Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to that important question.
As minister of justice, I worked with my counterpart, the provincial attorney general, in Manitoba and I made express reference in my remarks to the important decision taken at the 2007 meeting that took place in Winnipeg of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice on the need, as was already expressed then in Winnipeg, four years ago, to address and redress these concerns.
That is why I am pleased that such an initiative has belatedly, in my view, but finally and necessarily come before us. However, I think we also have to proceed with an appreciation that if we pass the bill simply as it is, we may not incorporate some of the more important concerns and considerations to which I was referring in my remarks and to which I will make specific reference now.
I agree, of course, that the principle of having a case management judge who can focus the issues, streamline the pretrial motions and make suggestions to the parties are necessary in the context of a megatrial. The bill's proposals, if used properly, could assist in the administration of such a megatrial.
However, the proposal, to discuss just one, to allow the case management judge to make rules binding on the parties are somewhat too far-reaching and would, I believe, have some undesirable effects. For more comments on this, I would refer everyone to the LeSage-Code report, but this should be considered at committee. It is also vital that the trial judge and no other judge makes rules regarding the admissibility of evidence and that the proper relationship exist between the trial judge and the case management judge.
I also want to say with respect to jurors, that while the reform proposal has merit, it should be limited only to those trials specifically defined as megatrials and not all trials and consideration should be given to a provision that allows a trial judge to convert a jury trial to a judge-alone trial on consent of all parties when the jury composition falls below the minimum requirement of 10. This would promote efficiency and negate the need for costly mistrials.
On the issue of mistrials, while there is an important proposal to make certain rulings in the previous mistrial binding on the new trial, it is important—