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House Hansard - 120

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 28, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 120 - Oct/28/22
Ms. Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand—Norfolk, CPC)
  • Oct/28/22 10:01:33 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-9 
Mr. Speaker, it is my sincerest pleasure to be able to speak to Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act. As someone who has dedicated my life before politics to upholding Canada's justice system and representing those who have been victimized, I will begin these remarks by expressing the necessity for our justice system to be transparent. This bill seeks to improve on the current judicial complaints process. More than six years ago, in 2016, the Liberal government began the consultations on reforming the complaints process for judges. I question the government's priorities at this time, once again, that these reforms are only now coming to the floor after being introduced some six years ago. I am glad to see that this legislation has finally come forward. I believe that, with proper amendments at committee, it will make the complaints process inherent in this bill much stronger. The credibility of Canadian democracy and its institutions have been shaken over the last few years. This is especially so since the onset of COVID and profound encroachment that the government has had on the lives of its citizens at almost every turn. I have been deeply concerned about the declining state of our institutions and of our democracy. I am concerned about the erosion of Canadian institutions, and I am concerned that this happened over the course of the Liberal administration. We have seen Canadians lose confidence and trust in their government, in health care authorities, in law enforcement and in the media. Canada's justice system has also been tested greatly. During this time, its independence, its impartiality, its access and its fairness have all been brought into question. I know our system is not perfect. There are many issues that need to be addressed. We must ensure that our legal system maintains the trust of Canadians, and that is part of my job as a legislator. We are fortunate that, despite the Liberal government's many blunders, there is still some confidence in our system. Sadly, we see that on one hand, the government is attempting to improve the rigour of the system by strengthening the judicial complaints process. On the other hand, it is undermining victims of crime by removing things like mandatory minimum sentences for the most violent offences. It is imperative that we stand on guard and ensure that the pillars of our democracy are upheld. It is imperative that we always look for ways to fix the weaknesses, to find the loopholes and to strengthen the mechanisms that build trust, accountability and transparency in our justice system. There are weaknesses in our justice system and some of them have been exacerbated by the Liberal government. This long overdue bill is a step in the right direction. This bill highlights the need to fix the weaknesses in our justice system and to also strengthen the checks and balances around how central players of our justice system, like judges, are held to account when an allegation of misconduct arises. What would this bill do? As I mentioned, Bill C-9 proposes changes to the Judges Act to strengthen the judicial complaints process, which was first established 50 years ago. The Judges Act regulates judges in a number of ways. It empowers the Canadian Judicial Council, the CJC, to investigate public complaints. Judges can also be investigated on a referral from an Attorney General of Canada or a provincial attorney general with respect to any conduct of federally appointed judges. The Canadian Judicial Council has 41 members, including all chief justices and associate chief justices. Under the new process proposed in this bill, there are four reasons that judges may be removed. These include infirmity, misconduct, failure in the due execution of judicial office or the judge is in a position that a reasonable and fair-minded individual, an informed observer, would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office. The bill specifically states that a federally appointed judge may be removed from office if: the judge’s continuation in office would undermine public confidence in the impartiality, integrity or independence of the judge or of their office to such an extent that it would render the judge incapable of executing the functions of judicial office: I would now like to turn to the topic of fixing the system. The Canadian Judicial Council has for years publicly lamented the fact that the current system is often “enormously time-consuming, expensive and taxing on our federal courts.” It has called for legislative reforms that are necessary to “maintaining public confidence in the administration of justice”, which is the crux of the matter. For that, there must be a deep trust and confidence not only in the system, but in the administrators of the system, the judges who are counted on to dispense fair and impartial decisions based on evidence and in accordance with law, and who would administrate and execute those duties with the utmost confidence in the system. The only way that public confidence is maintained is by ensuring there is a robust process by which judges are held to account. If people lose confidence in the integrity of the judiciary, then the whole system unravels. I can tell members that, as a trial lawyer and someone who has owned my own practice, I had confidence appearing before judges. I knew they were qualified, would make sound decisions and were committed to the rule of law. However, over the past two years I have been approached by many individuals who are concerned about our system. They have asked me things like how a judge who ran for the Liberal Party could sit and preside over a bail hearing of somebody in the convoy who was charged under the Emergencies Act. These questions bring our administration of justice into disrepute and highlight the need to ensure that judges are not in a conflict. Our system is not perfect, but it aspires to apply the scales of justice equally to all of us. It is logical to insist that judges be held to a higher standard than the average person precisely because of the office they hold. In closing, I will highlight the fact that I am commending the government on getting this legislation to the floor. I believe that if this legislation is put before committee we could really hammer out some of the sections that need to be strengthened.
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