Peter Mancini

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, there are actually three questions. I will attempt to answer each one of them in the time allotted to me.

The hon. member for Wild Rose asked is it not the job of the judge to make decisions in the best interests of the country. In essence, as I see it, it is the job of the judge to weigh very carefully the competing arguments and the evidence in front of him of her and to try and best find a just result.

The judge or the justice has to be free from political considerations. In the case of an appeal it would be a panel. Sometimes it may appear that he or she is making a decision that goes against what the population at large might want. The distinction between the judiciary and legislature is well known. It is not the job of the judiciary to make popular decisions. That is very dangerous. That is what happens south of the border in some states where the judiciary is elected. What we have then is a judge perhaps not making a just decision but playing to what the public opinion polls indicate he should do. A just decision, well written, well reasoned and explained to the public would avoid the concern the hon. member raises.

On his second point on the comments of Justice Iacobucci, it was mentioned earlier that one of the reasons salaries for judges are so high is they want to make sure they can draw good people from the law benches. They look at the salaries of private lawyers. There is a fault in that reasoning.

Many of the best legal minds in this country and many of the best lawyers in this country are in the public service. They do not make nearly the salaries those in the private sector make. The average public defender in this country, the average employee of the justice department does not get paid the same as those in private practice. I concur with some of the comments of the justice in that many young members of the bar are finding it incredibly difficult to meet the billing hours as we race toward profit margins.

That being said, many members of the bar I know in private practice have served their communities well, have served their bar societies well, have taken time from their practice to be involved in public and volunteer organizations. Many do work on a pro bono basis.

Unfortunately in this race to profit, for those who might be served on a pro bono basis where the private lawyer does the work for free, their file falls to the bottom which underscores the need for a public legal aid system across this country that is properly funded and can meet the needs of all individuals.

The third question is one that I have not heard all the facts on. I am not suggesting the hon. member would mislead me. I do not know the facts of the case. I do not understand why an individual who plead guilty in 1996 would be before the courts 18 times. It sounds incredible to me and I do not know all the facts and so I do not think it would be appropriate for me to make a decision in that regard.

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to address Bill C-37 on behalf of the New Democratic Party. I read this bill with some interest. As I went through it, it could not help but remind me a bit of my own family.

When my grandfather came to this country from Italy he was very proud of a sauce he made. As hard as he tried to pass the recipe on to his children, he would on a regular basis taste their sauce and he would say that they got a little bit of it right and a whole lot of it wrong. As I look at this bill I see that the Minister of Justice got a little bit of it right but forgot a whole lot of ingredients that might have made this bill worth supporting in the House of Commons.

Let me start with the few ingredients she got right. It is important to note there are to be some changes which will allow certain parts of the legislation to be treated as matrimonial assets that could be divisible upon separation or divorce by the judiciary. That needed to be done in the act.

It is also helpful to have a unified family court. In the province I come from many people have been very frustrated at the way the family court process works. They have to appear before provincial family court judges to deal with essentially custody, access, division of property and maintenance provisions. Then they have to appear before federal court judges to deal with the same issues. To repeat them all over again is a duplication.

Those issues, the creation of unified family courts and of justices that can deal with those matters, as well as the division of annuities and so on are some of the positive aspects of the bill.

Unfortunately the minister could have taken the opportunity to truly address the concerns Canadians have about the way judges are appointed in this country. There is some reference in the bill to a commission. I believe the bill makes a recommendation that a commission be set up. The commission would be composed of three individuals. One would be appointed by the Minister of Justice and one would be appointed by the judiciary. Then those two individuals would appoint a third member to review judges' benefits and salaries.

There was an opportunity to go further with this legislation. There was an opportunity to open up the way judges are appointed. A special committee or a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights could have been set up to review different proposals to see how the judiciary might better be appointed.

Even with this minute change, it does not go far enough. The minister could have added to this commission a representative of the Canadian Bar Association. Nobody knows better the workings of the courts and the workload of judges than many of the lawyers who appear in front of them.

There is a missed opportunity here. It is a golden opportunity for the Minister of Justice to address some fundamental issues.

Some hon. members have commented on the Young Offenders Act and on young people in the courts. Young people appear before judges every day. Families appear before judges every day. Those people have to ask how the people who make such fundamental decisions on guilt or innocence, on custody or access arrived at such an important position of making such decisions on people's lives. It is unfortunate that Canada's history is a legacy of patronage appointments, appointments to the bench of people who may not have the best legal qualifications and the best legal judgment but who support the right party. There is some relief in sight.

In my province of Nova Scotia there are many Liberal lawyers who in the last few days have seen their chances for judicial appointments recede into the mist as Nova Scotians have made fundamental political changes in their province. When the New Democratic Party takes power in that province, I expect there will be a change in the method of appointing judges.

This was an opportunity to address those concerns. It was also an opportunity to look at the crisis in the justice system. If money can be found to increase the salaries of judges, surely that money could be better directed to the very system which is in crisis right now.

In many provinces in Canada crown attorneys do not have sufficient resources to prosecute the crimes that come before them. In many parts of this country legal aid lawyers do not have sufficient resources to ensure proper fundamental freedoms are met and that trials are done in a proper way. That results in injustice for all, for the accused, for the victims and for those involved in the justice system.

Rather than give those who are among the wealthiest in our society an increase of 8% or more, we could look at funnelling that money back into the provinces through the Canada health and social transfer payments. These have been cut so drastically by the government the result of which has been the very crisis in the courts which has caused the judiciary to say it is overworked.

Today we heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice talk about the backlog of cases in provinces like Ontario. I know she is talking about civil cases but civil cases include family cases. Many people, in particular women, cannot afford legal representation when their marriages come undone, when there are questions of custody and there are backlogs of cases.

The Nova Scotia legal aid offices have stopped representing people who are seeking divorces because they simply do not have the resources to fulfil that role. They have stopped representing people in civil cases who do not have the funds or the ability to hire private lawyers. The provincial government says it does not have the money. It has cut back on resources.

That is not just happening in Nova Scotia. When I was practising law in that province, I tried to get hold of a legal aid lawyer in Ontario and it was almost impossible to find one. When I tried to get hold of a legal aid lawyer in New Brunswick to represent a woman in a custody fight whose children had been taken, there was one family law lawyer for almost the whole province.

There is a crisis at the grassroots level in Canada's justice system. Instead of addressing that, instead of providing funding which might better address that issue, the Minister of Justice has decided to give the judges a pay increase. That is the third problem with this piece of legislation.

The legislation does not go far enough in terms of addressing the way judges are appointed. It does not address the flaws in the justice system that are creating the overburden in the courts. It does not help the crown attorneys and the defence lawyers who have to operate in the courts.

At the same time we have to look further at the other public servants who are involved in the justice system. There has not been an increase for the average cop on the beat for so long that he or she probably cannot remember. There has not been an increase for those who work in the prison system, for those who work in the probation offices with young offenders, with the people who are coming out of prisons.

There is very little money for alternate forms of punishment and alternate forms of dispute resolution in the family law areas, the civil law areas and the criminal law areas.

All of those people for the last number of years have toiled with an ever increasing workload and fewer resources and without any kind of pay increase whatsoever.

It is simply unfair to provide the judiciary with an increase of 8% when they already make well over $120,000 or $130,000. It is unfair to provide them with an increase when those who hold the system together and who do much work in the system are suffering because they have had such an increased workload and have had no increase in resources.

That is another thing which is lacking from this piece of legislation. It is another area the Minister of Justice might very well have addressed.

That is not to say that judges are not important. In fact, this government has increased the workload on many of the provincial court judges by downloading on the system, by changes to the Criminal Code, by proposed changes involving things like preliminary inquiries. The government has downloaded on to the provincial judiciary taking work away from the federally appointed judges. It has created more backlog in the provincial courts.

This is not the appropriate way to address the system. The minister had a golden opportunity. Everyone in this House who has spoken on this piece of legislation, my colleagues in every party, have called for a review of the method of the appointment of judges. That is what we are hearing from our constituents. That is what the Minister of Justice is not hearing. However, its time will come and it may come when we have another party governing on that side of the House.

With respect to a crisis in the justice system, if people do not believe that judges truly represent impartiality, then they are not going to have respect for the justice system. That leads to cynicism. It leads to a lack of faith. The minister may well say that she has no choice, that she is bound in trying to keep the independence of the judiciary, that she is bound by the Scott recommendations.

Those recommendations provided the minister with a way to not necessarily implement the recommendations. As long as she could explain that to the public, as long as there was a reason given not to implement those recommendations which was justifiable, then they did not have to be implemented. The reasons we have indicated would provide the minister with some substantial grounds and certainly with public approval had she chosen not to implement the recommendation of the increase in salary but had offered instead to overhaul the entire Judges Act, to open it up to the standing committee on justice for a proper review and to make fundamental recommendations and fundamental changes.

For those reasons we will not be supporting the legislation. It is too bad the opportunity has been squandered but we look forward to better days ahead.

[Canada Ports, March 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. It has been reported on CBC radio today that ports police officers in Vancouver had planned to review concerns they had about the proper protection of those ports with the attorney general of British Columbia. They were advised not to do so by ports Canada officials.

Can the minister advise this House whether his department has been made aware of political interference by ports Canada officials in the ports police investigations in Vancouver?

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, my colleague began by suggesting he agreed with some of the comments of my colleague from Vancouver and I would like to compliment him on his speech. It is always refreshing to see how those of us from the east can clarify the issues in the House.

He did mention the millennium scholarship fund and I would ask him if he would agree with me that by cutting the transfer payments to the provinces for education and then putting a little money in the hands of students what the federal government has really done is make the universities, because they are not getting any increase in funding, compete against each other for the bit of money that will go into the hands of the students.

Consequently universities like Memorial in Newfoundland may end up competing against universities like the University College of Cape Breton in my own riding for the same student base, watering down what they can offer students and losing some of the excellent programs they already have.

[Canada Ports, March 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Canada Ports Corporation is offering former ports police in Halifax hush money. Cash for silence in Halifax.

The solicitor general indicated on Newsworld yesterday that he met with the RCMP about these and other matters.

Can the solicitor general assure this House that former ports police in Halifax who signed the gag orders will face no criminal or civil liability or repercussions if they voluntarily speak with the RCMP and co-operate with investigations into Canada Ports Corporation?

[Supply, February 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I too commend the hon. member for Burin—St. George's on his speech. I know he is not a cousin of the Reform Party. I come from the island of Cape Breton and he comes from the island of Newfoundland. I suppose we could refer to ourselves almost as cousins. I should also indicate that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Churchill.

I say to the last speaker that those of us on the east coast, in Newfoundland, in Cape Breton, in New Brunswick and on Prince Edward Island understand perhaps too clearly the growing disparities in the country. That is part of the reason we brought forward the motion we have today. I am proud to speak to the motion on behalf of my party.

The upcoming budget presents an opportunity for the government to address the very real economic challenge of how to stop the disparity, the growing inequality between the super rich whose incomes have increased and other Canadians.

I am not only saying the poor, although we know the poorest of the poor continue their decline in income and in services. Today we are seeing that even the middle class is shrinking. We are seeing the middle class, young families and young single people working at part time jobs and trying to make ends meet. We see young people who are at a point in their lives when they should be leaving home, getting apartments and setting up their own independence, and they cannot afford to do it. They are staying at home with their parents who are seeing their own incomes shrink and their costs increase.

What is happening is clearly the rich is getting richer and the vast majority of Canadians is getting poorer. I am pleased to speak to this motion which states:

That this House condemns the government for promoting an economy where the gap between the super rich and ordinary Canadian families is widening, risking the future of our youth, strongly urges the government to introduce in the coming budget measures ensuring every Canadian an opportunity to share in a new prosperity.

The premier of Nova Scotia who called an election yesterday sometimes refers to members of our party as the doom and gloom people in his election rhetoric. We are talking about the new prosperity in the country.

We live in a prosperous country. We live in a country that is the envy in many ways of the world. That is why it is so inexcusable to have this growing gap between the rich and the poor. If the country were not as wealthy as it is, we could perhaps say our hands are tied and there is not much we can do. However, we live in a country with tremendous resources.

The Canada I grew up in was one that guaranteed quality universal health care. It was one that guaranteed quality affordable education to everyone. Had it not been for that, I am not sure many of us could be in the House today. Many of us are the products of those very good social programs.

It provided every citizen with an opportunity to earn a decent living, which is what Canadians want. Most Canadians are happy to have a good job and a good paycheque. They are not seeking to be millionaires. They are seeking to provide for their families, to be able to send their children to university, and to ensure that what we give to the next generation is at least as good as what was given to us.

My parents' generation grew up in a country where they could make a good and decent living. Each generation gave to the next hope and prosperity. That prosperity and that hope are no longer shared by all Canadians.

The hon. member for Qu'Appelle mentioned some statistics. I will briefly refer to them because they are compelling statistics in this country of plenty. Today in Canada over half a million children live in poverty. The number of food banks in Canada has tripled and the proportion of the population relying on them has doubled.

I remember the first food bank in my community. It was a small little church hall called Loaves & Fishes. It was supposed to be a temporary measure to get us through a recession of a couple of years. It began as churches were concerned about what they saw then, the growing number of poor. They were ahead of their time. The growing number of poor has increased to the point now where in this country of plenty food banks are institutionalized.

The hon. member indicated that our caucus met with representatives of the food banks. It is shocking to me that we now need a national organization representing people who run food banks. It is reminiscent of the dirty thirties.

In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where I come from, unemployment continues to be double the national average. This widening gap between the rich and the poor not only separates the population into classes. It is beginning to divide the country along regional lines. I indicated that those of us in Newfoundland and the east do not share in the prosperity of this new Canada which the government proclaims. In my community that has meant a decrease in the population of young people. In the last five years over 2,700 young people have left my community and will not come back.

What does that mean for the growing gap between the rich and the poor? It means that we have an older population and we do not have that youth and vitality creating new business, entering the workforce, purchasing, and creating jobs. This is because of policies of the government that encourage a migrant workforce. Young people would hop the train in Cape Breton if we still had it, but we do not any more. They rely on their thumb to get to somewhere else in the country where they might get a minimum wage job.

The Reform Party talks about Alberta and how it has done some wonderful things following a policy of lower taxes and supporting the very wealthy. Many of the young people who leave my island end up in Calgary in a minimum wage job without a bed to sleep in, if it were not for shelters, because they cannot afford the housing costs.

There are answers. One of them would be to change the GST the government adopted. The premier of Nova Scotia came to the government in November, although he supported the GST when he was on the Liberal benches. He asked the Minister of Finance to take it off heating oil and electricity. He failed in his request. That is one measure where we could have some progressive taxation policies by the government.

In terms of education, the comments from the member for Burin—St. George's echo the fact that more and more Atlantic Canadian students are simply not going to university. When the government says that education is a great leveller it is not happening for many students in the country.

For the young people of this nation, I ask for support of our motion.

[Youth Employment, February 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected and I apologize to the House.

Canadian youth want opportunity, not amazing rhetoric. The policy of this government makes it take Canadian youth 117% more hours of work to qualify and collect employment insurance.

Is the government prepared to stop discriminating against young people?

[Youth Employment, February 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad attention was brought to the young people in the gallery. They, like Canadians—

[Youth Employment, February 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister in the absence of the Minister of Human Resources Development.

High student debt, a 16.5% unemployment rate and diminished opportunity. This is the legacy for the young people in the gallery. Liberal reforms to the EI system now require young people and students entering the labour force to obtain 910 hours of work to qualify for employment insurance.

In light of the fact that the first contact with the workforce for so many young people is part time or of short duration, how can the minister justify this policy?

[Criminal Code, December 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the debate before the House today on private member's Bill C-215.

There was one occasion here today where unanimous consent was sought. I think it is important for the people who may be watching the House to see some co-operation and how well sometimes that can work.

There was unanimous consent to allow a different member to move the bill because of the importance of the bill. I think all members who have spoken today recognize that.

There was not unanimous consent to allow the bill to become votable and I am a little puzzled by that. I will just comment a little on the comments of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.

What we have heard from the government is that this is an important piece of legislation, that this legislation has to be modified in some way to be brought up to modern realities.

We have also heard that there is a law reform commission study making recommendations and recommending changes to what was section 210 and what is now section 227 of the Criminal Code.

We have to ask with some real concern why the government has not brought forward changes, which Canadians appear to want and which I think form the subject of the hon. member's bill and why he has crafted it as a private members' bill. That being said, I do appreciate the parliamentary secretary's comments regarding the amount of study that has to go into this kind of a change.

My colleague from the Bloc Quebecois talked a little about some of the things I wanted to mention. When a crime is committed, the law requires first of all that there is a presumption of innocence, that the individual who is charged with the crime is innocent until proven guilty.

In order to prove the guilt of the accused, the crown must establish two things. First is actus reus, which is the physical commission of the offence, the actual physical driving of the car in the case of negligence or impaired driving. The crown must also prove mens rea, which is the Latin phrase for the mental element for the commission of the crime.

As is indicated by the parliamentary secretary, one of the reasons we have a rule that derives from the English tradition that says one cannot be charged a year and a day later is precisely to ensure some security to the accused. How can the crown determine mens rea? How can an accused be expected to offer a defence after a prolonged period of time?

I am not saying that with today's technology that remains the only defence for this type of section, but it is worthy of study and it is something we have to look at.

The mover of the bill and I think all members here today talked about the desire on the part of Canadians to see some change. The mover of the bill talked about victims and the fact that he had received correspondence from victims saying that they wanted this change to ensure that the perpetrators of the crime were brought to justice. I think the quote the hon. member used was that the killers pay their dues instead of not doing so.

I am not sure if we do not amend this section of the code today that we deny justice. We have to examine what we mean when we talk about justice, what we mean when we talk about punishment and what we mean when we talk about closure for victims.

Whether or not extending the time period for prosecution to allow for a charge of homicide to be laid is the only way to bring closure for victims and to bring justice to society has to be questioned. Given the limitations that this section now provides, we can look to some alternate and perhaps more creative ways to determine what is justice for a family and indeed in this situation for a victim who may remain alive on a life support system.

If we look at the restorative justice models which call for a different type of punishment, a type of punishment that makes the perpetrator of the crime accountable to the victim and to the victim's family, we may find that even if we do not amend this section of the code, there are still ways to ensure that the perpetrator of the crime has to pay some penalty.

In the absence of legislation coming from the government, where I think it has recognized and admitted the need for change, and in the absence of this bill being a votable item, perhaps we can indicate to the crown attorneys across the country that there may be creative ways for them to look at laying charges even though those charges may be lesser charges than homicide.

That being said, I too congratulate the member for bringing forward this piece of legislation. It has encouraged some debate. I hope the government will take some direction from this House and from the hon. member that the legislation has to be changed. The government is taking some direction in that regard but perhaps not as quickly as we would like.

I compliment and commend the hon. member for bringing forward the legislation. It is worthy of debate and serious study as to the consequences in terms of the justice system, as to the consequences for both the crown and the accused, the conduct of a trial, the gathering of evidence, the maintaining of evidence and those types of things.