Mr. Speaker, one of the difficulties around this place is having the time to get to every committee. I was not on the justice committee, although I paid attention to what happened during the debate.
As I understand it at the moment there is a grave need for additional superior court judges in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Nunavut. They are experiencing growing backlogs. Nunavut faces severe challenges in providing access to justice for its aboriginal communities.
In fairness and to the credit of the government on this one, by moving ahead with the additional judges, it does give the opportunity to be heard in a fair and impartial court.
We all know in this place that if one does not have access to justice, in effect it is justice denied. It is important to have the human resources to have timely trials and timely decision making in order to have fairness under the law.
The accused is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but once a charge is laid, it certainly is a black mark against the individual. It is important to have the human resources, the financing of the courts to get rid of the backlogs so that the system can work in a timely fashion to ensure that justice is not just perceived to be done, but is actually done.