44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 16, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/16/22 12:45:28 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.
It is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-9, which is an act that would create a complaint mechanism for judges. We have certainly heard from all sides today that everyone thinks this is a great idea. This is not to say judges do not do a good job, because we know we have great judges in this country who work hard, but as with any career discipline, there is always the odd thing going on that is not good.
I remember when I was the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women we talked about some of the things that were happening. In one sexual assault case, a judge actually asked the complainant, “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” In another sexual assault case, another judge said, “she was drunk” in the taxi.
Rona Ambrose brought forward Bill C-337 to try to get at this issue of judges who do not have experience in sexual assault presiding over those cases. Although that bill unfortunately did not make it through under her private member's bill, the government brought it back, and we passed it earlier in the session. This would offer judges training, and in fact, it would offer lawyers who want to be judges training as well. That is the kind of remedy we want to see.
I was very pleased to hear the member for Mount Royal, who just spoke, talk about what this bill would allow. Other than just the extreme option of getting rid of a judge for whatever behaviour was complained about, there is a whole realm of possibilities, including verbal warnings, letter warnings, public apologies, training and multiple other options. This is something very good about this bill.
I do have a concern about the state of judges in our country since the Liberal government was elected. I started in 2015, and at that time we were missing I think 60 judges who needed to be appointed. Because of that, and because the Jordan decision, there were numerous examples of murderers and rapists who went free because there were not enough judges to handle the workload in a timely fashion.
There was an attempt made to put in a process. The government wanted to increase the diversity of the judges being selected, which is great, because one of the things that will make for a healthier democracy and rule of law is to have diverse thought and diverse representation of the population.
Unfortunately, what happened is the government used the Liberal fundraising database to figure out which judges should be picked from the lawyer pool. There were also fundraisers going on with the minister of justice at the time, which caused a big scandal because lawyers were paying $500 to meet her, and they all wanted to become judges. We know that is certainly not in keeping with conflict of interest rules in the House. The scandal went on for quite a while.
It is important to have diversity of thought with judges so they can check one another. If people are all in a group and they think together, it can be a bad thing. We have seen some of the Supreme Court decisions that came out recently that have caused concern across the country, such as the one that says, if a person is intoxicated, it could be a defence for murder, sexual assault, etc. Canadians in general would reject that and say no. The person is the one who chose to keep drinking or doing drugs until they became that intoxicated, and there needs to be an ownership of the behaviour. Those judges all together did not have enough diversity of thought for somebody to say that decision might not be a good thing.
I would suggest, from a Conservative perspective, that when somebody has killed multiple people, consecutive sentencing gave a lot of comfort to victims. The Supreme Court decision on that is another example. Parliament has a duty to review those decisions and have the discussions about whether that is really where we want to go on those topics. The whole purpose of having judges is that they are the executors of the rule of law in our nation.
I am very concerned that, in the last seven years, we are not seeing more rule of law. We are seeing more people committing crimes. The crime rates are increasing, including gun crime and violent crime. However, when I look at the response from the government, it looks like we are seeing a continual erosion of the rule of law.
The member who spoke previously mentioned that I am the first female engineer in the House, and we have an expression in the engineering world about a frog in a pot. Gradually the temperature in the pot increases until eventually we boil the frog, but the frog is not able to sense that the temperature is going up because it is so incremental. I would argue, with respect to the rule of law in Canada, the temperature is going up.
We had Bill C-75, which reduced the sentencing to fines or less than two years of time in jail for crimes such as abduction of a person under the age of 16, abduction of a person under the age of 14, arson for fraudulent purposes, marriage under 16 and participation in the activity of a terrorist group. There are a number of offences there, and I did not see the justification for that. We have heard from police chiefs that, although in some cases they agreed, in many cases there are serious crimes happening that now have only a slap on the wrist, which is not sending the right message about the rule of law and the importance of it.
In this parliamentary session, we now have Bill C-5 coming forward, which would remove mandatory minimums on robbery with a firearm; extortion with a firearm; discharging a firearm with intent; using a firearm in the commission of offences; trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking; importing, exporting, or possession of serious drugs; and production of these serious drugs, which are killing thousands of Canadians. Also, Bill C-5 would allow some of these sentences to be put down to house arrest, including that of sexual assault.
Somebody could victimize someone in their community and then serve the time there. I do not think that is something that we should leave to the discretion of judges, when we have seen in the past a judge ask, “couldn't you just keep your knees together?” There is a naivete if we think we can leave it to chance. Yes, in the majority of cases, judges will judge with wisdom, but it is the every now and again that we want to prevent and what our laws should prevent.
Abduction of a person under 14 could become a house arrest sentence. This is unbelievable. We have a huge human trafficking issue in this country, and this not only sends the wrong message, but it is also not going to fix things because, when people are left with a potential house arrest, those who are committing crimes can commit them out of their house. It is the same thing for someone trafficking drugs who gets house arrest. How convenient is that for people to stop by and pick up drugs?
These things make no sense to me, and so I am very concerned when I look at the erosion of our rule of law. At the same time, there is an erosion of protection for victims. We had Bill C-28 in the previous Parliament on victim surcharge. It used to be that there was some recompense made for victims who had suffered and had to travel distances to go to parole hearings and that kind of thing, but that was taken away.
This is a soft-on-crime government, and while I support Bill C-9 because when judges do not get it right we need to fix that, but I am very concerned that we are having this continual erosion of the rule of law. We have heard many speeches in the House that have said that there is a high rate of reoffending. People are committing crimes, getting out, committing them again and being put back in, and there really is no rehabilitation happening. That is not to say that there should not be, but the situation today is that there is not. If we know that people are going to reoffend and go out on the street, we have to protect the public, and we have a duty to do that.
The mechanism in the bill is to make sure that judges are doing their due diligence. We would have mechanisms, not just an extreme one, but progressions, that would allow us to take corrective action and manage the judicial system to ensure its integrity. This will preserve the rule of law, although the concerns I have expressed do remain.
1537 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 12:55:25 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, and I want to go back to some of the comments she made at the beginning of her speech.
We have seen some horrific judgements that women who suffered sexual assault have faced in the courts, with judges who have had some horrific opinions, not judgements but opinions, on the women. However, Rona Ambrose did come forward about the need to have judges properly trained so they actually understood these files in reference to sexual assault and abuse against women.
I would ask my hon. colleague if she feels that the mechanisms within the bill would allow us to address some of the serious problems we have with judges who just do not understand the sexual assault culture facing women.
127 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 12:59:35 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, the member made reference at the beginning of her comments to appointments and the fact that she did not feel we were appointing judges fast enough and it was causing murderers to go free. I am wondering if she could cite any individuals who committed murder and actually went free because of not having a judge in place.
60 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 1:00:30 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues in discussing Bill C-9 today. I am appreciative of the bill and the fact that it would grant the premise that we have been advocating for a very long time, and that Liberals have been arguing against for a very long time, that judges need to be held accountable. There needs to be a remedy for egregious actions on the part of judges.
I believe in the fallen nature of man and that the dividing line between good and evil runs through the heart of a person. I do not think anybody is above doing wrong or evil things, and we must all fight against that all the time. That stands for everybody, including judges. Judges can get it wrong and sometimes do evil things. Those things happen in the fallen world we live in. For that reason, there need to be accountability mechanisms for all individuals.
Accountability is baked into many of the things we do. It is baked into democracy and there are the checks and balances of democracy. In this place, we have one of the most obvious checks and balances, which is the vote when it comes to getting re-elected or being elected. We run on our record and on what we plan to do, and that is an accountability mechanism. That is being accountable to the people back home.
There are other checks and balances in our system. We have the Constitution, and all the laws we bring in this place must be checked against our Constitution, making sure that individual freedoms and liberties are maintained. We have provincial jurisdiction and federal jurisdiction, and both of those are guarded jealously. That is one of the checks and balances in our system. Then we have a thing called judicial independence, where politicians and the political sphere are not supposed to influence judges, so to speak. However, every now and then judges will have personal failures, where whatever they have done is beyond the pale of public activity and they would be deemed unfit to be judges any longer. This bill puts out a mechanism in order to deal with that.
I will read some of the reasons for removal that this bill lays out: “(a) infirmity; (b) misconduct; (c) failure in the due execution of judicial office; (d) the judge is in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.” I think this is a fair bill, and it would put in place a due process for the removal of judges from their position.
As I said earlier, I am appreciative of this bill because it grants the premise that judges need to be held accountable. I do not know about others, but where I come from there is a growing dissatisfaction or mistrust, or “lack of confidence” is probably the best term, for folks back home around the judicial system and holding criminals to account. We are starting to see this spill over into urban areas, where criminals operate with impunity. They steal things in broad daylight and commit acts of violence in broad daylight, disobeying the law in general and violating local communities. In rural Canada, theft is a real challenge, and it is somewhat a crime of opportunity. Where I live, the police getting to my door is a matter of perhaps hours, so criminals can do their criminal activity and be long gone before the police show up.
While I think this bill is an important starting piece, there is an entire sentiment that the current Liberal government drives, which starts perhaps with its tacit support of the “Defund the Police” movement, but also this general idea that the justice system will allow people to get out of jail more easily and will not penalize people. These kinds of things, which we often hear from the government, have led to the police not being able to make arrests, and when they do make arrests they are not able to get convictions, which becomes a major challenge. It demoralizes the police, the lack of political support from movements like “Defund the Police”. It undermines the political support police think they have.
They know that if they are going to pursue criminals, they need to have public support for their actions, and we are seeing more and more the police telling folks that they probably will not get a conviction or that they will have to go through all that effort and the criminal would be back out in six months. If what is missing from the victim's place is a small thing, they are not going to put the resources toward that, because they have a major case they are working on and they are diverting the resources to that, as they are likely to get a conviction there. Individuals' lives are devastated. When people come home to find that their fridge, washing machine and dishwasher are missing, that basically all of the appliances in their house have been stolen, it is a violating thing. To have somebody come into their house and steal things like that is unnerving. Perhaps it is not a great monetary loss, but it is extremely disconcerting for the folks who are missing those things.
Pollsters will track this kind of thing, the trust in our institutions, and generally Canadians' trust has been going down over the last seven years. We saw that under Conservative governments, trust in institutions, trust that institutions were doing what people expected them to do, was going up. Now we have seen a dramatic decrease in the trust in institutions, which bears itself out in two ways. One is that now people do not even call the police when their stuff goes missing. I hear that over and over again. People say that the police cannot do anything about it and therefore they do not even call. The other side of the coin is that criminals operate with increasingly brazen activity. We saw it in Calgary recently: two cars blazing down the road, shooting at each other while driving down the road, with no apparent fear that the police would show up, apprehend them and put an end to this firefight. It ended in the tragic death of a mother of five. That was in Calgary, just recently.
Folks will now come into rural yards and start stealing things. When the homeowner shows up and asks what they are doing, they say they are stealing things. He says, “I am standing right here”, and they just say, “What are you going to do about it?” We have that increasingly. We have just brazen activity by criminals because they see the lack of the system's ability to hold them to account, and therefore operate with complete impunity and brazenness that we have never seen before.
I would say that in my own life, I have witnessed the deterioration of trust in the community, trust in general. When I was growing up in my community, no one had a chain-link fence, no one had a gate at the end of the driveway, but these sorts of things are more and more common.
I lay this at the feet of the current government and the fact that it does not take this seriously. It does not provide the political support and tacitly supports movements like “Defund the Police”, which undermines our way of life, our quality of life and our ability to live peacefully in this country, and has led to a deterioration of the interactions we have as a society.
I look forward to questions on this.
1302 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 1:13:40 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I would note that we are still waiting on a Canadian Bar Association response to this particular legislation. I know that I am looking forward to their response in particular. In that regard, I would say I think we have to bring this bill to committee.
However, I want to reiterate I am very appreciative that this bill grants the premise that there needs to be judge accountability in this country. I would say that the bill is a very good start in keeping judges accountable for their conduct. I also look forward to having discussions with colleagues around bringing forward some other level of judicial accountability for judgments that do take place. I know we have the notwithstanding clause, and that has been and continues to be a decent check on judgments that we get from judges. I look forward to continuing those discussions with my colleagues in this place.
153 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 2:16:04 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, six years ago, in 2016, the government conducted consultations on reforming the judicial complaints process. After inexcusable delays, we are finally starting to debate Bill C-9, which has the potential to increase confidence in the judicial system. This is long overdue.
This bill would replace the process through which the conduct of federally appointed judges is reviewed by the Canadian Judicial Council and would enable a judge to be removed from office for reasons including infirmity, misconduct or failure in the due execution of judicial office. By modifying the existing judicial review process, a straightforward process for complaints serious enough to warrant removal from office would be established.
Our justice system needed this piece of legislation to be implemented years ago. Canadians must be assured that our judges need to be held accountable and perform their duty in the best interests of our society and our country. I urge all members in the House to support this bill.
161 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 3:58:00 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I can understand my colleague's eagerness to finally get this bill to committee. It makes sense because that is where amendments can be made, and amendments are improvements.
In fact, speaking of improvements, a lot of people say there are no separatist judges because a separatist judge would not promote Canada. I understand that too. The problem is that any separatist who goes to court could say that they do not want a particular judge to hear their case because the judge would be biased.
How can we make sure judges are unbiased?
96 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 4:01:32 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I have a few remarks on Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act. I am not a lawyer or a full subject matter expert on this bill, but having read the bill kit, I have put together a few words. It seems there is some unanimity and some good work has been done by our government. Hopefully this bill can be sent to committee for study by the learned members that have the honour and privilege of sitting on the justice committee here in Parliament.
It is, as always, great to see everyone this afternoon. I hope everyone is doing well, and that their loved ones at home are doing likewise.
I am here today to discuss a matter of crucial importance to our judicial system. The Canadian judiciary has a solid reputation and has long been respected here at home and abroad, which is one reason it enjoys the confidence of Canadians and the admiration of societies the world over.
There is a reason for that. Our judicial system is strong. It has been reinforced and improved continually over time thanks to the decisions rendered and measures taken by the people who make the system tick. Our system gets better and better because of the skill and hard work Canadian judges bring to every case, along with their unimpeachable character and exemplary conduct.
This is why allegations of misconduct against a judge can have such a corrosive effect on the bright enamel of our justice system. While these allegations are rare, they are highly significant for the judges and the individuals concerned, and they have deeper importance for public trust in the integrity of justice. It is critical that the public have confidence in a system for investigating judicial misconduct allegations that is scrupulously fair, effective and, most important of all, guided by the public interest at its heart.
The minister and the parliamentary secretary have eloquently provided context for Bill C-9, as well as presented its key features. To complement this, I wish to focus on the theme of accountability. In the context of judicial conduct reform, this concept has three important dimensions: First, there is accountability as applied the public. Second, there is the accountability of judges. Third, there is financial accountability. I will briefly touch on each.
As I have already said, public confidence in the justice system is critical. The law and the administration of justice exist to serve the public. The bill before us today is intended to strengthen that trust through a more robust mechanism for dealing with complaints against members of the judiciary. This mechanism will also ensure greater transparency and greater public participation.
Furthermore, the reforms in question were developed following extensive consultations. This inclusive approach, involving members of the Canadian public as well as academic experts, legal professionals, the Canadian Judicial Council and the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association, underscores the government's commitment to strengthening public trust.
The consultations also revealed a strong public interest in a more transparent and accessible judicial disciplinary process, with increased participation from representatives of the general public who are not legal professionals.
Bill C-9 codifies a space for public representatives as part of the judicial conduct complaint review process. Whereas the existing model can be rigid and opaque, the proposed reform would inject responsiveness and transparency. Following the reforms contained in this bill, a panel made up of both public and judicial representatives would review all allegations of judicial misconduct that are deemed worthy of investigation. These panels would consider complaints through written submissions and be authorized to prescribe remedies short of removal from office where this is appropriate. Remedies could take the form of mandatory education or training, formal reprimands or the issuance of an apology. In this way, representatives of the public would be directly involved in ensuring the fairness and integrity of judicial conduct investigations.
The new regime would also require that a representative of the public serve on panels holding the most serious hearings, those that may culminate in a recommendation of removal from office. This properly reflects the fact that the public's wisdom, as well as its best interests, should feature centrally in addressing the most serious allegations against a judge. I have no doubt that this measure would enrich the quality and integrity of those hearings, just as it would provide an appropriate mechanism of transparency and public participation.
I will now turn to the issue of judicial accountability. Judges are the faces of the justice system. Their decisions and conduct make the law tangible, not only to those who appear in proceedings before them but also to the broader public as well. The extent to which the administration of justice is determined by the degree of confidence in those who make it work, judges included. Consequently, the conduct of judges is rightly scrutinized more closely and more critically than that of perhaps any other professionals.
Upholding this high standard relies on the integrity of the individual judges, as well as on the effectiveness of the system designed to address complaints. As I alluded to previously, in the context of public participation, a key indicator of the trustworthiness of a mechanism is its responsiveness. Currently, the Judges Act only empowers an inquiry by the Canadian Judicial Council to consider removal of a judge from office. This blunt approach is both too restrictive and too broad. Where the conduct at issue fails to meet the high threshold for judicial removal, public confidence is undermined by the absence of appropriate remedies for conduct that may nonetheless raise reasonable concerns.
Conversely, there is the risk that a lack of remedial alternatives causes lesser misconduct to be addressed through the full force of a public inquiry.
A more nuanced approach will help to meaningfully address a greater variety of allegations of misconduct in a way that will be both more efficient and cost-effective. The bill includes new opportunities for early resolution and for adapting procedures based on the seriousness of the allegations in question. This capacity to adapt strengthens the trust in the process and supports the integrity of the judiciary. We guarantee that every case of misconduct can be properly sanctioned and that no judge will fall through the cracks or be subject to procedures that seem disproportionate in the circumstances.
The responsibilities introduced by the bill are complemented by the accountability with respect to the funding of the process. More specifically, the legislation sets out a more stable funding mechanism, as well as protection measures and additional controls that will guide the use of public funds.
As such, the Canadian Judicial Council will be able to carry out its mandate to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct, a mandate that stems from the constitutional principle of judicial independence. Currently, the efficacy of the funding is compromised by the fact that the usual mechanism for obtaining funding simply does not meet the unusual needs related to the process.
Bill C-9 proposes a new funding mechanism that would actually separate the cost of the process into two components. The investigations will be paid for out of non-discretionary funds and the amounts required for fair and robust hearings will be paid directly out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Expenses paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund will now be more transparent and stable thanks to three main measures. First, a regulation will be adopted under clause 144 of the bill to limit the number of lawyers participating in the process who can charge for their services. Second, under clause 145, the policies for the regulation of other process-related expenses will be developed by the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs, whose office provides key operational support to the Canadian Judicial Council and is ultimately responsible for all the costs of the process.
Judicial conduct review mechanisms generally receive broad attention only on those rare occasions when high profile allegations of judicial misconduct focus the public's mind on them.
1339 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 4:13:43 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, the process of how we handle complaints against federally appointed judges has not been updated in 50 years, so I am happy to see that we are all on the same page of finally doing this work.
Does the member not agree that we need to move forward on this and turn our attention to tackling issues like systemic racism in the judicial system or finally addressing the toxic drug supply emergency where people are dying daily?
79 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 4:15:19 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, we know very well that there are currently problems with the process for appointing judges and that some judges have abused their power. There was a case in my riding. A judge who was appointed used all the provisions until the end of his so-called process, then retired without facing any consequences.
Will Bill C‑9 give more power to the Canadian Judicial Council to take action against a judge guilty of a serious or less serious offence?
83 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 5:00:14 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise here today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Nation. Meegwetch.
I really had hoped to be allowed to ask the member for South Surrey—White Rock a question, and I will tell members why, because I think they might enjoy this.
The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock mentioned that she used to practise law, and I used to practise law. However, the member was actually part of the governing party when we were both first elected in 2011 when she helped me with a family law case. I just wanted to put that out there.
One of my constituents had a grandchild pretty much kidnapped by a non-custodial father who took the toddler to New Hampshire. I was going crazy, as were the mother and other members of the family, trying to figure out how to get the baby back. Speaking of judges I do not like, I would mention the family court judge in New Hampshire who thought that a court order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia for full custody of the little girl was something out of a Cracker Jack box that the judge was free to ignore. It was quite the case. The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock gave me some very good advice, which helped me get the baby back. She is now 16 and living with her proper family, and so it all came out quite well.
I want to talk about Bill C-9, which would reform the Canadian Judicial Council.
As I was speaking of a U.S. judge, it reminded me of this whole experience when I was at Dalhousie law school. We had one professor who challenged us on a case one day. We spent hours trying to figure out the rationale for the judge's decision. It made no sense to us. Obviously, the judge had ruled it, and so we had to figure out the legal reasoning, because there must be legal reasoning. It was a contract case and it made no sense. After about an hour of us tearing our hair out and putting forward solutions, our professor asked, “Is it permissible to ask if the judge was bribed?” The judge was, which is why the decision made no sense, and he was thrown off the bench for it.
This was an episode for us in real-life judicial reasoning. Sometimes the judge is bribed. Now, I do not know if this has happened in Canada, but it might happen sometime, and this is why we need a judicial review process. This particular process has been in place since 1971, and there are good and real reasons that it needs to be fixed.
There is another real-life case that I found explanatory. For the general public who may be watching this debate today, it has been a little dry, so I figured I would give a real-life example, which some members may know.
The judge is from the Quebec Superior Court, Michel Girouard who, I think 13 days before being elevated to a being a judge, was caught on video buying cocaine. This is similar to a Netflix true-crime story. Judge Girouard was challenged in 2010 when there was a complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council.
It is pretty clear that when a judge is caught on video buying cocaine from one of his clients who was then before the courts that we really do not want that particular gentleman on the court. If we want to talk about something that brings the justice system into disrepute, that would be it.
The case started in 2012 and did not end until 2021, when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Judge Girouard's appeal. At that point, he had managed to use every possible legal avenue to fight the finding that he was not qualified to be a member of the judiciary. He fought it, and for those of us who are trained in law can imagine, there are many ways to be creative and litigious, and this gentleman was very litigious. Not only that, under the previous law that we had, the people of the province, the taxpayers, had to pay all of his legal fees, because he was a judge and it was under the judicial complaints process.
I will point out one thing that Bill C-9 would do. We obviously learned a lot from that experience, and we do not want to have someone who is challenged dead to right who should not be a member of the bench, able to keep exploiting every possible appeal and then charge the taxpayer for the legal fees. Also, there should be a way of limiting how many accesses to judicial review through the federal courts someone in this situation should have.
Bill C-9 would do something quite straightforward that I have not mentioned yet today. If a judge going through this process wants to find ways to appeal, they are all in Bill C-9. The only court that a judge who is being challenged in this way can get to is the Supreme Court of Canada, at the very end of the process. The judge cannot keep finding a judge somewhere to hear some aspect of a complaint the judge is fighting.
Just to make it clear, under this legislation, there would be complaints, a screening officer, a reviewing member, and they can create certain kinds of review panels and hearing panels together, but they are not clogging up the regular court system. The judge that is the subject of the complaint is precluded from going to any other court, but at the very end, has the right to an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The law also gets rid of the idea that the people have to pay for the legal costs of a judge. The opportunity to appeal to the courts under the new process, proposed section 158 of Bill C-9, specifically bars any legal challenges or other forms of judicial review. This is a very helpful change.
Everything about the way the bill has been constructed has been the subject of a great deal of consultation due to cases, and there have not been a lot of cases. Let us face it, in the 40 years since the Canadian Judicial Council was created, as far as I could find, and it was the same figure that the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke used, which means it is probably right, was that there were only 14 reviews in the last 40 years. This speaks to a very high level of ethics and integrity within our judiciary.
However, if someone does have a problem, there are very large stakes in getting this right. We do not want frivolous complaints from, for instance, people who have lost cases in front a judge and that disaffected previous litigant having the right to make a judge's life hell, to pursue them and subject them, in social media or wherever, to unfair charges. The judge subject to a complaint clearly has rights and has to be treated fairly. That side of getting the balance right is well reflected in Bill C-9.
The other aspect is we do not want public confidence in our justice system to be shaken by having someone serving as a judge who clearly does not meet the standards of ethical conduct, the way it is expressed in this new bill. The ones that used to be there are infirmity, misconduct, failure of due execution and, this is the new one that is relatively traditional, the judge is in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.
In the time remaining, I want to mention that all of us here should think about the benefits of this new approach. The system we are currently under really has a binary choice: The judge is off the bench or the judge is on the bench. This new system says that maybe the judge needs some training, some counselling or a warning. There is a different approach here, again something short of the kind of misconduct that says the judge must leave the bench altogether, that allows for help.
One can imagine these are stressful positions. Mental health issues affect everyone in every profession, so there could be conduct that is questionable, but, on the other hand, overall the person is a good judge. Bill C-9 would allow that judge in that circumstance to be treated fairly, but it also protects the public and the taxpayer from judges who would do absolutely anything to stay on the bench, even if, as in the case I cited, they have been caught on video buying cocaine.
With that, I hope we can expedite the passage of this bill. It has been around even longer than some members have mentioned, because it was Bill S-5 in the last Parliament in the Senate and died on the Order Paper when the last election was called. Let us get this bill passed.
1549 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 5:27:40 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to other legislation, Bill C-5, which is on minimum sentences, and he is very offended by the fact that that legislation was brought forward. Getting rid of minimum sentences does not mean someone who commits an act would get off scot-free. What it does mean is we would be providing more opportunity for judges to use their discretion. Judges, in vast majority, are very well educated and have a very good understanding of the system. They can take a look at the circumstances and are in a better position to be able to give a disposition. I would not want him to give a false impression that, because we are getting rid of minimum sentences, people would get off scot-free. That is just not accurate.
My final thought is regarding the calling of the legislation. Surely to goodness the member would realize that, even though it was introduced and had first reading in December, there are many other legislative agendas. The Conservative Party never approached the government to call for Bill C-9 either. It is here today because the Bill C-14 debate collapsed last night. Bill C-14 was another piece of legislation that was extended because of the Conservative filibuster.
212 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
