Mr. Speaker, allow me to revisit the figures and clarify the important facts.
The hon. member has her figures wrong, and I speak as someone who was called to the bar 32 years ago, was a past president of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association and is now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.
In fact, of the 1,114 federally appointed judges active as of February 1, 2012, 32% are women, with one-third of our federal bench now composed of women. We have come a long way since the first federal appointment of a female judge in 1943. Indeed, the government has continued to make important strides in increasing gender diversity on our Superior Court benches.
Since February 1, 2006, the proportion of women on the bench rose from 29% to 32%, of full-time sitting judges that number increases to 36%, a clear indicator of the upward trend. In fact, all four of the full-time members of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories are women.
I would invite the hon. member to consider the situation at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court reflects Canada's true diversity. Every region is represented at the Supreme Court by judges with diverse training backgrounds in both systems. The two official languages can be found there, as can a dialogue between these traditions.
The Supreme Court of Canada serves as a model of diversity and legal excellence throughout the world. The first appointment of a female judge to the Supreme Court of Canada, Bertha Wilson, occurred in 1982. Today, four of the nine judges of the Supreme Court, including our Chief Justice, are women, most recently, Madam Justice Karakatsanis from the Ontario Court of Appeal. No other high court in the Commonwealth, indeed in the common law world, can claim the benefit of such strong female representation.
These statistics underscore the government's firm commitment to achieving diversity, including gender representation, on our superior court benches. Canadians may be proud of the advances that have been made in increasing the representation of certain groups, particularly women, on the bench.
The hon. member for London—Fanshawe has made particular reference to the composition of certain judicial advisory committees which assess each lawyer's qualifications for the bench. She attributes her allegations of under-representation of women on our benches to the current committee composition particularly in two provinces. In saying this, the hon. member appears to suggest that only women are committed to gender equality and the goal of achieving a representative bench.
Such a suggestion does a real disservice to the committed members of these committees who give up a significant amount of their free time without compensation to make this important contribution. These committees are a key mechanism for achieving a representative bench. In making their assessments, committee members are asked to consider each candidate's awareness of racial and gender issues as well as their ability to remain neutral while hearing all sides of an argument.
It is important to recognize that the composition of these committees is designed to reflect factors appropriate to each jurisdiction, such as geography, language, multiculturalism and gender. As such, the composition is intended to provide an important balance of perspectives on what makes a good judge.
Representatives on these committees, of course, come from nominations from the judiciary, the legal community, such as the Canadian Bar Association, representatives of the provincial and territorial attorneys general, and also federally appointed members.They also include lay members from the community who provide a valuable broader perspective.
We are fortunate indeed to have so many committed judicial advisory committee members, men and women who are willing to undertake this important role in the public interest.