Madam Speaker, on the issue of judicial vacancies, I feel like a broken record. I wish I could stop talking about it, because I would have thought that after two years, the government would actually have done something about filling judicial vacancies. However, they have not done anything. Filling judicial vacancies is the easiest and most straightforward thing to do to address the backlog in our courts. It's not the be-all and end-all. It would solve all of the problems, but it would certainly be a starting point.
With respect to the government's record, it can cite all of the appointments it has made, but, frankly, only after it let judicial vacancies reach record levels. When it comes to filling the vacancies, the government has established 14 new spots in Alberta and provided the funding to fill them. However, a year and a half later, seven out of the 14 judicial vacancies remain vacant.
That is simply unacceptable. That is the record of a government that does not take filling judicial vacancies seriously.