Mr. Speaker, the cornerstone of any democracy is an effective, reliable, and fair legal system that promotes the rule of law and timely access to an independent and properly resourced court. However, for some time now Alberta has had the lowest number of Court of Queen's Bench justices per capita in Canada, and senior Alberta federal prosecutors have been warning for three years that increasingly complex cases and a shortage of senior lawyers jeopardizes those cases, as delays violate the right to be tried within a reasonable time.
With voluminous vacancies both in the Public Prosecution Service and on the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, the government's so-called tough-on-crime agenda is impeded. When will the government stop taking Albertans for granted?