44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 28, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/28/22 10:58:21 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I have two minutes. I will be continuing after question period, after a delay of about an hour, which is better than a situation I once had where I started a speech and then was delayed by a two-week break. There is nothing like having two weeks between the first two minutes and the remaining eight minutes of a speech to allow one to refine those remarks. The second half of the speech was considerably better than the first.
This time I am going to turn it around, and I am going to put all the exciting stuff at the front end. I am going to talk about the legislative history of this bill, a bill that is so urgently important that the government is applying time allocation and limiting debate. It is a matter that is absolutely critical to get dealt with, which is presumably why the government has delayed debate from when it introduced the bill in December 2021. It did not start debate for a further six months, until June 16 of this year, just shy of six months after it was introduced. No, in fact it is exactly six months. Maybe the government is seeking symmetry here, but that is when debate at second reading started. Of course we cannot complete anything that fast. It then disappeared. It is now back in October, and the government is announcing that it is a crisis and we must deal with this immediately, after having delayed it.
However, the story is actually worse than that because the original bill was introduced in the Senate as Bill S-3, and the government then put its own bill in. Even that misses the point that there was a previous bill, which was essentially identical, introduced before the last election, the mid-COVID pandemic election, which caused everything on the Order Paper to be set aside. It was an election which served, as far as I can tell, literally no purpose. It was the least important election in Canadian history, and simply replicated the previous mandate down almost to the exact seat.
Now it is a panic. Before we had literally years to deal with it, and I should point out that this is dealing with an issue that is essentially 50 years old. However, I will stop now and I look forward to continuing after question period.
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- Oct/28/22 12:05:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, based on an email I received yesterday from his parliamentary secretary, I understand that the Minister of Public Safety will, for the first time since the Liberals took power in 2015, be initiating a discussion with the RCMP on the subject of putting defibrillators in police cruisers. Placing defibrillators in cruisers would save over 300 lives a year. That is 30 a month, so time is of the essence.
Therefore, when can we expect to learn that a decision has been made, one direction or the other?
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- Oct/28/22 12:14:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I think this is something that may have never happened in the House before, a member beginning a speech on a bill in one seat and continuing it in a separate seat on the very same day. This was made possible, of course, by a standing order change that allows us to sit absolutely anywhere in the House. I was tempted to do it from the Prime Minister's seat, but that would have involved a little too many logistics. I was not sure we would get back to the debate, so I will do it from this seat here.
We are debating Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, and we are at second reading. I want to talk about the substance of the bill. It is actually, I think, a very good bill, and I will deal with that in a minute.
First, I want to talk about the fact the government is once again rushing this debate through and imposing closure. As I consider its actions, the thought that occurs to me is that, out there in the normal world, there is a saying. It is that “your lack of planning does not equal my crisis,” but this is the House of Commons of Canada. As long as they have the support of the New Democrats, the Liberals can be as disorganized as they want and can create crises for themselves and then impose limits on democracy and open debate in order to rush through crises of their own making.
In the case of the bill, which has now been time allocated, a version of it was introduced as Bill S-5, a government bill in the Senate, in May 2021, but it died on the Order Paper, because the Prime Minister, in his infinite wisdom, decided to call the least necessary election in Canadian history, which resulted in our having exactly the same seat breakdown we had prior to the election. However, it did cause everything on the Order Paper to be wiped off the Order Paper, and when we resumed in the autumn of 2021, a new bill was introduced on the Order Paper, on December 1, 2021, as Bill S-3. Subsequently, that bill was dropped and Bill C-9, the bill we are presently debating, found its way onto the Order Paper on December 16, 2021. It then sat on the Order Paper, undebated, for exactly six months to the day, until June 16, 2022.
The House rises in time for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, which is on the 24th of June. The bill, therefore, had a couple days of time for debate before the House rose. Then, with a whole summer going by, it did not come back until very recently, when we had been here for a month. This makes the point that the reason there is a rush, if there is a rush at all, is that the government has caused a delay. I should point out as well that the purpose of the bill is to make changes to the Judges Act, which was implemented in 1971, so we are talking about changes to something that has been in place for 50 years.
Saying this constitutes the kind of crisis that warrants putting limits on debate is, in my view, simply unreasonable and simply a reflection of the fact that it is now reflexive for the current government to put time limits on all debates on everything.
Now, let me talk about the substance of the bill.
Bill C-9 deals primarily with judges, but as for the provisions it replaces, this new process would also apply to persons other than judges who are appointed under an act of Parliament to hold office under what is known as “good behaviour”. The question of what constitutes “good behaviour” is a matter that needs to be updated from time to time, particularly in the world of the law and the actions of judges, because if something goes wrong in the court system and if judges or courts act inappropriately, we say that the law is brought into disrepute. Bringing the law into disrepute is the worst thing a judge can do. What constitutes “disrepute” does change over time as we get greater sensitivity, for example, to gender issues, which lie at the heart of the present piece of legislation, or to concerns relating to the ability of people who face various forms of disabilities to communicate with the courts and so on.
Standards within society do change. I think they usually improve, and it is reasonable to update this from time to time.
Right now, the way it works is that, should a federally appointed judge be found to be potentially in breach of their responsibilities, the issue is sent to the Canadian Judicial Council for review. The bill would establish a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct, allegations that are not serious enough to warrant a judge's removal from office, and would make changes to the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made to the Minister of Justice.
The bill would specifically modify the existing judicial review process by establishing a process for complaints serious enough to warrant removal from office and another for offences that could warrant other sanctions, such as counselling, continuing education and reprimands.
Currently, if misconduct is less serious, a single member of the Canadian Judicial Council holds the initial review and may negotiate with a judge for remedy. I should mention as well that the Canadian Judicial Council was set up under the existing law. It dates back to 1971 and is mandated to promote efficiency and uniformity and improve the quality of judicial services in all superior courts in Canada.
The reasons a judge could be removed from office include infirmity, misconduct, failure in the due execution of judicial office, and the judge's being “in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office”.
Under the new rules, a screening officer could dismiss complaints rather than referring them to the review panel, should they appear frivolous or improper. Certain things, such as a complaint that alleges sexual harassment or discrimination, may not be dismissed. The full screening criteria would be published by the Canadian Judicial Council.
These amendments address the shortcomings of the current process by imposing mandatory sanctions on a judge when a complaint of misconduct is found to be justified but not to be serious enough to warrant removal from office. Again, such sanctions could include counselling, continuing education and reprimands.
In the name of transparency, this legislation would require that the Canadian Judicial Council include the number of complaints received and how they were resolved in its public annual report, something that is a very sound idea.
Since its inception in 1971, the Canadian Judicial Council has completed inquiries into eight complaints considered serious enough that they would warrant removal from the bench. Four of them, in fact, did result in recommendations for removal.
Under the new process, as laid out in Bill C-9, the Canadian Judicial Council would continue to preside over the judicial complaints process, which would start with a three-person panel. If the complaint is serious enough that it might warrant removal from the bench, it could be referred to a separate, five-person hearing panel.
As I am out of time, I will just make the observation that, on the whole, this is a good piece of legislation. I am glad it is before us. It could have been before us earlier. I very much welcome the opportunity to vote in favour and send this off to committee, but of course I object to the rush we have been put in to do that.
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- Oct/28/22 12:24:06 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I will observe that in terms of there being a rush, I was just saying that the Canadian Judicial Council dealt with eight complaints and dismissed four judges over the course of the past half-century, so I am not exactly sure where the rush is. Clearly, the government does not actually see it as a rush; I mentioned the delays.
Which of the following is the fault of the opposition? Was it the fact the bill was introduced before the 2021 election and then the Prime Minister called an election? Was that the result of an action of the opposition, or was it the fact that the bill was reintroduced in the Senate, then reintroduced in the House of Commons, and then the government waited for six months and did not bring it forward until a day or two before the House rose for the summer? Was that the opposition's fault? I am just unclear as to which of these things that have led to a year and a half's delay is the fault of the opposition. If the parliamentary secretary gets a chance to get up and speak again, maybe he will be able to address that question.
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- Oct/28/22 12:26:04 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I think that is more of a comment than a question.
However, my hon. colleague is right.
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- Oct/28/22 12:27:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine what the rush is.
I appreciate the kind comments of my hon. colleague. We have always had good relations. She has good relations with many people on this side of the House and elsewhere, and that is something to be encouraged. After being here 22 years, I can say that, although there never was a golden age where we all got along, it is much worse now. However, we should all strive to get along with each other. We are colleagues and we should work together. That makes this place a better place.
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