Mr. Speaker, I would like to revisit the topic of judicial appointments, specifically in Alberta.
I had the absolute privilege of practising law for a number of years in Alberta before I arrived in this place, and I remember that while I was there, I led a session as an instructor for the Legal Education Society of Alberta. I laid out the civil procedure process. When I got to the issue of mandatory judicial dispute resolution, which was a required process under the Alberta rules of civil procedure, I had to instruct the audience that, in fact, it was not technically mandatory, because the chief justice had given an order that because of the shortcomings of the previous government's judicial appointments practices, the courts did not have the roster of judges available to enforce the mandatory provisions of the rules of the court and the rules of civil procedure in Alberta.
I remember that in early 2013, the then minister of justice for the Province of Alberta requested that his federal counterpart, now the hon. member for Niagara, appoint four more superior court judges. I remember reading headlines in the Calgary Herald that said that he refused to make this commitment at the time.
In 2017, we had 100 judicial appointments or elevations made by the Minister of Justice, which is the most in at least two decades. Could the member at least acknowledge that the minister is doing her job and is certainly doing her job much better than the previous government when it comes to judicial appointments?