44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 16, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/16/22 12:59:35 p.m.
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- 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.
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- Jun/16/22 1:16:33 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to address the House virtually today.
There are a number of thoughts that I would like to share with respect to this piece of legislation. It is legislation that has been in the works for a considerable amount of time. As much as I have been enjoying some of the questions and answers, especially when the Conservatives are being pushed as to when they are going to look at it or whether they would consider the passage of the legislation. Just given the context of what the official opposition members are saying, I do not anticipate that the bill will be passing before summer. I think the Conservatives have some spin notes that they want to try to leave on this particular legislation.
The biggest one that comes to my mind is the issue of “soft on crime”. It is especially members of the Conservative hard-right element who like to say that they are much harder on crime, that government needs to be tough on crime and that if it is not a Conservative government, it is soft on crime. Whether it makes sense or not, that is the line that the Conservatives like to give because of public perception.
That said, the bill will pass when it will pass, ultimately. I am hopeful that, as we can sense, the majority of the House see the value in Bill C-9, because it is something that is needed.
I want to start by making a couple of observations from some of the stakeholders. I want to do that this time around because I really do respect our judicial system as one of the fundamental pillars of our democracy. Our rule of law, our judicial system and the idea of independence are held dear by, I would like to think, all members of the House.
For that reason, I thought it was important to start off with a quote. It is from the Right Hon. Richard Wagner, Chief Justice of Canada and chairperson of the Canadian Judicial Council. He stated:
Over the past few years, the Council has consistently called for new legislation to be tabled in order to improve the process by which concerns about judicial conduct are reviewed. The efforts of members of Council to develop proposals in this regard have been fruitful, and we appreciate the openness with which the Minister of Justice has engaged the Council in his consultations.
I will go to another quote from the Canadian Judicial Council. It states:
While the Council will take some time to carefully review the proposed amendments, we are confident that these reforms will bring about much needed efficiency and transparency to the judicial conduct review process.
I wanted to start with those opening quotes because of the respect that I have for judicial independence. I also recognize that there has been a great deal of work, whether by the minister or by administration or by civil servants. They have worked very closely with the many different stakeholders while at the same time respecting the importance of judicial independence. That is why, when I look at the legislation—and I concur with some of the comments being made by my New Democratic Party colleagues and Green Party members, who seem to support the legislation and its speedy passage—I would like to think that the bill itself should not be controversial. It is actually fairly straightforward. There will be other opportunities for the opposition members to try to score their political points, if I could put it that way.
I do think there would have been a great deal of value in seeing Bill C-9 at least pass through second reading so that it could go to committee stage, possibly during the summer, when feedback could be heard from the public and experts, with the idea of coming back in the fall for report stage and third reading.
The Conservative members who spoke before me were interesting. I picked up on two comments; one was the issue of “soft on crime”, which I have already referenced and maybe will go into a little more later, but they also brought up the issue of appointments of judges. I was somewhat taken aback by some of the comments that were put on the record.
We were being criticized because we did not make appointments shortly after being elected into government, as we were reviewing and establishing a more independent, apolitical, transparent appointment process to ensure that our judicial system would be that much more transparent. Yes, there might have been some delays in those appointments, but they were taking the extreme position that murderers went free because of some delays in appointments. I would welcome and challenge the Conservative members to cite specific examples of someone who not only allegedly murdered but did murder an individual and ultimately, because they could not get a day in court, were let go without any charges being laid in that situation. I would be very much interested in a name. If they could provide me with one, they can always send it to my P9 email or raise it inside the House.
The member went on to talk about Jody Wilson-Raybould, being very critical of her for not making appointments and implying in the comments that she would only make an appointment if the person donated to the party. Again, those were very extreme statements being made by the Conservative Party. It is not fair. It is interesting how they seem to have forgiven the past—at least, most of the Conservative caucus has—in regard to Jody Wilson-Raybould, but I remember the allegations a number of years ago on that front.
It is important to look at the appointments that have actually been made. The government has made somewhere in the neighbourhood of 400 appointments since 2016. If we do the comparison, I would love to hear the numbers from the previous administration. When it comes to this administration, out of the hundreds of appointments to our judicial system, 55% have been women. I would love to hear a comparison with the previous 10 years under Stephen Harper.
About 3% of our appointments, or marginally just above that, were indigenous. That is important to recognize. Over 10% are visible minorities. The LGBTQ2 appointments are over 5%. Not only are we identifying ideal, competent, incredible individuals, but as a result of a more transparent, depoliticized appointment process, I believe that overall the appointments are more effective in better reflecting what our society looks like today.
On both of those points, whether it is judges and the appointment of judges or the issue of the Conservatives being soft on crime and saying the government is not tough enough on crime, I would challenge the Conservatives to prove their points, not necessarily on this legislation, but on other pieces of legislation so we can ultimately see Bill C-9 pass.
It is important to recognize that we do need to see a balance. We have the fundamental pillar of our judicial independence and it is important there be a high level of confidence held by the public in the administration of justice. I believe the legislation we are looking at deals with that in a very fair fashion.
The amendments will ultimately allow for the Canadian Judicial Council to continue to preside over the process proposed in the legislation. This would start with a three-person review panel ultimately deciding to investigate a complaint of misconduct. In some situations, if the complaint is serious enough, it might even warrant dismissal or removal from the bench. In situations like that, it could be referred to a separate five-person panel.
In the first case, it would be strictly a three-person review panel made up of CJC members. A judge and a layperson could impose sanctions such as public apologies and continuing education.
The current process has turned out, in many ways, to be exceptionally costly at times, and equally as important, it is not very timely. We have seen situations where it could take years before anything is actually concluded.
That is the reason our judicial system is saying that we need to make changes. Today, judges facing possible removal from office because of serious allegations of misconduct have several opportunities throughout the process to launch these judicial reviews. However, as I indicated, the process in some cases can be too long and can be at a fairly significant cost.
Replacing the process through which the Canadian Judicial Council reviews the conduct of a federally appointed judge is the essence of what the legislation is proposing to do. It establishes a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct that are not serious enough to warrant a judge's removal from office and makes changes to the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made by the Minister of Justice.
The new process would allow for the imposition of sanctions for misconduct which, while not serious enough to warrant removal, may warrant sanctions that are quite different. The current process does not allow for such sanctions. The member for Mount Royal highlighted some examples. Where a judge's actions have been deemed to have offended something and there needs to be a consequence for the actions, there are more opportunities for different types of consequences.
We could see anything ranging from verbal warnings to written warnings, to suspensions or public apologies. We could even see additional training being required, and ultimately, of course, judges being released. This legislation enables a suite of actions that could be imposed on a judge, given a certain behaviour or comment that is made publicly.
Not only have we heard today, but we have also heard it in the past. We have had private members' bills. I think of Rona Ambrose. She talked about educating judges, particularly in the area of rape victims. Her piece of legislation ultimately received support from all areas of the House. Parliamentarians from all political stripes recognized the need to have some form of educational programming for newly appointed judges to take things into consideration. In fact, my daughter, who is a local representative in the province of Manitoba, had also taken that particular initiative after hearing about what Rona Ambrose had done.
Ultimately, the government pushed that legislation through in the years that followed after Ms. Ambrose left the House of Commons, but we attribute it to Rona and we attribute it to the fact that there is a universal desire for that training.
It was not that long ago when we had another private member's bill, one from one of my colleagues from Montreal. There was a great deal of effort by members on all sides of the House to see that legislation, Bill C-233, which is still before the House today, pass second reading and go to committee. It came out of third reading because of that desire.
For those who are not familiar, Ms. Ambrose's piece of legislation is recognized as Keira's law for good reason. I will quote from an article, “When I brought forward the evidence about abuse of Mr. Brown, we had a judge, for example, who said that domestic violence is not relevant to parenting and, 'I'm going to ignore it.'”
Periodically statements come out of our judicial system that call into question the public confidence. That is one of the reasons it is so important that we pass this legislation. It recognizes that our independent judicial system and our judges, who we do need to respect, can make mistakes. Obviously, a vast majority of judgments are done in a way in which they meet the expectations of Canadians, but on occasion, when that does not happen, there needs to be a more effective mechanism to ensure there is an appropriate consequence. This legislation would enable some variation of consequences for judges, at times, who cross the line.
I have appreciated the opportunity to share a few thoughts and will be more than happy to answer any questions.
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- Jun/16/22 1:36:51 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I would emphasize that one of the aspects of the legislation that I do like is that we are finally going to be seeing a layperson as part of the process. Having that put into place is quite important and is an important aspect of the legislation.
I am not as confident in giving the type of detailed answer the member is specifically looking for.
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- Jun/16/22 1:38:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, the problem with the House of Commons is there is never enough time to have the types of debates that we would like to have on everything that comes before us. That is why we often have to sit beyond our normal sitting hours.
The Government of Canada has a legislative agenda. It also has budgetary measures. When we put them together and look at the priorities of the government, whether it is the pandemic or inflation, as we are all concerned about, all of these public policy issues continue to move forward, led by the Prime Minister and the cabinet.
At the end of the day, a well-functioning government has the ability to deal with a wide variety of issues, always keeping our focus on the issues that are most important to Canadians. It does not necessarily mean that we just let Bill C-9 go nowhere. It is an important piece of legislation. We have been provided this opportunity to bring in Bill C-9 because of a collapse in debate last night.
We have not lost any focus on what the important issues are for Canadians in particular, whether it is the pandemic, the war in Europe or inflation, which are all matters of great concern.
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- Jun/16/22 1:40:40 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, as much as I do enjoy being engaged in debate on the floor of the House of Commons, I would have been more than happy to surrender my time to debate if I had a sense that we could actually pass the legislation at second reading so that it could go before a committee.
However, over the last number of months, I have seen the behaviour of members of the official opposition in particular. It seems they have taken the position that unless a bill is under time allocation, we can anticipate a long debate on virtually all pieces of legislation.
Maybe I am being a little unfair to my Conservative colleagues, but I firmly believe that if the Conservatives wanted this bill to pass, we would be very much open to having it pass second reading, at the very least, so that it could begin committee stage.
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- Jun/16/22 1:42:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question, but I am reflecting more on some of the other comments the member made reference to. He talked about Liberals being soft on crime. Not that long ago, on Wellington Street, which was open at the time and has not opened since, a rally took place that shut down downtown Ottawa due to all the activities that were taking place. The Conservative Party of Canada members, like the member for Carleton, were doing very little, if anything, and maybe even encouraging the occupation to continue. On the other hand, they say we are the ones who are soft on crime. That is a side issue that I wanted to throw in.
Bill C-9 is the reason I started by quoting the chief justice, who recognizes that there is a need for us to change the system. They are very much following the legislation. This is not something that was done overnight. It has taken a while. We believe we got it right, and that is why I say we should send it to committee if there need to be some changes. It would reinforce public confidence, which is what the member is getting at in his question. We want to reinforce public confidence in our judicial system because unfortunately, at times and in a limited number of cases, a judge will say the wrong thing and it is likely because something inside needs to be changed, maybe through an educational program or something of that nature.
We have recognized it in the past. Let us recognize it today and see if we can get the legislation passed.
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- Jun/16/22 1:45:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, the member went into the legislation and picked something out. What we are debating at second reading is the principle of the legislation. If we agree on the principle of the legislation, then we send it to committee. In committee, there will be all sorts of opportunities to get the detailed answers that the member is specifically looking for. If he wants an answer before it goes to committee, the minister is right across the aisle from him. He can drop him a note or raise it with the parliamentary secretary, who has already spoken on the issue.
The principle of the legislation is good, solid, sound and necessary, and it will help put more public confidence in our judicial system. Why would the member not recognize it for what it is and allow the legislation to pass, at the very least, so we can get it to committee?
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- Jun/16/22 5:27:40 p.m.
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- 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.
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