House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 43% of the vote.
Public Safety June 16th, 2023
Madam Speaker, Bill C‑83 addressed the issue of solitary confinement. We changed the system to introduce structured intervention units. The Correctional Service of Canada has always had the authority to make such decisions. It is an independent service. It has to be that way.
We were open to the idea of reviewing the situation. As the government House leader just said, we have to study bills the right way.
Public Safety June 16th, 2023
Madam Speaker, it is categorically false to say that. Bill C-83, which was aimed at ending solitary confinement, a practice that had been condemned by human rights groups and was found to be against our charter, was replaced by something called structured intervention units to allow for a more direct and equitable form of intervention in those cases.
The link between Bill C-83 and the decision made by Correctional Service Canada to transfer this known killer is misinformation.
Public Safety June 16th, 2023
Madam Speaker, Bill C‑83 has nothing to do with the current situation and it has nothing to do with the correctional service's unfortunate decision regarding Mr. Bernardo.
Bill C-83 is a response to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling and to what we have heard from other experts, which is that solitary confinement violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have created another type of structured intervention to address the problem.
I can say that Bill C-83 has nothing to do with the current situation.
Judges Act June 15th, 2023
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.
Judges Act June 15th, 2023
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.
Judges Act June 15th, 2023
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.
Judges Act June 15th, 2023
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.
Judges Act June 15th, 2023
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.
Judges Act June 15th, 2023
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.
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act June 15th, 2023
Madam Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill S-8, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to make consequential amendments to other acts and to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the respective stages of the said bill.