatever methodology was deployed it had to be used in a reasonable timeframe. The past Liberal government did not do that.

Then we had the Conservative government. Of course, I think the country generally knows its attitude toward the judiciary. One of the first things it did, in the form of this legislation encompassed in Bill C-17, was to slash the compensation, both in salary and in some of the benefits, by over 25%. To go through the bill's history, it then went to the justice committee. Attempts were made there by me on behalf of the NDP to reinstate the commission's recommendations.

I want to go directly to the intellectual dishonestly of the government with regard to this. The courts, in a series of cases, have said the commission's recommendations are to be accepted and can only be deviated from if set criteria are met. What came forward from the government was a couple of arguments, no more than that. The government tried to characterize them as sound reasons, but they were arguments that were specious and in fact intellectually dishonest.

One of the reasons the government gave for slashing the compensation recommendation was that it had the right to take into account the state of financial circumstances at the federal level when making a determination. One has to appreciate how ridiculous that was, because in the three and a half years when this report was sitting there and not being dealt with, either by the Liberal government or by the Conservative government, there were surpluses in this country that amounted to in excess of $20 billion over that period of time.

This was not money that was going to be spent by either the Liberal or Conservative governments on other programs, on other necessities in the country. It was simply set back and used to pay down the debt. That is what it was used for. The government tried to contrive an argument that somehow it had the right to take into account financial circumstances, but when one looks at the facts that of course was meaningless.

The other argument the government made was that when the commission did its assessment it did not properly take into account incomes of lawyers, because that is one of the tests that we use to set the compensation we pay our judges. The argument was that it did not take into account a broad enough scope. That simply was not true.

In fact, members of the commission appeared before the justice committee and pointed out that they made an assessment of income levels within the legal community right across the country, in large cities, large law firms, small communities, small law firms and individual practitioners of law. They said they had done all that, that they had done their job and done it properly and had reached a consensus among the three of them, the independent chair, the government appointee and the judiciary appointee. They had reached a consensus that this was the proper amount to be dealing with. So the second argument, the second so-called reason, was basically destroyed by the facts of how the commission had conducted its work.

As I said, the NDP, in my person, attempted to bring it back. It was voted down. First there was a decision that the government would not grant the royal prerogative, even though when the minister was in front of the committee he was equivocal as to whether he would accept the recommendation to increase the amount of compensation to what it was originally in the commission's recommendations.

It was ruled out. There has been no indication since then that this will change, and in fact, just the opposite. Very clearly, if those amendments were brought forward to increase the amount to its original level as recommended by the commission, the government would invoke the royal prerogative and would not be prepared to accept those changes.

That is the bill we now have in front of us at third reading for its upcoming final vote in the House.

I have to say very clearly with regard to this process that it was not honoured. It was just the opposite. In terms of the timelines that were applied, it is a disgrace for both governments, the Liberals and the Conservatives. Specifically, the Conservative government's approach or attempt to explain away its reasons for reducing the amount of compensation for judges is, as I said earlier, specious. It is intellectually dishonest. Quite frankly, it is a disgrace to the importance and the significance of having an independent judiciary, because this goes right to the heart of it.

If someone is going to go after judges' compensation in this fashion, both ignoring the process and then trying to undermine it with specious arguments, it really is very difficult not to see that the independence of the judiciary is being attacked by the government.

This is a pattern that we have seen from the government, both as a political party before it became government this last year and since it has been in power. I will go back to that to give other examples of how I have seen the judiciary at the federal level come under attack from that political party.

Before I do that, I want to make one final point with regard to the process. Given that it has taken us so long, we are now at a stage where the government has to appoint a new commission because the cycle for judicial compensation is actually in vogue at this point. The government has not done that but I assume it will be doing it shortly.

However, it begs the question: Are we going to go through the same process, assuming, and one would hope not, that the government will still be in power when the recommendation comes back from the commission? Will the government again ignore an independent commission doing good work, the solid processing of information, to determine what is appropriate compensation for our judiciary?

Given what I have seen go on in this process, I have no reason to believe that the government will not undermine the process if it does not get the recommendation that it believes is appropriate rather than what the independent commission believes is appropriate.

I believe this is part of a pattern. I will just go through a number of points where I see the Conservative Party, which is now government, attacking our judiciary from a number of different vantage points.

When the debate was going on over same sex marriage, the Leader of the Conservative Party, now the Prime Minister, made wild accusations of our judiciary being biased, that they were small “l” liberal appointments appointed by large “L” Liberal governments to specifically enhance the program of rights for the gay and lesbian community in this country. It was a wild accusation, it was offensive to the independence of our judiciary and it was wrong.

One of the leading decisions that came out of the Court of Appeal in Ontario, a three member court, was made by Justice McMurtry, a Conservative cabinet minister in the provincial Government of Ontario at one time, who was appointed to the bench by the Mulroney Conservative government. The court interpreted the Constitution and the Charter of Rights specifically based on equality rights. The Conservative Party did not want to hear that and so the Leader of the Conservative Party made a wild accusation that, ultimately, was factually incorrect.

Near the end of the election campaign, we again heard him say that he saw the judiciary as being one of his opponents if he were elected. His government and his party see the judiciary, not as part of the constitutional structure of this country and not as part of the fundamental support for democracy in this country, but as an ideological opponent to the government and its political party.

Shortly after the election, we had the member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin attacking and putting words into the mouth of the Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice alleging she had made certain statements. The member subsequently had to apologize because they were statements that he had made up. What it showed was the attitude of the Conservative Party, now the government, toward the judiciary. It has total disrespect and it is willing to fabricate accusations against the judiciary, all of it based on a strong, ideological bent that it sees the Supreme Court, our superior courts and our Federal Courts as not being supportive.

We hear a number of members from that party constantly attacking the judiciary for making laws, not interpreting them, which is their role and the role they in fact play.

Having practised law in our courts for 27 years before I was appointed here, our judges are better than any judges in the world. I do not hesitate to say that I am proud to be part of a legal community that produces those judges. They are not perfect but they are better than any other judicial branch in the world. It is recognized around the world. If one were to go to Australia, the United States, Britain or any number of other Commonwealth countries with a similar legal structure, that is what we would hear. The decisions our judges make are used repeatedly in other countries because of the respect they have for our judiciaries, but not our government, the Conservative Party, which constantly attacks our judiciary for making laws.

They are not making laws. Their role is to interpret the Constitution and the Charter of Rights, which is what they do and they do it extremely well.

As we saw, once the Conservative Party got into power it cut the court challenges program. The methodology in that is to undermine the role that our judges play. It means that we will have a reduction in the quality and, I might even say, the quantity of cases that go in front of the court that challenge both federal and provincial statutes, practices and policies. If these cases do get there, there will likely to be a lesser quality of argument because the funding for the court challenges program has been cut by the government in a very petty, vindictive way and with absolutely no rationale for it.

We hear the President of the Treasury Board, when he stands in this House, constantly, in his bombastic fashion, attacking the court challenges program, which is really an attack on the judiciary.

The government then cut the Law Commission, which played a role of support for this House, for the committees in this House and for the legal infrastructure, if I can put it that way. It had a very important role in the research that it does and the reports that it produces. It allowed for dialogue to go on, not only within the legal community but also within the political community. It helped foster that dialogue as to where we should be going with our legal system. A great program has been cut and, I think, cut illegally.

The government did not even have the gumption to bring forth a bill, which is what I believe they must do to terminate the Law Commission. It did not do that because it knew that all three of the opposition parties would have voted it down. This is a very clear indication of the government's attitude toward the judiciary and the judicial system. It sees itself as being an opponent of that system and doing whatever it can to undermine it in a variety of ways.

Now we have the appointments of the judges. The government is at a level of hypocrisy that is frightening, as is the minister who, on the justice committee, was very strong about us cleaning up the judicial appointment process and trying depoliticize it as much as possible. We have models at the provincial level where that has been done.

The Conservatives have been in power now for a number of months. They could have done that but we have heard nothing. What we are seeing is that a good third of the appointments that have been made so far at the federal level are appointments of people who have very close ties to the Conservative Party. They may very well be good judges. The minister thinks he may have done even more than those, and it would not surprise me if he has. Maybe we have not identified all of them.

The point is that the Conservatives take a cynical approach toward the judiciary by seeing it as an opponent. They need to take care of the judiciary which means they need to undermine the judges and do whatever they can to lessen their authority.

Ultimately, it brings into disrepute the government and it does attack the very essence of the constitutional structure in this country, the important leg of that, of course, being the independent judiciary.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have heard my colleague's comments on Bill C-17 dealing with the whole issue of compensation for the judiciary. I have enormous respect for my colleague's indepth knowledge of the law, which is why he is such a good justice critic, but also for his profound understanding of what is so dangerous about this bill.

It would be very easy for the government to fluff it off and persuade people that judges are already well paid anyway. However, what is clear is that the concern goes so much further and much deeper. We want to know what underlies the proposed changes that are brought forward here in terms of an outright attack on the independence of the judiciary.

The member referred to the fact that our judiciary is well-known and that it is respected throughout the world. As the international development and foreign affairs critic, I am aware of how our judges and our retired judges are sought after by countries around the world to assist with the judicial reforms needed in other countries. In fact, the new love affair of the government is to be talking about democratic development. Everybody knows that the reform in the judiciary and the independence of the judiciary is absolutely critical.

I wonder if the member might elaborate further on the stature of our judiciary. He said that they are not perfect, and none is, but in terms of how they are seen, not just within Canada but literally around the world, for their distinguished service to justice.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Halifax has given me the opportunity to point out the role that judges play, both as retired judges and active judges. They are regularly at international conferences to share their experiences of how they built the strong judiciary we have in this country.

I would like to use a couple of examples, one being Justice Arbour and the role she played with regard to crimes against humanity and war crimes, and the role she is playing at the United Nations. She is a very good judge but she was not atypical in the role she played in advancing, which, I would guess, our government, like the Bush administration in the United States, would be opposed to, the development of international law and, specifically, an international criminal court, that would deal with crimes against humanity, genocide and holocaust. She has been one of the leading judicial figures in the world in developing that.

The other example I have comes out of my law school days in Windsor. Work is being done, with the direct active assistance of a number of the judges in Canada, to develop a judicial system in Palestine to deal with the corruption that has permeated its judicial system in the past because of the direct conflict with the involvement at the political level in the judiciary in Palestine. Quite frankly, that program is in serious jeopardy because of the Conservative government's decision to cut funding to the Palestine government. A key part of that program are the judges who come from Canada to help Palestine better its judicial system.

The program we used in Russia, again with the active participation by our judiciary, showed the Russians that the old Soviet system was not the way to go. They should not have government telling the so-called independent judiciary but in fact have an independent judiciary. It is beginning to have some impact in Russia even under the current government. The quality of the judges that we send to take part in that contributes to the development of a better judiciary right around the globe.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, to follow up on the international aspect, when the eminent member for Mount Royal went around the world, shortly after the cuts to the court challenges program and other institutions, other nations were astounded that Canada would cut these eminent institutions, which are leaders in the world.

The minister very appropriately said yesterday in debate and at committee that the recommendations for remuneration and benefits for judges was a decision of Parliament, not the government, as outlined in the Constitution in section 100.

Does the member see this as a decision of Parliament, that Parliament is unencumbered in making that recommendation and decision?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question allows me to briefly expand on my comments.

The government and the minister have made statements that this is a decision of Parliament. It absolutely is not. There may be enough votes, although the Bloc has its own agenda on this, which again is very shameful. However, the House will never have the opportunity because the government has taken a position, which by the tradition of this Parliament it can. If amendments come forward to increase the amount we pay our judges, in accordance with the independent commission's recommendations, the Conservatives will invoke the royal prerogative and refuse to make a royal recommendation. Therefore, those amendments will be ruled out of order.

The opposition does not have the support of the government to present those amendments because it will not receive a royal recommendation. That is the government's role.

I get the sense from some of the discussions I have had with contacts within the judiciary that the government has put out this message, it has spun it, that Parliament will make that decision. This is absolutely false. Parliament cannot make the change. The government will not allow us. It is as simple as that.

This is going through because the government has taken that position. It has cut the recommendations by 25%. Judges will be compensated by that much less because of the government, not because of the House.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, one of the points the member has made is that the decision to cut the court challenges program is a frontal attack on the judiciary itself. Of all the bad decisions the government has made, the very worst decision is to eliminate the court challenges program.

Our country has prided itself on ensuring justice means something, that there is a way for people, who do not have deep pockets and high placed connections with the government in power, to have their rights and their views upheld in the judicial process. Now the government has thrown that on the scrap heap.

Could the member elaborate briefly on what he means when he says that in effect cancelling the court challenges program is an all out attack on the judiciary?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in some respects it may be difficult. I always get laughed at when I say this. If one is not a lawyer, he or she may not be able to appreciate this. Then I get all the boos about lawyers, but it is true to some extent. I am not being arrogant. We have to appreciate how important it is to have quality representation before the judge so the judge can make good decisions. It is about as simple as that.

This preceded me because I am not quite that old, but perhaps the best way to describe it is like this. Before we had legal aid in Canada, broadly based and broadly available, judges who practised and made judicial decisions in our criminal courts found it difficult to make good decisions when the accused was unrepresented. The Crown prosecutor would present the case for the state. No one was there to challenge the prosecutor, to put forth legal arguments, to present evidence in a better fashion than the untrained individual could.

It is the same thing when we get rid of the court challenges program. It is like cutting legal aid. We will not have qualified people in front of the judges to present good evidence and good legal arguments. It is just not going to happen.

It is a shame that this has happened. Hopefully, the government will be gone shortly and we will reinstate the program.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think my remarks will pretty much follow along the same context as our colleague who just spoke.

In my remarks today I want capture three separate perspectives on the bill, and not because I am looking in a rear view mirror. The way the government appears to want to handle this matter will likely cause new files to open in the future. The other place, next door to the House of Commons, will undoubtedly be interested in some of these perspectives as it reviews the bill.

As we all know, the Supreme Court of Canada a few years ago decided that the only solution to the ambiguities and imprecision in the matter of setting or adjusting the salaries for judges was the need for an independent commission which would study and recommend what those salary levels should be. The commission has functioned for the last five or ten years. As I recall, the second last report was implemented as the Supreme Court had recommended.

It was a Supreme Court decision, which is a bit more than a recommendation. It created the law in that case in an arguable vacuum, taking into account the contingencies that the court felt were relevant at the time.

The report we are dealing with now is from the independent commission, not from the justice committee. It was introduced a couple of years ago. The last government introduced a bill that would have implemented the recommendations of the commission. That bill fell from the order paper at dissolution of the last Parliament. The new government has now introduced a bill that would substantially reduce the amount recommended by the commission.

Part of the problem identified by the government, which it felt empowered to identify, was that in assessing the costs and what should be paid to judges and the courts, there was a difference between street inflation in Canada and what I would call lawyer-judge inflation. The Supreme Court and the commission recognizes that one of the considerations of setting judicial salaries is the need to attract some of the best legal minds into the judicial profession. In order to attract them, there has to be appropriate amounts paid in salaries. Therefore, the court has accepted that lawyer-judge type inflation is very relevant to the setting of those amounts.

The setting of those amounts do not have very much to do, whether one agrees with this or not, with what a bus driver might make in Winnipeg or what a fish plant worker might make in Nova Scotia. As a result, we have these two different worlds competing. When the independent commission makes its report, it looks at the judicial-lawyer type inflation and the salary amounts that should be paid to continue to attract good people into the profession. As I said, the previous government had followed through on this, but the new government has not.

I want to now turn my attention to the legal infrastructure in this place to deal with the salaries of judges.

Just so the record is clear, section 100 of the Constitution Act says that judges' salaries shall be fixed by the Parliament of Canada. Section 17 of the Constitution Act says there shall be a Parliament of Canada composed of the Queen, the House of Commons and the Senate. Parliament has three heads. I think most would agree the modern manifestation of the Queen would be the Privy Council, which, for all practical purposes, is the cabinet. The cabinet is represented in the House of Commons through the Prime Minister and the other ministers. In dealing with judicial matters it would be the Minister of Justice.

There is another section of the Constitution Act which is a bit of a sleeper but very important to us here. Notwithstanding that section 100 says that Parliament shall fix judges' salaries, section 54 of the Constitution Act says that the House of Commons may not pass a bill or motion that involves the expenditure of public money unless the government, the Queen--the Privy Council--has already given a royal recommendation for the expenditure of that amount.

As the House deals with these matters in the ordinary course, the House cannot increase any of the spending of public money without a royal recommendation. That is very important because what has happened in this case is that the consideration of the report of the independent commission is done by this House. While this House under those constitutional rules could reduce the amount recommended by the commission and put it into a bill for adoption, this House could never increase the amount.

The best laid plans of the Supreme Court of Canada in setting up this independent commission which then makes a recommendation to Parliament is handicapped by the fact that there is only one player in the mechanism that has the ability to fairly implement, and that is a government bringing in a bill with a royal recommendation.

I make the point that it looks to me as though section 54 requiring a royal recommendation hobbles, handicaps, is an impediment to the House fairly dealing with the commission report. The independence that the Supreme Court of Canada had hoped for when it went through the Prince Edward Island case and the Bodner case has been lost simply because section 54 requires the existence of a royal recommendation. We have one hand tied behind our backs as we deal with this.

Oddly enough the Minister of Justice, confirmed as recently as yesterday by his parliamentary secretary, told the justice committee as it reviewed this report that if the committee wants to increase the amount recommended, it should go ahead. That is essentially what was said. That came from the justice minister. I suggest to the House, in this circumstance knowing the law as he should, and I am looking for an adverb or an adjective, but that position could be described as falling in the spectrum somewhere between ignorance and deceit, with sincerity in the middle.

Surely the justice minister knows that the committee and the House could never recommend an increase or adopt an amount that was in excess of what the Privy Council put into the bill without a royal recommendation. Yet it appears that publicly the government is giving the impression that the government, the Privy Council, is open to Parliament fixing this amount to what Parliament and the House think is appropriate, when all along it knows full well that such an increase could not be implemented, recommended, moved, proposed in committee or in the House because there is no royal recommendation.

I would say today that if the government were sincere in saying it is possible to raise these amounts to what the independent commission had recommended, I challenge the government now, I challenge the minister now, I challenge the members of the Conservative caucus to say they will give a royal recommendation to implement what this House wants, what the committee would have adopted had the proposed amendments to increase the amount in the bill not been ruled out of order at the committee. The amendments to reinstate the commission's report were ruled out of order. If the government were really sincere in its suggestion that the House could increase the amounts, it must say that it is also prepared to provide a royal recommendation, which the government is apparently not prepared to do.

After the bill passes third reading it will move to the other place. There is another rule in the Constitution which says that the other place is not able to initiate a money bill or spending. The only place in the whole world where one could implement an increase in this bill is in this House, but we have one arm tied behind our back because of section 54 which says that we need a royal recommendation and that royal recommendation can only come from the government.

I regret that. I wanted the record to show that. It is most insincere for the attorney general to hold that out, that he and the government are willing to see an increase when they will not come forward and say that they will give a royal recommendation for the increase that might be there.

Now that I have that out of the way, I want to do two more things. The first is to talk about the independent commission mechanism that was set up by the courts. Looking back over that, it occurred within the last 10 years, it seems to me that while the court was sincere in wishing to create the independent mechanism and to have a vehicle that Parliament could make use of, I believe the courts overlooked some of these elements that I have described here today, the incapacity of the House to move anything upward or to make a move without a royal recommendation. At the end of the day, the one component of government that obstructs the court, i.e., the cabinet and the Privy Council, is the one component the court wanted to distance itself from when it set up the mechanism.

The court felt that there should be a degree of judicial independence and it should not be in a position to go cap in hand to the cabinet, to the Privy Council, and yet, after implementing this mechanism, we are still stuck with the problem that was there before. The cabinet, the Privy Council, still has that one piece of paper, the royal recommendation, that prevents Parliament from fulfilling its constitutional obligation.

There was a time at the committee when I was prepared to argue that the royal recommendation provision in section 54 was, I will not say it was unconstitutional, but because there was a conflict between section 100 and section 54, that section 100 empowering Parliament to fix the salaries of judges should prevail over section 54. It is an argument for another day, not here.

I do suggest in the event the court wishes to deal with the matter again, and the court may, given what has happened here with this bill, that an attempt be made to implement an improved dialogue between Parliament and the court just this one time. The courts do not have to come cap in hand here. They are an independent institution and have to be constitutionally.

If they are designing a judicial salary adjustment mechanism, and if Parliament is an integral part of that process, then the mechanism surely must be designed in collaboration with Parliament itself. Had that dialogue occurred 10 or so years ago, the problem we have today might have been avoided.

The last thing I want to do is to connect some dots, and my colleague who spoke just prior to me actually began to do that. It has to do with the position of the current Conservative government that has in one sequence of actions managed to clip the increases to judges' salaries. Some would say the government has not done it very respectfully or at least respected the mechanism already in place. The government has also managed to clip the court challenges program, virtually abolishing it, and the Law Commission.

What do all of these things have in common? I am going to try to connect some dots. I could be wrong; I can only do this by inference. It is very difficult for me to figure out why, in a period of relative prosperity in this country where we have had balanced budgets and surpluses every year for seven or eight years, the government finds the need to get rid of the Law Commission and the court challenges program and to not implement the independent commission's report on judges' salaries. The only thing I can see that these things have in common is disposition over the last two or three years of the same sex marriage issue.

I recall the report from the Law Commission entitled “Beyond Conjugality”. It was a discussion of the law relating to spousal and non-spousal relationships. Part of the discussion dealt with many of the same sex marriage issues which this House has dealt with. I could not help but detect some disfavour on the part of many Conservative members about it. I have seen it at the justice committee. It is not always on the record, but it is there.

The court challenges program brings court charter challenges into the courts. Members will recall the same sex marriage issue, the redevelopment of the definition of civil marriage, was accomplished primarily as a result of litigation charter challenge. I am not certain whether the court challenges program funded any of that; it may have, but it is passing strange. I see a connection there.

I mentioned the Law Commission's report and now the judges who made these decisions that essentially required Parliament to act a year or two ago. I have simply had no choice but to draw the inference that the Conservatives' distaste for those decisions was a prime motivator in this, because I cannot see any economic or fiscal reason to turn attention to these very viable working mechanisms in our judicial sector.

The Law Commission which is being scrapped now was the reincarnation of the old Law Reform Commission, which was scrapped by the previous Conservative government in 1990 or 1991. A very strange thing. The Conservatives do not like law reform commissions. They junk them.

I appreciated the opportunity to make these remarks. I hope they will be helpful for the record.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the presentation by the hon. member from the official opposition.

It is no doubt always a delicate topic for those involved when salary increases for judges are debated publicly in the House of Commons. The same was true for parliamentarians. That is why an independent commission is responsible for determining the rate of increase. Where judges are concerned, it is especially sensitive since there could be a great deal of demagoguery about what increase they should be getting, particularly in comparison with politicians.

I would like to ask the hon. member whether he feels, based on his knowledge of the field, that the judges themselves would prefer a different mechanism so as to prevent discussions in the House about their rate of increase each time the issue of judges' salaries comes up.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question because it goes to the core of why the Supreme Court originally recommended that there would be an independent commission, whose report would be presented and essentially adopted as is, thereby obviating any need for Parliament itself or the cabinet or anybody else to actually go and reinvent the wheel and figure out by how much judges salaries should be increased.

The independent commission, as established, is the mechanism that the judges hoped would avoid this kind of a back and forth argument. Originally, it is worth noting and as the member mentioned, when the mechanism was created for the judges, it was felt that members of the House of Commons and the Senate could simply piggyback on that same salary adjustment mechanism, but it turned out, as I referred to in my speech, that lawyer and judge inflation is different than street inflation.

Many members of the House just felt that we could not, in fairness, accept the relatively rich increases that were being generated in the lawyer-judge area. We preferred to peg our salaries here to combinations of either the consumer price index or the industrial aggregate. Those numbers, those percentage increases, are closer to what I referred to earlier, regarding the bus driver in Winnipeg and the fish plant worker in Nova Scotia, tracked by Statistics Canada.

Members got the right idea and the Supreme Court had the right idea. At this point in time, I think the government is trying to change that and the future will tend for itself.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to once again rise in this House to discuss Bill C-17 dealing with the salaries of federally appointed judges across Canada.

It is a delicate matter to discuss the salaries of the judiciary. We agree on that fact. It is important for those who are listening to us and who are trying to understand this, to know that the Bloc Québécois voted against the bill on second reading because we consider that the increase offered to judges by the government is well beyond the norm in all other sectors of Canadian activity where the government and public funds are involved. It is important that we explain to the people why we have adopted this position.

On May 31, 2004, the mechanism for establishing the compensation of judges went into action; the commission presented its report and recommended a salary adjustment of about 10% for judges and parliamentarians. The salaries of parliamentarians had been linked to that of judges by the previous Liberal government—not the government just prior to the last election but the government of Jean Chrétien. At that time, the Liberals had decided, I believe with the unanimous consent of the House, that it was important that not only the salaries of judges but also those of parliamentarians should be removed from public debate.

It became usual, proper and accepted that from then on the salaries of the two groups became linked. Among other principles, it seemed to us unreasonable and illogical that mechanisms should determine that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who holds a very high office, but an office that in terms of hierarchy is not as high as the Prime Minister, and with the passage of time, that other members of the judiciary, should have a much higher salary than the Prime Minister.

All those who are listening to us, who are at home and are of good faith, will certainly want to say that it is perfectly normal and they believe that the salary of the Prime Minister should be higher than the salary of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, if only by a single dollar.

Finally, with the acceptance of this mechanism or idea, a link was established between the salaries of judges and those of parliamentarians by concluding that if the mechanism works so well for judges, it should be the same for parliamentarians. So, it was agreed once and for all to stop talking about that because the situation is even more odious for members since they are the ones who have to determine their own salaries. If it is annoying to members to discuss judges’ salaries, you can image how annoying it is to talk about their own salaries.

This means that in our democracy, here in Canada primarily, we have often seen in the past, in the provinces, cases where elected representatives’ salaries were harshly criticized by the public. In some governments, deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers, people who have good job security, are paid more than ministers, and in some cases than the premier. There should really be some degree of fairness, and the public is entitled to know about these things.

At the initiative of the previous Liberal government, under Jean Chrétien, judges’ salaries were used as the model and the increases that members of Parliament should receive were tied to the increases given to judges.

At the time the report was submitted, the increase was about 10%. The former Liberal prime minister, the one who was in office at the time of the election, the member for LaSalle—Émard who is still a member today, suddenly got excited. It had become unthinkable and horrible that members be given a 10% salary increase. There were headlines in the newspapers and this became something quite shameful. It was indeed a large increase. Everyone thought it was huge, knowing that all of the raises being given in other parts of the economy were 1.5% or 2% or 3% or something of that sort.

How could we justify parliamentarians suddenly being given a 10% raise? This had nothing to do with parliamentarians; in fact it was the mechanism for setting judges’ salaries that had produced a 10% increase in members’ salaries.

Parliamentarians had nothing to do with this. I was told I would be getting a 10% increase. The prime minister got all excited and said that this did not make sense, because Canadians did not have the resources to give politicians a 10% raise. Everyone applauded and said that it did not make sense to give a 10% raise. This did not look good, because if other people were getting a 2% raise, why would we get a 10% raise? We agreed.

When the decision was made to break the law that put politicians and judges in the same box, or undo that law, the Bloc Québécois, concerned about fairness to the public, said that if a 10% raise for politicians was scandalous, because people did not have the resources to pay that kind of increase, which was understandable, the public did not have the resources to give judges that kind of increase either. My goodness, there are more judges than members of Parliament.

I am trying to understand the logic followed by the member for LaSalle—Émard, who was the prime minister at the time.

No, Canadians did not have the resources to pay what the mechanism for determining judges’ salaries called for, which was a 10% increase. That was scandalous. Members of Parliament had to be distanced from what was being asked for. We would not give ourselves such a raise; we would make it closer to employees’ salary increase, a raise of 2% or 3%. Everyone agreed to this. Everyone thought that it made sense. In all the living rooms of the land, people applauded.

What people did not know, however, was that the Prime Minister had it in mind that the increase, which was too expensive for Canadians and for the 308 members of this House, was not too expensive for the hundreds and even thousands of judges in Canada. To the Prime Minister’s mind, the resolution no longer worked; the idea no longer worked.

These are the kinds of actions that have put us in the situation we are facing today. We have to re-assess judges' salaries and set aside the recommendations in the mechanism because at one time, politically opportunistic people destroyed the credibility of the mechanism and the process. In an “attempt to win votes”, they tried to make us believe that Canadians would be much poorer if the 308 members of this House and the hundreds or thousands of judges in Canada got a 10% pay raise.

We agreed with the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If Canadians cannot give a 10% pay raise to members of Parliament—we understand and we agree—they do not have to. But then nobody should get a raise. We cannot give a raise to one half of the people and not the other.

Canadian citizens are too poor to pay their members of Parliament a reasonable salary or to give them a pay raise, yet they are rich enough to give judges a raise? Hold on a second. We like judges well enough and we respect the judiciary, but our priority is justice. We support social justice. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Period. End of discussion.

Citizens made it very clear to the member for LaSalle—Émard what they thought of his decision. The member for LaSalle—Émard, who was Prime Minister at the time, kind of broke the mechanism. Since then, the Bloc Québécois has said that it will not agree to another mechanism unless and until there is a guarantee that judges will be treated fairly with respect to citizens, that is, that their pay raises will match everyone else's.

I would like someone to explain to me why it is that Canadians can afford to grant judges a salary increase of 7%, yet they cannot afford to grant a salary increase of 4% to a deputy minister, a 4% increase to an assistant deputy minister, a 4% increase to a public servant who looks after the cleaning here in Parliament, a 4% increase to any professional who works in the public service—such as an engineer or accountant, for example—and a 4% increase to MPs. Someone please explain this to me. It is taxpayers who must pay and who we are asking to make an effort.

We definitely want the judiciary to have the respect of Canadians, to function independently, and to maintain the trust of Canadians.We must avoid at all cost creating a situation in which judges receive a salary increase that is completely out of line with what other Canadians receive and what they can afford to pay everyone who serves the Government of Canada, at all levels. Judges serve the Government of Canada and Canadian citizens in an independent judicial system that is not isolated from the economic situation of this country. That is the reality.

Rulings have been handed down, such as the Bodner case in Alberta. The court clearly acknowledged that decisions about the allocation of public resources belong to legislatures and to governments. Governments are entitled to reject or modify commission recommendations provided that they have articulated a legitimate reason for doing so—which is fine, that the government’s reasons rely upon a reasonable factual foundation—which is also fine, and that, viewed globally and with deference to the government’s opinion, the commission process has been respected.

The commission has reported, the government believes that the economy does not permit giving anyone much more than the overall increase in the economy as a whole, and the government is able to explain this. It sees to me that that should become the rule. That is what the judgment says. However, governments do not have the courage to apply decisions as they should. They have a bad habit of behaving in one way when public opinion is at stake and another when it is not very much. As an elected representative of the people, I cannot accept that.

I am prepared to meet voters under any circumstances and justify the decisions for which I voted in Parliament. I am prepared to do that at any time. I am not prepared, though, to meet people in my riding to explain an injustice. I am not prepared to meet them and say that the government does not think it has enough money for certain very deserving social causes, it does not have enough money to help older workers who were let go in mass layoffs due to globalization problems.

I cannot say that to forest workers in the riding of Roberval. These are people who are 58 years old and toiled all their lives in a plant or sawmill. Now these people are being let go, and at 60 or 62 years of age, they do not have the necessary pension funds. They are condemned to give up their houses, cottages and cars. They go on welfare until they turn 65 and can get their Canada pension. I cannot in all conscience meet these people and tell them that the government does not have $75 million to spend on all the older workers victimized by mass layoffs in Canada. On the other hand, though, the government does have $75 million to spend on judges all across Canada over three years. It is going to give them annual increases between $14,000 and $20,000.

I hold our judges and parliamentarians in high regard, but I cannot in all conscience and as a member of Parliament tell my voters that I agree with a $14,000 to $20,000 salary increase for judges, who are already earning between $220,000 and $260,000, when the government does not have $12,000 or $14,000 for families that have been reduced to poverty through economic circumstances, globalization and mass layoffs. I am sorry, but I cannot do that. There are some things a person just cannot do in life, and that is one I cannot do.

I have nothing against judges, but let them be subject to the same criteria as parliamentarians, which my Liberal colleague referred to earlier. Let them be subject to the same criteria.

Why should the rule whereby increases in wages and salaries reflect the collective wealth of society not apply to judges?

Would the protection of judges from public opprobrium not be best achieved by ensuring that their salary increases are not sickening to those for whom poverty and misery are a part of their daily lives? Does protecting judges not mean ensuring fair pay, but pay that reflects the increase in collective wealth across the country? Am I to understand that, until this year, the Canadian judiciary was 7% poorer than average Canadians? Absolutely not.

In Canada, the judiciary is well paid, as it should be. It should nevertheless be granted pay increases which reflect a social and economic reality that cannot be ignored.

I do not see why a profoundly human speech in tune with reality, or explaining to people that the mechanism for setting judges' salaries should take into account the increase in collective wealth, would raise opposition on the other side of the House. If I said anything terribly wrong today, let me be chided on the spot. What was wrong with saying that I believe it is not right for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to have a salary set by this House that is higher than that of the Prime Minister? There is no cause for scandal in that.

[Yvan Loubier]

The logic is impeccable.