Françoise Boivin

[Navigable Waters Protection Act, October 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion: That the House concur in the motion adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec on October 29, 2013, and therefore: (a) recognize that the Supreme Court Act stipulates that three of the Supreme Court judges shall be from Quebec and that they shall be appointed from among the judges of the Court of Appeal or of the Superior Court of Quebec or from among practising lawyers who are members of the Barreau du Québec; (b) recognizes that this guarantee preserves Quebec's distinctiveness and civil law tradition and cannot be altered or otherwise modified without the consent of the National Assembly of Quebec; (c) support Quebec's historic position that the three Quebec judges on the Supreme Court should be selected from among the candidates recommended by the Attorney General of Quebec to the federal government; and (d) affirm that three judges from Quebec must be on the Supreme Court when cases that are of major importance to Quebec are heard.

This motion is a response to the fiasco surrounding the latest Supreme Court nomination. It goes without saying that the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and should be a source of unity for all Canadians, including Quebeckers.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will try not to go over my speaking time.

I found the hon. member's speech very interesting. I am particularly interested in clauses 471 and 472 of Bill C-4, because they deal with the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court.

I would quickly like to correct a statement my colleague made. The proceedings of the committee, which includes members from all the recognized parties in the House, and the votes in this committee, are confidential. We had to sign confidentiality orders, so we cannot disclose how the vote was held and we certainly cannot assume that one or the other party voted in favour of the appointment of Mr. Nadon just because his name was selected.

Furthermore, there is an even more significant issue. How does my colleague explain that the government can, by means of Bill C-4, especially clauses 471 and 472, which are the subject of the second reference to the Supreme Court—

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, who works so hard and does such a great job of representing all Canadians, including the middle class. I was very pleased to hear her talk about that.

I will stay more or less on the same topic. Michael Harris, a journalist who writes on iPolitics.ca, stated the following: “The PM and his government are not good managers. The nauseating repetition of the claim that the Tories know what they’re doing with the country’s finances will not make it so.”

Similarly, the fact that the Liberals keep repeating the words “middle class” in every sentence that comes out of their mouths will not make them the great defenders of the middle class. No one will forget that when they had majority governments, they did nothing to advance the interests of the middle class.

Going back to the Conservatives, Michael Harris also stated the following: “They’ve pissed away more money than Madonna on a shopping spree—a billion on the G8-20 meetings that put a dent in the world’s Perrier supply and little else. They just plain lost $3.2 billion and the guy in charge over at Treasury Board is still there.... They are such good fiscal managers that we now have the highest deficit in our history.”

Well, that is what we see here day after day. What are his comments on this—

[Petitions, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present four petitions regarding health care in Canada and the importance of keeping our heath system public and ensuring that the necessary funds are transferred to the provinces in order to maintain a public, universal, and free health care system.

[Moisson Outaouais Regional Food Bank, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hesitate to agree to be the honorary spokesperson for the seventh annual non-perishable food drive organized by the Buffet des Continents restaurant in Gatineau in support of the tireless efforts of the Moisson Outaouais food bank to combat hunger in my region.

It is unbelievable, but some 31,000 people go hungry in the Outaouais. It is hard to imagine that 10% of the population does not have enough to eat every day, including many children, because of the tough economic times and the soaring increase in the cost of living.

Last year, thanks to the generosity of the people of Gatineau, 7,234 pounds of food were collected for the least fortunate.

I invite my constituents, and anyone here in the House who can, to go to the Buffet des Continents on December 2 and give generously once again in order to beat that number.

I am proud to say that I will be there to help alleviate the burden on people in need. By working together, we can make the holidays a bit happier for the less fortunate.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is a huge impact.

We would like to hear from constitutional experts. We have to look at the interpretation of section 6, and I will take the time to read it because people are talking about this issue without necessarily talking about the situation specifically.

According to section 6:

At least three of the judges shall be appointed from among the judges of the Court of Appeal or of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec or from among the advocates of that Province.

It all depends on the interpretation of section 6, and not section 5, which states that any person who has at least ten years standing at the bar of a province may be appointed to the Supreme Court. Section 6 is a little more specific.

As for the impact of whether or not a person has been a judge for a certain period of time, these are valid and important questions that reflect on the credibility of the institution, and not the person appointed.

That being said, we need more than just the cursory study that we will be forced to do at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as referred by the Standing Committee on Finance. I am sorry, but the finance committee is not our boss. We will probably not be able to amend anything nor even have the time to meet with constitutional experts from Quebec or the rest of Canada who could enlighten us on this matter.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question because there is a huge impact.

At the Supreme Court of Canada, the bench that is called upon to hear a wide range of major cases should be comprised of nine justices. Take, for example, the reference—the approach taken by the Conservative government—involving the Senate. The question is whether we can modify the composition of the Senate and what type of constitutional amendment it would require.

There are only eight justices on the bench, and one justice from Quebec is missing. We know that, like it or not, the whole constitutional issue and a balanced federation are extremely important elements. Nobody reads sections 5 and 6 for fun. Nobody is denigrating the Federal Court judges, who have tremendous value, and who have a legitimate and rightful place in the Supreme Court in accordance with section 5, although I am not sure that is the case under section 6.

This is a major issue that is not going to be resolved in the coming weeks. It could take as long as a year or more. What a pity. This could have all been avoided.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am sad to rise today to speak to Bill C-4. My speech will focus primarily on division 19 of part 3, clauses 471 and 472, which have to do with the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada. It feels strange to say in the same sentence that I will talk about two clauses regarding the appointment of Supreme Court judges and the budget implementation bill. Something does not seem right there.

We opposed the last three budget implementation bills, and we will oppose Bill C-4 because of both its content and the method the government has used. Bill C-4 includes a wide range of complex measures, many of which have nothing to do with the budget. This is what bothers me the most, and I think it deserves to be studied carefully. The bill is so broad and we have so little time to examine it.

I repeat: we are faced with a time allocation motion. Not only has the government decided to group a number of unrelated items that have nothing to do with either the economy or the budget measures, but it is also preventing the members of the House from making their views known and looking at those major considerations properly. I am not the only one saying so.

Columnist Andrew Coyne said that this type of mammoth bill makes a mockery of the confidence convention, shielding bills that would otherwise be defeated in the House. As a result, there is no way of knowing how the lawmakers would vote on those bills. We have no idea at all whether they are for or against each of the pieces of legislation grouped under this bill. All we know is whether they voted for or against the omnibus bill as a whole.

There is no common thread among the various measures, no overarching principle. It is a sort of compulsory buffet. It is alarming to see that the government wants to force Parliament to approve its legislative agenda in one go, including division 19 of part 3, which consists of clauses 471 and 472 dealing with appointing judges to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Canadian Press journalist and lawyer Stéphanie Marin gave a very good factual account of the situation that triggered the addition of clauses 471 and 472 to Bill C-4 in relation to the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada.

We must fully grasp what is happening. This is not just a technicality, as I thought I heard from the Conservative benches, but rather a real fundamental problem. Clauses 471 and 472 were added after the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon, the most recent appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The day the Prime Minister appointed Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court of Canada, he had the appointment document in his left hand and a legal opinion in his right hand from the Honourable Ian Binnie, a former Supreme Court justice. The government had seen fit to ask him whether someone from the Federal Court of Appeal could be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada to take one of the three seats allocated to Quebec in order to protect Canada's bijural nature.

I cannot tell you enough how much I respect the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of Canada. My respect for that institution knows no bounds. That being said, the Conservative government has managed to politicize this institution, which it should not be. Politics should have nothing to do with the Supreme Court so that it can make decisions as the highest court without any interference, without any lingering questions about the people on the bench. That is how it was up until recently.

I mean no disrespect to Justice Marc Nadon, whose career as a lawyer and a judge has been quite remarkable in many respects. Nonetheless, the real question here has to do with the meaning of section 6 of the Supreme Court Act.

Consider this: the government shows up with an appointment and a legal opinion. I could read the tons of comments that have been made on this. Eminent constitutional lawyers who know an awful lot more than I do have written about this.

I encourage anyone who is interested in this issue to read Purposive Interpretation, Quebec, and the Supreme Court Act by Michael Plaxton and Carissima Mathen from the University of Ottawa. You will see that this is not a technical matter. We do not usually see this type of thing in budget implementation legislation.

These are fundamental issues that go to the heart of what our federation is. Ian Binnie told the government that the decision is in order, but many others, like the Government of Quebec, say that this decision does not meet the criteria set out in section 6.

There must be enough doubt in this respect for the federal government, through its Minister of Justice, to think it was a good idea to make what we call a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada.

I must confess that I am very pleased that the government has broken its silence after too many weeks, and decided to move quickly.

Indeed, it is important to understand that Quebec, which has three seats in the Supreme Court of Canada, currently has only two judges sitting on that court, for the simple reason that Justice Marc Nadon, in his wisdom, has opted to sit on the sidelines for now.

The government could easily have avoided all this drama if it had chosen to make 100% sure that it was making a good decision, not in terms of the person selected, but rather with respect to sections 471 and 472 of Bill C-4, which will be amending sections 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Act—apparently to explain, after the fact, what these sections really mean according to the government of the day.

This is extremely worrying, especially when we consider that it is being done without consultation. I am not making this up. The finance people held a briefing on Bill C-4. When we asked about division 19, specifically sections 471 and 472, they told us that, in their opinion, this would apply retroactively if the bill were passed.

However, the reference to the Supreme Court of Canada is very clear. The questions before the Supreme Court are the following:

1. Can a person who was, at any time, an advocate of at least 10 years standing at the Barreau du Québec be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada as a member of the Supreme Court from Quebec pursuant to sections 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Act?

2. Can Parliament enact legislation that requires that a person be or has previously been a barrister or advocate of at least 10 years standing at the bar of a province as a condition of appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada or enact the annexed declaratory provisions as set out in clauses 471 and 472 of the Bill entitled Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2?

Thus, two questions have been referred to the Supreme Court, yet this is going to pass here before we even get an answer. It makes no sense.

Last week, I moved a motion and hoped to receive unanimous consent to at least remove those two clauses from Bill C-4, since they have absolutely nothing to do with budget implementation. Unfortunately, my motion was rejected by the members opposite.

We are in a real quagmire, caused entirely by this government and this Prime Minister, who ignores all of the recommendations and suggestions we make, many of them for his own good. He refuses to listen to anything on this.

I have a lot more to say, but unfortunately, given the time allocation motion, we are out of time. In addition, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will not even have the opportunity to study this issue thoroughly with constitutional experts to respond to this question.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech by my colleague opposite. I found his phrase “may the niche be with you” rather intriguing. I do not know why, but it reminds me of Star Wars movies and makes me think about the fact that time allocation has been brought to bear on this debate and that this mammoth bill is more than 300 pages long. I do not know why, but I thought of the Phantom Menace.

Then, fast forward to 2015 and a new hope came to mind.

However, out of curiosity, what does “may the niche be with you” mean exactly?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.

It would be nice to be able to support and pass this kind of bill, and we would really like to do so. However, the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas raised a number of fundamental problems.

I have a simple question I would like to ask. What are clauses 471 and 472 doing in Bill C-4? What are two clauses about appointing judges to the Supreme Court doing in a budget implementation bill?

The devil is always in the details when it comes to the Conservatives, and that is unfortunate. Then they turn around and criticize us for voting against something that is being referred for an opinion, that is challenged just about everywhere and that has nothing to do with any budget items.