Joe Comartin

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, from the comments made to me by the Law Society's Bar Association and the legal profession generally, there is no doubt that since the Conservatives took power the judiciary has a great deal of concern over their drive to ideologically frame the courts.

I have worked, as have a number of other members, on various committees that have been attempting to review appointments. I was involved in some of the Supreme Court of Canada appointments and came forward with suggestions on how the appointment system should be changed to not only make it as accountable and transparent as possible, but to guarantee that there will not be a partisan nature to those appointments in terms of absolute party politics. The criteria should always be the most qualified person to fill the opening.

We continue to have that problem. We saw the government change the committees that screen the appointments at the provincial level, which had nothing to do with merit. I think the number of committees was up to 15 across the country. The government changed the composition of that, which was clearly an attempt to ideologically imprint a Conservative bent on the appointment.

I do not think it will work. I have much more respect for our police officers who were added. I do not think they will fall into that trap set by the government. We badly need a process that is much more transparent and much clearer, where the only criteria for our judicial appointments has nothing to do with what political party one belongs to or the political spectrum one is on. It must be the absolute best candidate for that position available at the time.

A lot of work has been done on this internationally. I have sat on committees where we have reviewed all of that, but the government, since it has been in power, has not done anything about changing the appointment process, except that one change to the current committees, which was clearly to imprint a right wing ideology on our judges.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there were two points to which I want to respond.

First, there is no doubt in my mind, from watching the government function, both in the public safety arena and in the justice arena, that it is not paying significant attention to the consequences of some of the criminal laws and amendments that are being passed as it affects the provincial level of government. We have seen that with some of the criminal law bills, one of which, I am proud to say, we were able to fix to such a degree that it would not have a major economic consequence on the provinces, which would have been the result had the bill gone through as first drafted by the government.

However, when both those ministers were in front of the justice committee and when I was sitting on the public safety committee, there is no doubt that the government does not do an analysis of the consequences of its legislation, whether it is on the judiciary, the police services or the prosecutors. It is not doing that analysis and it is being dumped over onto the provinces.

Second, when the provinces come back to say that they have these needs, they are not given any kind of affirmative response from the government in saying that it will figure out some way, in the transfer of payments or in some other fashion, to provide them with the necessary resources. We are seeing that with regards to not getting enough police officers on the street, not getting enough prosecutors into our court and, as we are seeing now in this bill, not getting enough judges into our courts.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-31. It is a very short bill. It is a government bill that will have the effect of increasing the number of judges at our superior court levels across the country, from 30 currently to 50.

We have roughly 900 judges at that level across the country. These particular appointments are in a special category and they are as a result of an agreement that the federal government made with the provinces a number of years ago, which allowed us to manoeuvre around what was a constitutional problem and allowed for these appointments to be made at the request of the provinces.

That is what has happened in this case. A number of provinces have come forward and made requests to increase the number of judges, with the current federal government recommending to Parliament, in the form of this legislation, that the number be increased from 30 to 50.

It is important to note that we are at third reading and that we have had committee hearings in the justice committee. This is the committee that is no longer functioning, but it was at the time this bill went to it. We did take some hearings on it. They were quite brief because, as I said, the issue is a very narrow one.

Before we get to what happened at committee, I want to put in context what has happened with the workload of our judiciary at the superior court level across the country. That workload has been increasing dramatically as a result of a number of factors.

First, we simply have a growth in population. The last time the number of judges was increased across the country was almost 25 years ago. Therefore, in that period of time, we have had a substantial increase in our population, resulting inevitably in an increase in the number of cases coming before the courts.

I want to make the point that this level of court is not the court that deals with most of our criminal cases. Roughly 95% of all criminal cases and charges in the country are dealt with at the provincial court level and by judges appointed by provinces. However, what does happen at this level and what has happened more and more often is the number of trials that run on for extended periods of time have increased dramatically.

We have seen this under regular charges and the more serious charges under the Criminal Code. However, where we have particularly seen it, has been in the area of drug charges. Oftentimes there is an element of organized crime involved and the trials go on with multiple accused for extended periods of time, literally in some cases, for more than a year, but often for three to six months. This is almost becoming the norm when there are multiple defendants in these areas because of the amount of evidence to be put forward by the prosecutor and then the response from the defence. The length of the trials has increased dramatically therefore putting a burden on our courts in that regard.

The area where the workload has gone up dramatically has been in family law. Without any doubt, I think any observer of our courts would accept this is the reality, that the biggest workload increase by our judges at this level of courts has been in the family law area. It takes the form in two ways: huge increase in the number of motions brought prior to trial, which most of our judges at the superior court level sit on and try these motions; and then the actual trials.

Again, in the family law area well over 90% of all matrimonial breakdowns that result in any kind of litigation never gets to trial, but a good deal of it does get dealt with at the motions level, and those numbers have gone up dramatically.

There were a series of articles in the Toronto area at the end of last year, early part of this year, showing the number of times cases at the motion level had to be adjourned simply because there were not enough judges available to hear them. This makes it much more expensive for the claimants in those cases, whether they are the plaintiffs or the defendants. Lawyers attend, wait for their turn on the motions and then, at the end of the day, time runs out and they have to come back another day. They end up charging their clients for their time in court even though they were not able to argue the case.

This happens repeatedly. I certainly know in my home community of Windsor that it is happening. I know it is happening in Toronto because of those articles. It is my understanding it is happening across the country in greater numbers.

Because of the costs, we find more claimants who end up in front of the courts at the trial stage unrepresented. This puts an additional heavy burden on our judiciary to ensure the trial is conducted properly and fairly for both sides. Even when one side is not represented by counsel, it requires additional time for the judge to ensure there is a fair trial, thereby lengthening the trial. Therefore, that has increased the workload and the time allocated.

We can look as well in the civil litigation area around personal injuries files. I can remember when I first started to practise a long time ago, those trials would take on average two to three days. Now, often two to three weeks is pretty well the average, and it is not usual for them to take over a month's time. Again, for most of that period of time, the number of judges in Canada has not been increased at all.

Having set that context, I want move to what happened at the committee. I had expressed in my speech at second reading, as did other members of the House, concern as to whether the increase in the number of judges, from 30 to 50, would be adequate to meet the growth in demand for services by our judiciary.

I want to then put in context and make it clear what came out of the committee, and I think a number of us knew in any event. The way the system works is the additional judges who will be appointed will be paid out of funds from the federal level of government. However, all the services that go with the additional judicial appointments are paid out of provincial funds, and that is all the staff. For those people who have not been in court very often, that is a very significant number of people. There are court reporters. There are usually one or two people providing security. On average, at this level of court, between six and ten people have to be there for that courtroom to function. In addition, there is the capital outlay for the building space so there are sufficient courtrooms available for the judiciary to perform their functions.

Therefore, the tab, if I can use that colloquialism, at the provincial level is substantially higher than the wages of the judicial person on a ratio of about 3:1 people, on average, across the country.

During the course of the committee hearings, there was a strong feeling that additional judges were needed, and we heard this from the bar associations, the law societies, the judicial councils, the senior judges who provide the administration for our courts. However, and I do not want to overplay this evidence, it was quite clear, from what we heard from the justice minister, that there would have been, if it had been left up to the judicial councils, the bar associations and the law societies, a significantly greater number of judges, on top of the 20 judges, being sought by the provinces. However, because the provinces were not in a financial position to cover those added expenses, this was in effect to what they agreed.

Even the wealthier provinces like Ontario were not prepared to seek additional judicial appointments at this time because of the costs that were attended thereto.

With regard to the bill, I have to think that sometime in the next few years we will again be faced with another request from the provincial level to make additional appointments. I believe this simply will not be sufficient.

I want to make one final point that came out in the course of our debate around the bill. Of the 20 judges, 6 judges' time will be allocated to the land claims tribunal. All of that other work that needs to be done, whether it is in the criminal law area, the family law area, the area of personal injury or other general civil litigation, we are only getting the time of 14 additional judges, not 20.

We also heard a concern from a number of the first nations communities as to whether the six judges appointed to the tribunal on a periodic basis would be sufficient, in addition to the ones who were already allocated. We may, in the next few years, be hearing from the first nations community, which is dealing with a huge number of land claim applications, that it may require additional judicial appointment time in order to get through a huge backlog in that area.

I want to make the point that all political parties and all sectors of the community are adamant that we deal fairly but in an expeditious way with those claims. However, we will not be able to do that without having a sufficient number of judges. I expect that at some point in the next few years there will be a request for additional judges to cover this off and another government will be back asking for additional appointments.

Although we have grave concerns about the adequacy, there is no doubt that we need at least these 20 judges and probably many more. The NDP will be supporting the legislation on third reading but with the caution that at some point in the near future we will probably be back before the House asking for additional judges.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the analysis by the member for Malpeque. I see it in my riding. I see it in that plant in Chatham. Most of the corn is coming from large corporate farms. They are agribusinesses that are supplying the market on our side and there is no regulation of it. I am not suggesting protectionism here in the extreme, but there is no level playing field here.

The member for Malpeque is absolutely right. The problem we are confronting here is one of a Conservative government that has blinkers on when it comes to protecting our farmers.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I know it is the end of the day and I am probably being a little facetious here, but I was going to suggest that the member for Northumberland—Quinte West have his ears checked.

I grew up on a farm and my sister and brother-in-law still run that farm. I have nephews who operate farms in the Essex county area. I did not for one minute, nor did anybody from the NDP, suggest for one minute shutting down ethanol production. We are not talking about that.

What we are talking about is that we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to recognize the impact it could have. It does not just mean positive things. Poultry producers in my riding are having serious trouble meeting their feed bills. I am worried about them, as should everybody who is looking at this sensibly and with any degree of wisdom.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the amendment to Bill C-33 that has been brought forward by my colleague.

In spite of the comments made by the last speaker, it is crucial that oversight by parliamentarians be an integral part of this bill and of this process within the department. The prior speaker raised a number of issues that emphasize the need for that oversight. The NDP is going to support this bill. Should it go ahead and become law of the land, it will impose that additional responsibility on us as parliamentarians.

My experience on these reviews has been less than positive because we do not follow the law and we do not fulfill our responsibility as regularly as we should.

There are other ways of doing it. If the committee that is ultimately responsible for this review is not entirely capable of doing it, the responsibility can be assigned to a subcommittee made up of members of Parliament who are particularly interested and knowledgeable with regard to the use of ethanol and its progress, and the use of it in our economy. Even a smaller committee can be put into place as a subcommittee of the standing committee.

We need to do that because of a number of points that have already been made, and let me just reiterate some of those.

Just in the last year there have been increasing riots, and I use that term advisedly, around the world with regard to the cost of food. As the former speaker suggested, this is not just happening in the undeveloped world. There were riots in Italy earlier this year over the cost of pasta, which of course comes from various grains, and the cost of those grains had escalated dramatically, by more than 100% in some cases. That ultimately is reflected in the end product.

I can tell members about my experience in my riding in the county of Essex. The cost of corn has more than doubled in a little over 12 months. It is true that is great for corn producers. Farmers in my community who are producing corn by and large are very happy with the increase in price because for too many years it has been too low to cover their input costs and allow them to make a living from the farm.

This doubling of cost is now significantly impacting dairy farmers as well as several hog farms and a significant number of poultry farms in the county of Essex. These farmers need the same corn that is now being used for ethanol because of the plant over in Chatham. That ethanol is taking the cost of their inputs up dramatically.

They have to compete with that new market that values that corn much higher than they are able to meet, and I have to say that quite bluntly. The cost of their feed grain has gone up by more than 100% in less than a year. A small farming operation faces great difficulty when it is faced with such a significant increase in the cost of a key ingredient for their operation over a short period of time.

There have also been food riots in Asia and Africa. Some NGOs are coming back and asking for hundreds of millions of dollars more to meet the demand in refugee camps and other areas where there is drought or famine. That is a direct result of the very dramatic escalating costs in grains.

In terms of Asia, for instance, I am hearing reports that there are a number of countries where again the cost of grain, rice in particular, has more than doubled in less than a year's time. There does not seem to be an end. For some countries, the estimate is that it has more than tripled in the past year or year and a half. A good deal of this is being driven by the demands that we are putting on the supply of grain for the use of ethanol.

I will use another example. Shortly after the second world war, Brazil made the conscious decision not to run its vehicles on carbon-based products but on ethanol. It has a requirement that 50% of all the fuel used in vehicles comes from sugar. Last year, Brazil, for the first time, was forced to curtail the amount of production of sugar that would go into the sugar market because of the demand it had for ethanol.

There was a very strong reaction and I do not think using the word “riot” is too strong a term. There were a number of large demonstrations over the fact that the population of Brazil could not access as much sugar as it had historically. The reason for that was that it needed the sugar for the purpose of producing ethanol.

At the end of the day, when we look at this amendment, and although we have overall some reservations on the bill we are generally supportive of it, it begs the attention of the House on an ongoing basis, in a parliamentary committee, to continue to review the use of food products, grains in particular.

One of the other points I want to make is that the review would also allow us the opportunity to continue to bring forward alternatives in the use of ethanol. Instead of actually using the food product, we could use the stock and waste, including garbage, in a number of ways, but there is a need to develop the technology.

There is a company right here in Ottawa, Iogen, that has done some great work in this area. It is using a product that is not food. It is using straw and stalks from other grain such as corn, et cetera. There are other experiments going on and plants operating around the globe that are using, for instance, waste products from forestry and they are able to produce ethanol.

The other thing we have to be monitoring on an ongoing basis is the efficiency of this. If we are using food products and not achieving an efficiency ratio that is substantially better than carbon-based technology, then we have to look for those alternatives and develop those technologies.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Yukon raises a very valid point. The government, and I will say this both about the justice ministers and the public safety minister, has consistently moved forward with programs and law that impose additional burdens on the provinces.

For instance, when it comes to our police forces, we are still waiting for those 2,500 police officers the government was supposed to fund. There is money in the budget. I question whether that money is in fact going to flow, because up to this point in the previous two budgets it did not. We did not get any of those police officers whatsoever. We had been assured that we were going to get 1,500 more RCMP officers. We got hardly any of those.

There is no question that the prosecution and judicial wings of our courts now are significantly overburdened. Again, first, the government has not done the assessment of how much it will cost the provinces and, second, has certainly given no indication of willingness to assist the provinces in those added costs. On those costs, by the way, both the prosecutors and our judges were already substantially overwhelmed before that new legislation came forward.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I regularly get up and point out the hypocrisy of questions. That question has got to be near the epitome of it when we see what is going on in the environment committee right now. For the first time in Canadian history, a government is filibustering a committee.

What is that about? It is about the environment. It is about dealing with global warming and climate change. It is a bill that the three opposition parties all support. It is a bill that all of the major environmental groups in this country support. However, what is going on? The government, for how many hours, how many days and how many weeks, has tied up that committee. It is just absolutely hypocritical that I would get that kind of question from the government.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in addressing Bill C-50, it is important to see the context in which this budget bill has come forward and the economic policies of the government that underwrite it. In that regard, it is important for us to look at the policies the government has implemented since it has been in power, and in particular the Conservatives' absolute obsession with their ideology around the importance of tax cuts to move economic development forward in this country.

We saw the process kick into high gear in the fall of 2007, when we saw the governing Conservative Party and in fact the Liberal Party bidding each other up as to how much in corporate tax breaks and corporate tax cuts should be given to the large corporate sector in this country. Those cuts went ahead fully supported by the Liberal Party to the tune of billions and billions of dollars.

The cuts were to be concentrated in the oil and gas sector and the finance sector. In the finance sector the banks alone were earning an annual profit in the $20 billion range. Those corporate tax cuts gave that sector an additional $2 billion. The oil and gas sector received similar types of benefits from the government.

We see the consequences in the budget. The budget is very close to being balanced. Depending on revenue this year, it is not beyond the pale that we would fall into deficit. It is very clear that at the very least a number of programs that are sorely in need of assistance from the government will not be funded because of those decisions.

By hollowing out the ability of government to pursue valid social policy programming by this type of tax cut, we ensure that on an ongoing basis governments are not going to be able to protect their citizenry and develop all of their potential as individuals in our society. That is what is going on here. That is the context in which we see Bill C-50, the current budget bill.

I want to address the consequences to the auto sector. I come from a community where the auto sector is the dominant industry. It is rather interesting to watch the conflicts that go on between the finance minister and the industry minister, but the finance minister and the Prime Minister say that they cannot pick winners or losers.

That is not accurate. The government is quite prepared to intervene in the market. I am going to quote some statistics from a group that is not particularly friendly to the NDP, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. These statistics were printed in this morning's newspaper.

During their first fiscal year in office, the Tories paid out $25 billion in grants, contributions and subsidies. Here is where we are into this inaccuracy on the part of the finance minister when he says they are not prepared to pick winners or losers. That included $350 million to Quebec based Pratt and Whitney Canada and $47.5 million to the Mont Tremblant ski resort, again in Quebec. In the spring of 2007, the government announced a $900 million fund for the aerospace sector.

Where is the auto sector? The auto sector creates at the present time 140,000 jobs in this country. The aerospace sector creates 75,000 jobs currently. The number in the auto sector is dropping dramatically. The aerospace industry is stable at this point.

It is interesting that the industry minister at that time, now the foreign affairs minister, said we needed that $900 million fund “for the defence of the aerospace industry”. The auto industry is in much worse shape and in much greater need of defence than the aerospace sector is.

My party repeatedly speaks about the need for assistance to the auto sector, and we heard the same this week from the Liberals, but what do we get? We get the platitude from the finance minister and to a lesser degree from the industry minister that they do not support winners or losers. That is simply not true.

The government has made a very clear decision in its economic policies and it is reflected again in the budget, in Bill C-50. It has made very clear decisions that it is going to support certain sectors of the economy and give them preference and priority over other sectors. Oil and gas, finance and aerospace are all getting preferential treatment. There is direct assistance and subsidies in the form of tax cuts or direct dollars going to those sectors and nothing to the auto sector.

In the auto sector in my community alone, in direct and indirect jobs over the last three to three and half years, 17,000 jobs have been lost. That is in a total population of less than 400,000. It has the second highest unemployment rate in the country and this budget does nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing to assist the auto sector.

I want to make a point and perhaps it will be of particular concern to the finance minister since he comes from a riding that is immediately adjacent to Oshawa, a major auto sector dependent community. Windsor is at the very forefront of these losses and devastation in the auto sector, but his community is not far behind, nor is Oakville, St. Catharines or London. They will be facing the same kinds of problems that Windsor is facing.

The problem is that, either because of its obsession with tax cuts based on that very warped ideology that has been proven not to work around the globe or because of its desire to support specific sectors like oil and gas, aerospace and finance, the government is unwilling to help the auto sector. This is reflected by the absolute absence of any assistance in this budget to the auto sector.

There are a great number of programs and policies that could be put into place within the auto sector and then funded to some degree by the government. The NDP has been working on a green auto policy, for instance, for well over five years now, with very specific, detailed proposals as to how we would put that into place. We need to understand that this budget totally ignores any of that. This is not just the NDP speaking. It is the auto sector, the major corporations that produce and sell cars in this country and, of course, the labour unions that work in those plants.

It is a cohesive policy. It is one that has very little disagreement within that sector of what needs to be done, the roles that all of the participants in the sector need to play and the need for a partnership from the federal government in order to be sure that policy can be put into place and the results of that work deployed into the economy generally so we create many more jobs while saving a great number of jobs as well.

[Criminal Code, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to speak to this bill when I think of the tragedy the member for Palliser described and which, obviously, he experienced on a close personal basis. I could not help but think of identifying with him. Fortunately, I have never had the experience of having a close friend or family member brutally murdered but I have had several clients over the course of my career who have suffered similar types of assaults and ultimate murders.

The inevitable human response is to question our criminal justice system, to question whether we could have done better, whether it is the conduct of our police forces, our prosecutors, our judges or, yes, we here as parliamentarians.

My colleague from Palliser, through this bill, has given a very real sense of the pain that he went through.

However, I have some concerns about the bill. It is appropriate that we, in our role as parliamentarians, look, on a constant basis, at the Criminal Code to see if there are ways to make it better in order to better protect our society as a whole and our citizens individually.

That obviously is the role that the member for Palliser is playing here as he brings forth this private member's bill. I acknowledge that and congratulate him in that regard.

I think the member mentioned having contact with prosecutors in his home province. I think we all recognize the burden we place on the prosecutors and, to some degree in this process, on our police officers, the insistence that they be perfect. However, they are human beings and they are not perfect, nor are judges.

I have a question with regard to the approach in this bill. Are we placing, and we heard this to some degree from the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, an additional burden on prosecutors when we know they have great difficulty meeting the burden at this period of time in the process that involves whether a person will receive an interim custodial order or whether they will be released on bail? The bill clearly would place additional burdens on them if it were to ultimately become law as an amendment to the code.

It has been my experience, from the time I first started practising a long time ago right up to the present in terms of my discussions with crown prosecutors right across the country, that our expectations of what they can do--and the same is true of our police officers when they are involved in this stage of the criminal justice proceedings--and what they can present in a timely, efficient manner to a justice of the peace or a judge. They simply cannot do it.

We saw it in the tragedy this past weekend in British Columbia when those three young children were killed. We are hearing some recriminations. I do not know what the reality is. It is clear that the police wanted the person held in custody. Fingers were pointed initially at the justice of the peace for having released the person but now we are hearing evidence from Mr. Wally Oppal, the Attorney General of B.C., that not all the facts were in front of the justice of the peace. That is a classic case and it happens all too often in our country.

It is about resources. It is about giving our prosecutors and police sufficient resources and time, which means we need more of them, to present cases so that our judiciary, whether justices of the peace or judges, have the facts before them so that they can make a fully informed decision as to whether the person should be granted bail or kept in custody until trial.

I have to say that I do not see that this is going to help. In fact it will impose additional burdens. The amount of evidence that will have to be presented based on what is proposed in Bill C-519, in my estimation, would double, triple, maybe quadruple the workload of the prosecutors at that stage. It is going to at least double it. That would require more resources if we are going to do this.

I have to say to my colleague from Palliser that as much as I admire him, and I agree with the other parties that we are going to have this come to the justice committee, if we can ever get it functioning again, it behooves the member for Palliser and the government to take a look at the resources that we are providing to our prosecutors in particular, and to a lesser degree, our police around this issue.

As a bit of an aside, but it is relevant, I remember the huge fight that prosecutors had in Ontario in terms of their own personal compensation. They were grossly underpaid for a long period of time and only recently, I would say in the last 10 years, have they finally been able to catch up. As they fought for more appropriate wages reflective of their experience, education and the job load that they carried, they kept saying to various attorneys general in Ontario, “ More important, we need more prosecutors because we can't carry this workload. You can pay me double what I am getting now, but I can only work so many hours a week, at which point I collapse. Whether you pay me $100,000 or $150,000 or $200,000 a year, it doesn't matter because I can only work 60 to 80 hours a week and do a decent job. We need more prosecutors and it is really as simple as that”.

I would say to my friend that is one issue I would point out to him that he may want to try to advocate. I would urge him to advocate with his colleagues in government to look at this area and see that we get more prosecutors, and probably justices of the peace as well, to deal with this particular problem.

I want to raise another issue. He indicated that he will be seeking an amendment to the bill when it gets to committee. I want to caution him that he needs to look at whether the amendment he is proposing is going to be acceptable as an amendment. My preliminary reaction is that it is beyond the scope of the bill. I cannot see any way of correcting it, but he has to look at that. There is some real advantage to taking a look at reversing the onus in some cases.

In that regard, within the last six or eight months we passed a bill through the House and ultimately through the Senate reversing the onus on bail in the situation where guns were involved. That made sense. We have similar provisions in other areas. It may make sense to do it here, but I have to tell him I am not sure it is going to get by the legislative clerk in the justice committee, again if the justice committee starts functioning.

I want to commend my colleague from Palliser on the work that he has done on this. Hopefully we can resolve some of the concerns I have raised when the bill finally gets to committee.