Debates of June 15th, 2023

The House resumed from June 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-35, An Act respecting early learning and child care in Canada, be read the third time and passed.

Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I may be having a technical problem with my microphone, just to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

We cannot hear the hon. member. I think the hon. member is on mute. No, the hon. member is in a car, which is very difficult for sound.

The hon. parliamentary secretary is rising on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I know we just passed a motion with respect to supporting hybrid, but I do not think it is appropriate for someone to participate in a hybrid debate while in a vehicle. I do not know if he is driving or if he is a passenger.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

He is not driving. It is only the sound that could be an issue. As well, the hon. member's headset is not the one accepted by the House, from what we are being told by technical services.

I cannot hear the hon. member.

Resuming debate.

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to take a few moments to talk about the tragic accident that occurred in Dauphin, Manitoba. Fifteen people were killed and another 10 are in hospital fighting for their lives. On behalf of all my colleagues from Quebec, my Conservative colleagues and all my colleagues in the House, I want to say that our thoughts are with those who responded on the scene, the first responders, the families of the victims, who are at the hospital with their loved ones, and all the communities affected. We are talking about seniors, who are the heart of the community around Dauphin, Manitoba. I feel we need to take a moment to think about all these people who are currently going through extremely difficult times.

I am feeling a bit emotional as I say this. I hope my colleagues will allow me to digress from the subject at hand, which is Bill C‑35. This summer will mark the 10th anniversary of the Lac‑Mégantic tragedy, when 47 Lac‑Mégantic constituents lost their lives in a tragic accident. It was the worst rail tragedy in eastern Canada's history.

These moments are always difficult. A community can never really recover from a tragedy like this. Yesterday in room 325 of the Wellington Building, I had the opportunity to present a documentary directed by Philippe Falardeau about this tragedy. The title of the documentary is Lac-Mégantic: This is Not an Accident. Why was this title chosen? Because many things could have been done to prevent this terrible tragedy from happening. Some of my colleagues attended the screening, and they were all shaken by the images they saw, by the reminder of this terrible tragedy. When tragedies like this happen, it is our responsibility as members of Parliament to take the time to look at what happened, to take the time to analyze what was done then, what was done beforehand and, above all, what will be done in the future.

We will soon mark the 10th anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. It should not become just a date on which we remember things that happened. It should be a date on which we remember that we failed to do enough and that we must always do more to protect people's lives. People are counting on the legislators here in the House to make a difference when it comes to regulations and to corporations that are interested only in making a profit, sometimes, and too often, at the expense of safety.

In closing, I thank my colleagues who attended yesterday's screening of the documentary. I also encourage anyone who would like to watch the documentary to do so. My Bloc Québécois colleague was there. Members of the Conservative Party were there. There were Liberals. My colleague from the NDP was there as well. Partisanship has no place here when it comes to doing our jobs. We can disagree on how to fix things or how to come up with solutions, but one thing is certain: We must all work toward the same goals to ensure that such tragedies never happen again.

Just now, after seeing the images of this new tragedy in the media, I needed to take a few minutes to think back on what happened in Lac-Mégantic and remind these people that we are with them and we support them. I also wanted to emphasize that our duty as members of Parliament transcends partisan games. Our duty is to improve the lives of the citizens we represent here, as well as the lives of citizens across Canada.

I thank my colleagues for allowing me to digress for a moment about these developing events.

We are here to discuss Bill C‑35.

My wife has been an early childhood educator for about 20 years. That has given me the opportunity to observe the evolution of public child care in the province of Quebec. I had the opportunity to see how these services were implemented because I was also involved in other levels of government at the time. I had the opportunity to see what a difference it can make for families, but I also saw what a difference it made for families that did not have access to child care.

I saw how much hard work and energy went into ensuring that, first and foremost, child care enabled women to access the labour market. I will tell it like it is: Parenting responsibilities have traditionally fallen to women. Unfortunately, many women have to say no to a career, put their career on hold or delay going back to school because they do not have access to child care. That is the reality we are facing today.

In recent years, we have seen more and more women enter the workforce, particularly in Quebec, and more and more women become totally independent. That is what we should be striving for. A growing number of women are getting involved in politics, in management and in decision-making positions. Madam Speaker, you are living proof of this. There are many things that a woman can do. Nothing is impossible.

The fact remains, however, that when a woman decides to have children with her husband or partner—and I do not want to limit this to a man and a woman—when a couple decides to have children, there is always the issue of child care. When someone has a child, if they want to go back to work, if they want to keep their job, if they want to keep getting ahead, they may not necessarily be able to do both at the same time. They have to take a break. If the break lasts too long, sometimes women unfortunately do not get back into the workforce, or sometimes men do not get back into the workforce. That is the reality.

The government came up with the proposal of a national early learning and child care system in Canada. We have already seen this play out in Quebec. More than 20 years ago, Quebec tried to set up a similar system. For the past 20 years, child care has cost less than $10 a day for families in Quebec. Does every mother, every family have access, 20 years later, to child care services? No, unfortunately. Why? Because the system is not able to absorb all the applications for child care.

My wife is an educator, and I have seen up close the different attempts by the government to ensure that families have access to public, educational child care services. They were called placement centres. People went there to register their children on waiting lists. In Quebec, people practically have to put their child on a waiting list before they are even conceived. If they wait too long, the child will be two and a half or three years old before a spot becomes available.

The Government of Quebec chose that system. The families who do not have access to this system, who did not have the chance to enter the system, whether at a facility with several groups, a yard and some games, or at a home-based service, which is also subsidized in Quebec, have no other option.

If they do not get a place for two and a half years, families have no other option. They cannot access affordable child care because the Quebec government chose the public child care option. Public assistance will therefore go to those who are lucky to have a spot.

Quebec is now facing another problem. I can speak to it because my wife is aware of it every day. Not only are there not enough spots, but now there are not enough early childhood educators in the system to be able to fill all the spots. There are children on wait lists that cannot access child care services because there are not enough educators. Some spend hours and hours with children without a break all day. At the end of the week they are burned out. They are spread so thin that, after a few years, these young women quit their jobs and look for other work.

The system is struggling because there is not enough staff and families do not have spots. This is all because the Quebec government chose to put all its eggs in one basket, namely public child care and early learning services.

The government could have chosen another option. If the government had offered help, mothers could opt to spend a year at home. Instead of putting all their eggs in one basket, the government could have offered a credit to mothers who decide to stay at home.

The government could have chosen to offer a credit to families who want to go to the private sector to access a spot. There is a parallel network of private child care in Quebec, alongside public child care. Private child care costs a lot more, but unfortunately, the government does not contribute to that network. It costs families a lot more. They have to pay out of pocket right away. They will recover some of that money at the end of the year, but it will never be as much as if they had had access to the public system.

The thing is, these mothers and families pay the same taxes and income taxes as everyone else, but unfortunately, they do not have access to the same services. The consequences of that are serious for these mothers. I often talk about mothers, but that is the reality. I wish it were not so, but it is. The lack of child care spaces primarily affects young moms. That is what we see.

The government's proposal was to introduce a national child care plan that would reduce child care costs by an average of 50% by the end of 2022 and bring them down to an average of $10 a day by 2026. The question is, who gets these discounted child care services? It is 2023. Will everyone have access to child care at an average cost of $10 a day by 2026? Quebec has not been able to pull that off in 20 years.

That is the reality. Everyone has good intentions. We want to do the right thing and help, but if there are no educators on the ground, it is not going to work. If there are no services, it is not going to work. If there is no incentive for a parallel network to absorb the surplus that the public network cannot handle, it is not going to work.

That is why we have expressed some doubts. Will the promised results ever be achieved? I have seen a lot of promises. Every government that has come and gone in Quebec has promised to either move faster or offer more spots. At one point, they even wanted to increase child care costs and make them proportionate to salary, so that people who earn more would pay more. During another election campaign, it circled back to the idea of a single rate for everyone. In short, they have tried everything, yet, even now, there is a significant shortage of child care spaces.

I therefore urge people to be cautious. I am speaking to mothers and families across Canada. There is no way that we will be able to set up a national child care system that is fair and equal for everyone in three years. It is simply not possible. If it were, all mothers and families in Quebec would have had access to a subsidized system a long time ago.

I want to talk about something that is very dear to me. I am often asked whether these child care and early learning services are useful. I am told that babysitters are available, and I am asked these questions: Why should people who are not working not have access to child care in Quebec? Why should subsidized child care be provided to people who do not need it because it is available at home, since mothers can stay at home? There are many reasons, but it is not for me to judge.

I can say that my wife is a child care technician. She was trained at college to be able to not only take care of children, but also support them in their learning. That is a good thing. It is needed. That is the choice that Quebec made.

Now, what I would like for Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, is for the program being brought in to allow the provinces to choose the system that works best for them. We know that it is not easy because in 20 years, Quebec has been unable to create enough spots. I would also like the program to allow families to have a choice and create the spots that women need. It is great to talk about money and say that this is not going to cost much, but if there are no spots that do not cost much, then women and families will not have more access to child care services and we will be back at square one.

Will Bill C‑35 help produce better results? I hope so, but I am counting on the provinces for that because they are the ones that will ultimately make the decisions. It is not the federal government that will make the decision. So why is the federal government imposing standards on the provinces on how they should set up their network of child care and early learning services? I do not think it is a good idea to do this.

This bill seeks to confirm agreements that already exist. The government has already reached agreements with all the provinces to give them money to establish child care services. It is setting conditions. I believe that the best way to move forward would have been to remove the conditions and allow the provinces to develop the best child care services possible based on their situations. We could have then made progress and made it possible for more and more women to access the labour market and education to fulfill their careers and dreams.

I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Peterborough—Kawartha, for the excellent work she did for our party on Bill C‑35. I think she did a lot of research and that she is very up-to-date on this matter. I will follow her lead when voting on Bill C‑35.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It being 9:29 p.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, March 6, 2023, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would request a recorded vote please.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Monday, June 19, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

Judges Act

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved:

That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that, in relation to Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Judges Act, the House:

agrees with amendments 1(b)(i) and 1(c)(i) made by the Senate;

respectfully disagrees with amendments 1(g), 1(i), 1(j) and 1(k) because they undermine the mechanisms in the bill for controlling process costs and delays by introducing a second intermediate appellate level into the proposed new judicial conduct process that would duplicate the work of the first and, as a result, would introduce into the new process costs and delays comparable to those that have undermined public confidence in the current process;

respectfully disagrees with amendment 2 because it undermines the mechanisms in the bill for controlling process costs and delays by maintaining most of the unnecessary costs and delays that the bill was intended to excise from the process for obtaining court review of a Canadian Judicial Council report issued under the current process;

respectfully disagrees with amendments 1(a), 1(b)(ii), 1(f) and 1(h) because they would, taken together, have the effect of redefining the roles of lay persons, expressly defined as persons who have no legal background, in the proposed new judicial conduct process by obliging them to fulfill decision-making functions requiring legal training or that are best fulfilled by those with legal training;

respectfully disagrees with amendments 1(c)(ii) and 1(c)(iii), 1(d) and 1(e) because, taken together, they would redefine the balance struck by the bill between confidentiality and transparency considerations arising during the investigative stages of the process in a way that risks disclosing information of a personal or confidential nature, and that would require substantial new financial resources that are not otherwise necessary for the proper operation of the proposed new judicial conduct process; and

respectfully disagrees with amendments 1(b)(iii) and 1(l) because, taken together, they substantially rework the principal mechanisms contained in the bill for ensuring that the Canadian Judicial Council makes public information about the process, and these amendments do so in a way that risks disclosing information of a personal or confidential nature.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, which proposes reforms to the judicial conduct process. There is no doubt that these reforms are necessary. On Tuesday, the Chief Justice of Canada noted the importance of passing the bill quickly and I hope all members here take his advice to heart and that we proceed quickly.

Before moving to my prepared remarks, I would like to thank the Chief Justice of Canada as well as the Canadian Judicial Council and the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association for their work on this bill. I would also like to thank my very able parliamentary secretary, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke; as well as the members for Fundy Royal and Rivière-du-Nord. Obviously, as well, I would like to thank the hon. senators who put a lot of work into this bill, including Senator Pierre Dalphond.

Before discussing the central elements of Bill C-9, I would like to remind the hon. members of the process that got us here. As members will recall, the current judicial conduct process originated in 1971 when Parliament amended the Judges Act to create the Canadian Judicial Council, which was vested with the authority to investigate allegations of misconduct against federally appointed judges.

More than 50 years later, Canada's judge-led model for overseeing the conduct of a federally appointed judiciary remains a forerunner in the world, but the main characteristics of Canada's process have remained unchanged. This is despite fundamental changes in the field of administrative law and changing social values and public expectations that help to inform norms of judicial conduct. As a result, the structures and processes currently in place under the Judges Act are outdated. Worse still, in some recent high-profile cases, they have proven ineffective, jeopardizing the public trust that they were meant to inspire.

The current process for reviewing allegations of misconduct against federally appointed judges is seriously flawed. If left unaddressed, those flaws risk undermining public trust in the process and, by extension, our judicial system.

That is where Bill C‑9 comes in. For the purposes of our consideration this evening, I would like to focus on the main objectives of the bill, namely, to make the judicial disciplinary process fairer, faster and more cost-effective, without compromising the rigour of the investigation, all with a view to ensuring greater accountability to the Canadian public. The bill meets these commendable objectives by proposing a set of reforms that take into account the many competing factors that come into play in a complaint process such as this one.

The bill, as passed by the House, will replace the current process with a streamlined one that includes an internal appeal mechanism that will ensure the fairness and integrity of findings against a judge, rather than allowing the judge to step out of the process and initiate multiple court challenges that can interrupt and delay the case for years, as we have previously seen. The decisions of the internal appeal panel will be final, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, with leave.

The bill therefore strikes the right balance to ensure that the most serious and complex cases are not only reviewed as thoroughly as necessary, but that they are also completed in a timely manner. What is more, rather than treating all cases as though they could necessarily warrant the judge's removal, the new process will make a wider range of possible sanctions available. This will allow certain complaints to be resolved both quickly and fairly, avoiding, in many cases, the need for public hearings.

Finally, through the reform process, the bill involves members of the general public at key decision-making stages where appropriate and ensures transparency and accountability to Canadians, while balancing the interests of complainants and judges.

Bill C-9, as adopted unanimously in the chamber, is a balanced, carefully considered and meticulously crafted bill that was born of extensive consultations with judicial and legal stakeholders, as well as members of the general public.

It benefits from the support of cornerstone judicial institutions, most notably, the Canadian Judicial Council, which stands at the very heart of the judicial conduct process that the bill seeks to reform.

As Bill C-9 made its way through this chamber, I was delighted, but not surprised, to see it benefit from significant approval and ultimately receive unanimous support. Once again, I thank the critics from all parties in every part of the House. However, the other place has adopted several amendments to Bill C-9, the majority of which simply cannot be accepted. While I am grateful for the thorough deliberations of the other place with regard to this bill, I am disappointed to see the results of their second thoughts.

Allow me to begin my overview with the amendments from the other place on a positive note. I propose that we support the amendment that would strike the qualifier “As far as possible” from the current text of proposed section 84 in clause 12 of the bill. This provision requires that the Canadian Judicial Council make best efforts in ensuring that the roster of laypersons and puisne judges from which the decision-makers for various stages of the proposed new processes are drawn reflect the diversity of Canadians. The amendment helps to bolster the message sent through our legislative texts that our government, as well as all parliamentarians and, indeed, all Canadians, value the great diversity of our nation and are committed to ensuring that this diversity is reflected in our institutions, including the decision-making bodies of the new judicial conduct process.

We also welcome the amendment that would add complaints alleging sexual misconduct to the types of complaints that cannot be screened out by a screening officer and that must be reviewed by a member of the council. The two other types of such complaints are those that allege sexual harassment and those alleging discrimination within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The spirit of this amendment aligns with the overall objectives of the bill and does not otherwise undermine the operation of the proposed new judicial conduct process. While it was unlikely these allegations would be screened out, it being clearly laid out in the text does not undermine the legislation or any ongoing process.

This brings me to the remaining amendments. We cannot support them because they substantially undermine the bill's excellent solution to chronic delays in the current process in two ways. First, it has been proposed to make the decisions of appeal panels reviewable as of right by the Federal Court of Appeal instead of by the Supreme Court of Canada with leave. I remind everyone that the appeal panels provided for by this bill are designed to be the equivalent of an intermediate appellate court to give the judge the same rights and the public the same level of transparency as a court like the Federal Court of Appeal. By making this change, the other place has added a second intermediate level of appeal to the process, giving a judge accused of serious misconduct a second kick at the can, as it were, at the intermediate appellate level before trying to do the same thing at the Supreme Court of Canada, something no other Canadian gets.

This change would reintroduce a substantial portion of the costs and the delays that plague the current process and that this bill was in fact intended to excise. It completely undermines the most central objective of this bill, making the process faster and less costly while maintaining its fairness. I would note that a similar effect was deemed out of scope by our own justice committee.

Secondly, the Senate proposed to add laypersons where they should not bring their perspectives. This would undermine the effectiveness and fairness of the new process in the bill, and it would particularly undermine the appeal mechanism. It is undeniable that laypersons can make a meaningful contribution and add great value to a process such as this.

That said, as with the other aspects of this bill, it was important to strike the right balance between factors conducive to the inclusion of laypersons and the inherent limits to their participation. Involving laypersons is certainly appropriate and useful for increasing public confidence in the fact-finding stages of the process. This is precisely where their involvement is provided for in Bill C‑9 as passed by the House.

The Senate's proposed changes jeopardize this carefully established balance by proposing to include laypersons in appeal panels while, in these processes, the appeal panels deal primarily with correcting errors in law. In the context of the judicial conduct process, laypersons are defined as people with no legal knowledge, such as people who do not have the training required to address matters of law.

The Senate is proposing to add laypersons to two other stages of the process where training will be required or considered an important asset. The Senate's proposed changes represent a fundamental redefining of the role of laypersons as set out in the bill adopted by the House at second reading. Accordingly, I believe that they are simply not consistent with the stated purpose and cannot be retained.

The amendments proposed by the other place also undermine the bill's sensitive balancing of confidentiality considerations with the need for transparency. Here again the amendments in this respect go so far as to be out of scope.

As it stands, Bill C-9 includes transparency guarantees that reflect the broader public interest in open proceedings. However, the bill rightly situates the public's interest in open proceedings by building in adequate confidentiality safeguards that protect the complainants and judges who are the subject of the disciplinary proceedings. The other place's amendments would unravel this delicate balance by requiring, for example, ongoing disclosure, even when proceedings have yet to conclude. Perhaps most significantly, the other place's amendments lack safeguards to ensure that the council can protect the identity of complainants who fear reprisals from the subject of a complaint.

In the same vein, the final set of amendments require the collection and public disclosure of an unwieldily amount of information that would be gathered for the purpose of informing the Minister of Justice in deciding whether or not to recommend to the Canadian Judicial Council that new judicial education seminars be established on this information. Since the minister can speak to the council at any time about judicial education opportunities, such amendments are quite literally unnecessary and, as amendments whose primary objective is the establishment of new judicial education opportunities, they are also out of scope.

Hon. members, we have reached a critical stage. As I have reiterated throughout my remarks, Bill C-9 is a bill about balance, balancing interests that are in tension with one another: confidentiality and transparency, fairness and efficiency, independence and accountability. Bill C-9, as adopted in this chamber by all parties, has struck the right balance, a balance these amendments would upset in arbitrary ways that run counter to the bill's central objective of restoring public confidence in the judicial conduct process. As a result, these amendments, quite simply, would defeat the purpose of this bill. Bill C-9 is critical to ensuring nothing less than continued public confidence in the independence of our judiciary and, by extension, in our system of justice.

I look forward to working together toward the common goal of ensuring that this important bill passes at the earliest opportunity. I will again note the urgency raised by the Chief Justice of Canada with regard to passing this legislation and I encourage all of my colleagues in this place to make this happen.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, we agree that it is high time that Bill C-9 becomes law.

I am disappointed to hear that the government is rejecting an amendment put forward by the other place that we think is very important, and that is the right to appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal.

Right now Bill C-9 says that there can be an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, but that is really just a right to apply for leave to appeal, and very few applications for leave to appeal are actually approved by the Supreme Court of Canada. It is something under 10%. Witnesses at committee have said that this is really just a faint hope for a judge who is perhaps going to lose his livelihood, reputation and legal profession. In the opinion of those experts in appeals, there should be one real appeal, and it should be to the Federal Court of Appeal.

I wonder what the minister would say.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, there has been a slight misunderstanding here. There is already an appeal process after the hearing panel decides in a case of removal. There is an appeal heard by three members of the Canadian Judicial Council, three chief justices of Canada, as well as two other puisne judges, which is an old Norman French word. A panel of five judges, the two puisne judges as well as the three others, would hear the first appeal. It is from there that a second appeal would go to the Supreme Court.

What the amendment proposes is a lateral appeal to the Federal Court. We are trying to eliminate that precisely because we have seen a rather celebrated case of a judge who kept appealing every single decision laterally to the Federal Court, and it ended up bogging the whole thing down and costing us a lot of money. We are trying to eliminate that while still maintaining fairness.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear from the minister, and I commend the fact that he is with us so late tonight to debate his motion.

The Bloc Québécois will support this motion because we are satisfied with the work that has been done. However, I would like to make a small clarification, and this is what I would like to hear the minister talk about. We agreed to the amendment to delete the words “as far as possible” with regard to reflecting diversity when selecting judges and laypersons. By striking out the “as far as possible” portion, it seems to me that we are moving from an obligation of diligence to an obligation of result.

We have the following question: Knowing that this is an obligation of result, is there a risk of restricting other characteristics, such as knowledge of French or bilingualism for example, in the search for candidates?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, every lawyer who was trained in Quebec like me knows the distinction between the obligation of diligence and the obligation of result. I fully understand her question and, in principle, I completely agree with her.

That said, we are accepting the Senate's proposal, in the circumstances, because we believe we can do it. We have consulted the judiciary, who believe they are able to live with the obligation of result. That is why we accepted the amendment.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the minister on his work. Of course, the NDP will also support the government's proposals. I must say that I very much appreciated his praise for the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, who does a tremendous and excellent job every day as the NDP justice critic.

We are talking about the Senate amendments, of course, but I would like to come back to the House of Commons stage. The NDP brought forward an amendment that broadened the definition of “discrimination” in subclause 90(3) of the bill, adding something very similar to discrimination. The government rejected this amendment. I would like to know if the minister can explain why. This is an NDP amendment brought forward by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, we used definitions that are already known and accepted in the legal community. We believe that we have found the right way to express the concept of discrimination in the current bill. Of course, we worked with the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke and looked at what he had brought forward. We sincerely believe that we have chosen a better path.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, this bill has had widespread support among all the parties in the House and from the many stakeholders who have spoken in support of it across Canada.

We are at a very critical juncture here, in that we are reflecting on some of the proposals from the other place. The bill has gone through an extensive process in the House, and I am wondering if the minister could tell us why it is important that we get this bill passed before we rise and why it is important to ensure that the new process is in place before September.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for his question and for his work on this bill and all the other bills. If there was co-operation among the various critics in this House on this bill, it was largely due to his work, and I thank him for that.

When we conceived of this bill, there was a very high-profile case going through the system, again with all those lateral proceedings to the Federal Court that were bogging everything down. There is currently another one. We have also now seen, or at least been able to infer by reading the papers in recent days, that there has been a third case, this one at the level of Canada's highest court. In every single one of these cases, this process would have been better, both for initial evaluations and also for the ongoing procedures.

This will happen. There is an important value in trusting the judiciary and having confidence in the judiciary, and this will help. The judges themselves want it, because they are the ones who felt most acutely the problems of previous disciplinary cases.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Senate is supposed to be a place of sober second thought. On this bill and on many other bills, it has continually brought forward recommendations, which this government continually rejects.

I am wondering if the minister can confirm to me that he uses the Senate as nothing more than a rubber stamp.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, frankly, I think if there is one minister who has not used the Senate as a rubber stamp, it is the current Minister of Justice.

I have been successful, again with a great parliamentary secretary, in getting a number of pieces of legislation through this House and the Senate in the past four and a half years.

I have compromised. I have accepted Senate amendments on a number of bills; on others I have not, and I have come back to the House to say that we should not.

However, I have a healthy relationship with the Senate. I sometimes joke that I am there more often than some of its own members, but I will not say that in the other place. Indeed, I think there is a healthy relationship there, and we have evaluated the amendments in this case very carefully.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise here this evening to engage in the debate on Bill C-9, a bill to update the Canadian Judicial Council review process for judges’ conduct.

The last time I spoke to Bill C-9 was in December 2022, when it was here for third reading. At that time, I used an example of a case that had gone through the court system. I think the Minister of Justice referred to it as well. I think we are talking about the same one.

It was an example of a judge who abused the process to his own advantage. In that case, there had been allegations of misconduct outside of the courtroom. There was nothing about the judge's abilities in the courtroom. Of course, the judge denied all that. Early in the review process, it became evident that his days as a judge were numbered and that he would soon be asked to resign. However, he used every trick in the book. He used every delay tactic, every appeal opportunity and every diversion, and he managed to drag the process on for years at great expense to the public, because taxpayers paid for his substantial legal fees throughout the process.

There is one more thing: Throughout the whole process, which went on for many years, this judge earned a full salary. On top of that, his pension continued to accrue. Mercifully, at some point, he resigned; he had a full pension by that point. The public became very cynical about judges judging judges.

I said at the time that the reforms that Bill C-9 sought to bring to the judicial review process were not about that one judge. That was just a good illustration of why reform is so necessary. The process must be simplified, shortened and clarified so that judges being reviewed know what they are up against, the Canadian Judicial Council knows what its responsibilities are and the confidence of the public in our judicial system is restored.

Judges judging judges can be a hard sell to the public, so let us not make it more difficult and more opaque than it has to be. The principle of judicial independence runs deep in our constitutional fabric, and its integrity must be retained. That is why Bill C-9 is so urgent.

My earlier speech was on December 9, 2022, at third reading. The House voted unanimously to send it to the other place, and it went through the chamber of sober second thought. Somewhat surprisingly, it met some resistance, and it has come back to this House with some amendments. There are six in total, and I will get to them.

Before I get into the merits of Bill C-9, as now proposed by the Senate as amended, I want to give an update on what has been happening in the world of judges in Canada. Six months ago, I raised the example of a case that had gone wrong and had gone badly.

Today, sadly, we have another good example of why reform is needed urgently, and that is the example of Mr. Justice Russell Brown of the Supreme Court of Canada, who just resigned.

In the earlier case, the very clever and capable judge abused the Canadian Judicial Council review process for his own advantage. In this latter case, I would submit that the judicial review process abused the judge.

I am not going to get into the details, but I will summarize what happened. During off-hours, the judge encountered a group of people, and security footage showed that they had consumed too much alcohol. Details of who said what, who pushed whom and all that were put before the Canadian Judicial Council. It should have been a speedy process, but it was not. Six months later, the initial review panel still had not completed its work; there was no light at the end of the tunnel as to when a final decision might be made. In the meantime, Justice Russell Brown was suspended from sitting with the other nine judges; there were only eight sitting. His life was on hold, as was his family's life.

As one legal academic described disciplinary hearings, the process itself is sometimes the punishment. Moreover, as another legal expert stated more recently, “Justice Brown’s retirement constitutes an honorable discharge of an honorable man in a dishonorable process.”

It does not need to be that way. If we are serious about maintaining judicial independence, the integrity of our justice system and public confidence, while upholding the dignity of judges, reform is urgent. That is why we need to expedite this bill through Parliament as soon as possible.

How would Bill C-9 improve things? It would simplify the system. It would clarify some of the rules. Bill C-9 establishes a two-stream process for complaints, first, that are serious enough to warrant removal from office, and second, for other complaints that would warrant less serious sanctions, such as orders for counselling, education, a reprimand or requesting an apology. There is a wide range of things that the council could order.

In that two-stream process, Bill C-9 now establishes a five-step streamlined process that should have the positive effect of speeding up the process to final resolution. First, there is an initial screening by a council official to decide whether the complaint has any merit at all. For example, the complainant might be a disgruntled litigant who is unhappy with the judge’s decision. That would be a complaint without merit. The draft legislation also clarifies the criteria to guide the screening officer in their work. There is more predictability, the rules are clearer and there is less fishing for irrelevant facts.

Any case not dismissed by the screening officer then proceeds to a review by an official to decide whether the complaint merits further investigation. The reviewing member is guided by the same criteria as the screening officer. The reviewing member can dismiss the case altogether or refer the matter to a review panel.

Once it gets to the review panel, the panel could either dismiss the case or make orders, short of a recommendation to the minister for removal. If the panel forms the opinion that the judge should be removed, it directs the case to a full hearing panel. In all other cases, it is has significant power to order lesser remedies or sanctions. I have already mentioned the remedies. These powers would be much broader, at this level, than they are under current legislation. That is what makes this new process so unique and so important. In theory, this allows the Canadian Judicial Council to directly address all types of judicial misconduct and enables prompt resolution of less-serious cases without a full hearing.

If the judge is unhappy with the order that has been made, he or she could appeal the review panel's decision to a reduced appeal panel. Appeals relating to remedies or orders short of removal go to a reduced hearing. Those related to removal recommendations would go to a full hearing.

The panel can hear evidence, take sworn testimony and, hopefully, settle the case. However, if the judge is unsatisfied with that, they could then have a final appeal within the system.

This internal appeal mechanism has no equivalent under the current system. Appeal panels replace, as the minister has said, the current right to judicial review through the superior courts, where cases are subject to court rules of evidence, potentially greater delays and substantially higher costs. Let us think of the earlier case, where the judge dragged the process out for many years through the superior courts using judicial review procedures that were available to him. It was an abuse of the system. This legislation would put a stop to that.

The whole process would stay within the four walls of the Canadian Judicial Council review process. There are no appeals from a decision of the appeal panel, with one very important exception. Under clause 137 of the legislation, either the judge or the presenting counsel, which is like the Crown prosecutor, could apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. This is a party’s only opportunity to appeal to the courts under the new process.

The purpose behind this restriction, of course, is to reduce opportunities for endless delays by appealing into the court system. There is one appeal to one court at the end of the internal process, and that is it. Purportedly, according to the government, this limitation balances the right to fairness with a need for expediency; in fact, it is just a faint hope, because a right to appeal to the Supreme Court is only a right to seek leave to appeal, to ask for permission. The Supreme Court is very busy, and it receives many appeal applications in any given year; however, it grants very few of them. As a matter of fact, it grants fewer than 10%.

We had experts come to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and testify that, in their opinion, this is just not sufficient, and that a judge should have at least one real right of appeal into the court system. Conservative members of the committee supported that, and for that reason, we put forward a motion to amend Bill C-9 to give one more right of appeal, and that is to the Federal Court of Appeal.

In searching for the right balance between expediency and fairness, Conservative members of the committee felt that this was the right place to land. However, the chair of the committee disagreed, calling the motion “out of scope”. Bill C-9 came back to the House without amendment, and it was that unamended bill that came before the House for third reading in December 2022. The House approved it unanimously. It went to the other place, and surprise, it has now come back with six amendments, including the one the Conservative members put forward. It was a remake of our amendment, so we support that amendment, of course.

Incidentally, we also support the other amendments concerning more technical matters, such as the structure and composition of hearing panels, reporting and transparency requirements and the collecting of data. We looked at those, and they all make sense.

I want to turn back to the Russell Brown issue, which has been in the news recently. At a press conference held earlier this week, Chief Justice Wagner had this to say: “Since I became Chief Justice in 2018, I realized that there was something to be corrected at the Judicial Conduct Committee. The judicial conduct process was...opaque. It was too long, too costly and...it was not possible...for the public to have trust.... I was happy to see that government has decided to legislate on that issue, to be more transparent, less costly.”

He went on to point out that this process of reform started several years ago, but because of a number of delays, the bill fell off the order table. We all know what those delays were. They were caused by the Prime Minister's decision for prorogation of Parliament and then later to ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and force an election in the middle of the pandemic. It was an election that nobody wanted, and the results after are exactly what they were before.

The bill fell off the order table, and that was the cause of the delay. Parliament had to start over, and now the bill is once again before us in the form of Bill C-9. It should have received royal assent by now, and if the Liberals had agreed to the Conservative members’ common-sense amendment concerning the Federal Court of Appeal, the bill likely would have been law by now already. However, let us get it done now.

As I wrap things up here, I want to reflect on Russell Brown's legacy. I will quote several legal scholars, whose words were picked up by a publication.

Joanna Baron, executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, said, “[Justice Brown's] track record in just under eight years on the SCC is extraordinary. It's sad to consider the counter-history of what his judicial career might've been otherwise.”

Ms. Baron goes on to cite Justice Brown in the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act case of 2021. We should remember that Justice Brown was writing in dissent; he was on the minority side of this. Ms. Baron says, “He was skeptical of the move by the majority to accept that Parliament could wade into provincial jurisdiction to legislate reduction of carbon emissions under the ‘national concern’ doctrine, noting that such a move would permanently vest exclusive jurisdiction in Parliament over any matter said to be of the vaguely defined ‘national concern’."

Sean Speer, editor of The Hub, writes about the distinction between judges and scholars who are “living tree” proponents when it comes to constitutional litigation, and those like Justice Brown who pay deference to laws and regulations passed by Parliament and by legislative assemblies.

Asher Honickman and Gerard Kennedy of the Advocates for the Rule of Law had this to say about the vacancy created by Mr. Justice Brown’s departure creates at the SCC:

Justice Brown’s departure robs this country of one of the greatest judicial minds and legal writers to have presided over the Court in recent decades. We urgently recommend that the Prime Minister appoint a successor from Western Canada [where Justice Brown is from] who exhibits a similar legal brilliance and commitment to foundational principles.

I have another quote, from Howard Anglin, a doctoral student at Oxford University, who had this to say about Justice Brown’s departure:

His departure leaves a yawning intellectual hole on the Court. The Supreme Court today is a more jurisprudentially diverse body than it was eight years ago when he joined it, but it is always a threat to resume its old ways of lazy collegiality. If it does, at least future justices and scholars [and I would add law students] will have Brown’s trove of fine writing and clear thinking to challenge, inspire, and shake them out of that all-too-Canadian tendency to complacency.

I just want to have one more quote from Justice Brown read into the record. This is another dissent. It is a case that is important to me because it involves Trinity Western University when it was trying to establish a law school and was turned down by the Law Society of British Columbia. This is important to me because Trinity Western University is a very important institution, highly regarded and highly respected in my home community of Langley, and it is also my alma mater. It is where I did my undergraduate degree many years ago.

I am going to conclude with this quote from Justice Brown from that case, again writing a dissent. That decision went the wrong way, in my opinion, but Justice Brown's words, I think, are very important. Hopefully they will form the basis of judicial scholarship going forward. They read, “the public interest in fostering a liberal, pluralist society is served by accommodating religious freedom...which freedom allows religious communities to flourish and thereby promotes diversity and pluralism in the public life of our communities.”

I would like to thank Mr. Justice Russell Brown for the great service he has given to Canada, to the Supreme Court and to legal scholarship.

I am going to wrap this up, but I have a motion that I would like to read into the record. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Judges Act, be now read a second time and concurred in.”

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The amendment is in order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, that was an interesting contradiction, but there have been a lot of contradictions within the Conservative Party in the last number of hours.

I notice that the member says the Conservatives support the bill and want to see the bill get passed, and now what the member does at the very end is read a motion. The motion is an amendment. That continues the tradition of the Conservative Party. Whether it supports a bill or it does not support a bill, its members tend to want to try to prevent legislation from passing.

The Minister of Justice just expanded on why there are some issues related to the Senate amendments, and why we cannot support them. I do not quite understand. Is the Conservative Party really wanting to see the legislation pass, or is the idea that it will move an amendment in order to cause additional votes and maybe even put up endless speakers? Is the member going to be the last speaker, or can we get some sense of whether there are going to be another 25, 30 or 40 speakers who want to speak to the legislation?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is very important legislation, and it has been dragging on for a long time, so some of my colleagues want to speak to it. This is important legislation, and we have important things to say about it. As for the amendment I just put forward, it says to accept all the amendments put forward by the other place. We think they are important. One of them is actually our own, which the Senate has remade. As for the other amendments, we are saying we agree with them, and we think the legislation would be improved.

We are not trying to delay anything; we are just trying to make the legislation better.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like him to answer the same question I asked the Minister of Justice.

Do we not run the risk of limiting the number of candidates who could be added to the list of judges and laypersons if we strike “as far as possible” from the sentence about selecting candidates who reflect diversity, especially given that there is a shortage of judges?

The minister mentioned that the Canadian Judicial Council seemed convinced it would be able to fulfill an obligation of result in appointing people from diverse backgrounds. Does my colleague share the Minister of Justice's optimism given the current shortage of judges?