Judges Act  Madam Speaker, I completely agree that the appointment of judges and people to the Canadian Judicial Council should be non-partisan. One of the problems we have seen is that it has become too partisan, so I completely support that.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, I have been asked this question a few times. We think these amendments make a lot of sense. They improve the legislation. That is exactly the way the process is supposed to work after the other place looks at it, and we think the House should accept those amendments.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, some of the Senate amendments we would be approving speak to exactly that, so we are on record as saying we want to go forward with that. As for there not being enough judges, that is another point I could have raised. I did not, but the shortage of judges is an issue Chief Justice Wagner raised as well in his press conference.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, once again we have a colleague saying we are delaying things. We are not. On December 9, we passed this unanimously. It went to the other place, which came up with some amendments, and we think they make a lot of sense. One of the amendments is one of the amendments Conservative members put forward at the justice committee.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, I would completely agree with that. As the Minister of Justice said, there was an appeal process built within the four walls of this legislation and likely that is the end. However, the experts who came to committee said there must be that one appeal into the court system that everybody recognizes as being fair, judicious and generally accepted by the Canadian public.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, this is very important legislation, and it has been dragging on for a long time, so some of my colleagues want to speak to it. This is important legislation, and we have important things to say about it. As for the amendment I just put forward, it says to accept all the amendments put forward by the other place.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise here this evening to engage in the debate on Bill C-9, a bill to update the Canadian Judicial Council review process for judges’ conduct. The last time I spoke to Bill C-9 was in December 2022, when it was here for third reading. At that time, I used an example of a case that had gone through the court system.

Judges Act  Madam Speaker, we agree that it is high time that Bill C-9 becomes law. I am disappointed to hear that the government is rejecting an amendment put forward by the other place that we think is very important, and that is the right to appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal. Right now Bill C-9 says that there can be an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, but that is really just a right to apply for leave to appeal, and very few applications for leave to appeal are actually approved by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders  Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague referenced Chuck Cadman, whom I knew. He was from my neck of the woods, and I know that when he was seriously ill, he came here to vote, but an alternative option would have been for the government side of the House to have paired somebody with him so that he would not have had to go through the trouble and pain and inconvenience of travelling.

Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders  Madam Speaker, I am surprised and shocked that the debate on something as fundamental as the way this House operates is now going to be cut off. If we are going to have a hybrid Parliament, we need to come to an agreement on how it is going to operate. I recall many years ago that Chuck Cadman, a member of Parliament for Surrey, in my area, came here to vote even though he was undergoing cancer treatment.

Finance  Mr. Speaker, the budget adds more than $60 billion in new deficit spending, meaning more taxes, more inflation and higher interest rates. The former Liberal finance minister John Manley said that the government is stepping on the gas with new spending while the Bank of Canada is stepping on the brakes with higher interest rates.

Immigration and Refugee Act  Madam Speaker, my colleague's speech was well thought out. We are talking about economic sanctions against people who are essentially terrorists. The intention of that is to inflict financial and economic pain on them. If the whole western world comes together on that, it can have a very positive effect.

Petitions  Madam Speaker, I am presenting a petition signed by a number of Canadian citizens, including those in my riding. They call on the Government of Canada to publicly and unequivocally support a private member's bill, Bill C-314. This bill is sponsored by my colleague from Abbotsford; it would clarify that MAID, medical assistance in dying, should not be available to those whose only underlying health condition is a mental illness.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for a very impassioned speech. I want to refer to a comment made by the member for Winnipeg North. We have heard many times from the Liberal side that there has never been a government that has done more for housing than the current government.

Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission Act (David and Joyce Milgaard's Law)  Mr. Speaker, the police needed a conviction. There had been four widely reported sexual assault cases already in the city, and now a fifth one that ended with the murder of a young woman on her way to work on a cold January morning in 1969. She had been stabbed in the chest and her throat had been slashed with a knife that a city resident many years later reported as having gone missing from her kitchen.