Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to say a few words on this legislation.
I will be supporting the bill. In my view it is not controversial. It raises by the number of 20, the judges the government is authorized to appoint at the trial level. This is a good move. It is beneficial to our justice system, specifically for those vulnerable to injustice and especially aboriginal populations in certain areas of this country.
I support the legislation as it will provide increased support for jurisdictions which I consider to be presently under-represented. There is no guarantee, and there never is any guarantee that anything will happen, but hopefully it will resolve some of the specific claims that have been kicking around for generations involving aboriginal populations. Also, it will hopefully decrease some of the backlog that has been experienced in our court system in certain areas of the country.
This is an extremely important issue. There is nothing more fundamental to a properly run democracy than access to an efficient and equitable justice system. It is the right of all Canadians.
I should point out that there have been tremendous improvements over the last 15 to 20 years in the management of our judicial system, mainly in the area of case management. It was felt the system did not lend itself to management and it was basically up to the litigants and their lawyers to manage when the case came before the court. There were all types of delays and confusion in some of the pleadings.
Now there seems to be a much more aggressive stand taken by court administrators and judges in bringing these things forward. They make sure that the lawyers comply with the time limits and the rules of court, and that there is early and full disclosure of documents and other testimony both in civil and criminal cases. At the earliest opportunity the parties are brought before a judge, but not the judge hearing the case, to try and resolve how things are going, where they are going, if it is moving on a timely basis and also to encourage, in some cases aggressively, people to settle a case so that it does not add to the backlog in the judicial system.
There have been substantial improvements in the system over the last 15 or 20 years. Also, there have been improvements in the specialty of law, whether it is family, criminal, or commercial. Some of the commercial cases are extremely complex. There is a specialization within the system which has helped tremendously in the administration of justice.
It has been pointed out that we are debating the authorization to appoint 20 additional judges. Right now there are 31 vacancies. Those could be filled tomorrow, assuming the proper preliminary procedures had been done, but they are not being filled. One wonders why that is the case. The government will have authorization to appoint up to 50 new judges once this bill becomes legislation. Having said that, I do support this particular piece of legislation.
With respect to the judicial advisory councils, there has been what I consider to be fundamental changes made to the provincial judicial advisory councils over the past year or two. It is my understanding that the Minister of Justice makes the majority of appointments to these judicial councils.
It just defeats the very principle upon which these judicial councils were established in the first place, to take away not only patronage, but the perception of patronage. Sometimes highly qualified people are appointed as judges, but if they happen to be close to one particular party, they get stamped with a judicial advisory council, they get appointed by the judge, and sometimes people just shake their heads as to how the system operates. The changes that were made in the provincial judicial councils, I submit, were a step in the wrong direction.
I do hope that the new members of the court, whether they are filling one of the 31 vacancies or one of the 20 additional spaces, will study and analyze exactly why there is a backlog and what is causing it. Is it a certain particular case? Is it a certain particular group of lawyers? Is it a specialty? Some of the commercial cases go on for six to eight months. Are they causing some problems?
I understand from some of the reading I have been doing that the backlogs are concentrated in central Canada, Quebec and Ontario, and some of the Atlantic Canada provinces, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There is also a situation in Nunavut that requires some attention from the judicial system, probably judges who come from that area who can speak the local language and of course are familiar with the local culture. We hope with the new judges some of those issues can be resolved and we can move forward.
Other members spoke of the court challenges program. I cannot overstate how important that was to the efficient and equitable operation of the justice system right across the country.
In my own province of Prince Edward Island we had an issue regarding the funding of French language schooling. Because of budgetary constraints, this request from the francophone population in our province was denied and denied and denied. Some of the parents, to their great credit, took the matter to court and a decision was rendered. It set parameters as to when and under what circumstances a group of parents would have access to French language education for their children.
Let me say that those parents, and there was not a great number but they did show leadership, did not have the resources to take this matter to the Supreme Court of Canada. They sought and were successful in receiving funding from the court challenges program. That case served as a precedent for other provinces to set the parameters and guidelines as to when a certain community within Canada should have education for children who come from French Canadian families. If that funding had not been available under the court challenges program, that case would not have seen the light of day. It would not have gone anywhere. It would not have gone to court and we would have been a lesser country as a result of that particular situation.
Sometimes there are abuses. Sometimes there are problems, but when we see how important cases like that are to this country, we have to shake our heads and wonder why that particular program was totally eliminated by this particular government--