Mr. Speaker, statistics on the number of applications received, the number of assessments by category and the number of appointments made, as well as demographic data on applicants and appointees, are published every year. These statistics are available on the website of the Office of the Commissioner for Judicial Affairs, at https://www.fja.gc.ca/appointments-nominations/StatisticsCandidate-StatistiquesCandidat-2023-eng.html.
In order to ensure and protect the privacy of candidates and the confidential nature of their application to become judges, statistics are provided on a national basis only. A provincial or regional breakdown could allow analysis of the data, which may lead to identifying individual candidates.
All applications for federal judicial appointment are received by the judicial appointments secretariat in the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs. Applications that meet the statutory requirements for appointment, namely 10 years of call to a bar of a province or territory, undergo an assessment by a judicial advisory committee based on the established criteria and are categorized into three distinct categories: “highly recommended”, “recommended”, and “unable to recommend”, per the guidelines found at https://www.fja.gc.ca/appointments-nominations/committees-comites/guidelines-lignes-eng.html#Assessments. From these assessments, a pool of qualified candidates is created, comprised of all “highly recommended” and “recommended” candidates. The minister then selects appointees from that pool to fill vacant positions that may arise. Since August 1, 2023, judicial advisory committee assessments of judicial appointment candidates are valid for three rather than two years.
When making judicial appointments, a number of factors are considered, including the strength of the application, the needs of the court, and the candidate's areas of expertise. Whether someone is highly recommended or recommended is one factor that is taken into account, among many important considerations, in the exercise of the minister’s prerogative to appoint the best candidates to the judiciary. That being said, there are no appointments made of candidates having been assessed as “unable to recommend” by a judicial advisory committee.