Mr. Speaker, we saw the attitude of the government in the final week of the 2006 election when the now Prime Minister but then leader of the official opposition made the point that the judiciary from his perspective was an adversary to where he and his party stood ideologically; the positions that they had taken on a number of issues confronting the country. They did not see them as part of the structure so much as being an impediment to the structure of government, which is, quite frankly, frightful in a democracy.
The Conservatives have made allegations over patronage appointments, which have some validity. An analysis was done on the appointments made by the former Liberal government and it was found that a number of people had direct involvement with the Liberal Party prior to their appointment as a judge.
What that analysis always misses is that no matter which party appoints them and no matter what their affiliation may or may not have been, the vast majority of judges, because of the legal training and their experience in our courts and in our law schools, they take an independent stance once appointed. That is something that did not seem to fit into the vision that our current Prime Minister has of the judiciary.
We have an excellent judiciary. I would argue that there is no judiciary in the world that is superior to ours, although there may be a few that are on a peer level. We have an excellent judiciary but we do not have enough of them.
The other point I would make concerns the government's constant attempt to undermine the discretion of our judiciary in criminal law and in other areas where we would think it would want to undermine the amount of discretion, in particular in the interpretation of our Constitution and our Charter of Rights. In a democracy that is frightful.