Justice committee  Under the code for the committees, they have a one-year period whereby, if you are serving on the committee, you cannot then be a candidate and be considered by the committee.

Justice committee  I think we have to be very concerned about the messaging or perception that Canadians will hold when we move to people such as the police in what the committees are now looking for. The risk is undermining the credibility of the system, where you may have a perception of some bia

Justice committee  The protocol has always been a broad-based consensus amongst those who have invested a great deal of time and resources into the process. That's the judiciary, the Canadian Bar Association's branches, the law societies, and also the ministers of justice or attorneys general in ea

Justice committee  I've spoken with several people who have served on the judicial advisory committees, and I don't think I've been told by any of them that the model utilized in the selection process is based on anything other than consensus. So the committees do struggle to come up with a consens

Justice committee  We are a democratic organization, but we use a representative system. The highest policy group within our organization is our national council. For lack of a better analogy, it's our Parliament. It has 244 voting members who are elected by the membership from across Canada, and t

Justice committee  I'd be pleased to respond to that. First of all, putting it into context, for very good public policy reasons we empower our police forces with a whole host of different rights and duties--arrest, seizure, things of that nature. So the court system often oversees the police in

Justice committee  I would say that has probably been the British Columbia experience. The committee is much larger and it does in fact interview candidates, which is different, of course, from the federal appointment system.

Justice committee  I'm not aware of those types of comments being made. There have been, at times, issues taken in various provinces, where issues have arisen concerning the selection process and concerns expressed about overactivity, let's say, by the Minister of Justice, but I would suggest that

Justice committee  That's correct. It varies throughout Canada in different jurisdictions. For example, in Prince Edward Island the provincial court does essentially all of the major criminal work. That's where it's done. So each jurisdiction will have variations, and the figures are anywhere fro

Justice committee  Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for the invitation to address you today concerning the federal judicial appointment process in my capacity as president of the Canadian Bar Association. I am a practising lawyer. I live and practise on Vancouver Island in British Columb