- Member of Parliament
- Minister of Justice
Attorney General of Canada
- Liberal
- Parkdale—High Park
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $120,537.19
- Government Page
- May/23/24 10:25:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand the gist of the member's question, but what we have seen in tracking the data is that when there is a mandatory minimum in place, it actually results in longer processes because plea bargaining does not occur as frequently, because the nature of the minimum penalty is already entrenched in law. That has resulted in more judicial resources and more delays. In fact, Ben Perrin, who is the individual who has been involved with a great deal of mandatory minimum considerations, a former adviser to Stephen Harper, described them as “a grave policy failure and cheap politics” and said, “Poilievre's idea may actually backfire, leading to more—
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- May/23/24 10:08:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to say. First, I added people to my ministerial team. I sped up background checks for candidates. I extended the eligibility period for a candidate who has already been assessed to three years. I extended the terms of each committee that makes recommendations on judicial appointments. I am working in close collaboration with judges themselves to understand their needs, for example in Quebec, in such expertise, in criminal law, in family law, et cetera. We are working as fast as we can to appoint more judges and to provide judges to the courts that need them.
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- May/23/24 8:15:46 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I think there are a lot of issues here that we need to really understand.
First of all, I do make the appointments for the superior court-level judges around the country, at the superior courts, the courts of appeal and even, sometimes, the Supreme Court of Canada and the federal courts. The administration of justice, pursuant to our constitution, indicates that the administration of justice is the purview and constitutional responsibility of the provinces, so what the parliamentary secretary was indicating is exactly correct. That relates to the courthouses, the court personnel and even the Crown attorneys, and I do appreciate that there are Crown attorneys and former Crown attorneys in the room right now.
Their hiring, firing and promotion are all dictated by provincial edicts, provincial budgetary allotments, etc. That also applies to court clerks, court ushers, court translators and court personnel. All of those aspects relate to the administration of justice. That is the province's purview, not my purview.
That being said, I have a strong working relationship with various attorneys general right across the country. That is really important. We are constantly addressing some of their needs. Legal aid was raised by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. By supplying legal aid, we are ensuring that there are fewer unrepresented litigants in these courts. Unrepresented litigants take longer to move through the system because they do not have the benefit of counsel.
Second, I would raise, for the edification of the members opposite, that in this rush to pursue mandatory minimums, many of which have been found unconstitutional, we actually present an obstacle towards pursuing a path of potential trial resolution. If an accused individual knows that they will be facing a penalty no matter what, they are more likely to proceed all the way through to trial, which results in more delays and more backlogs.
There are a number of features here that we are trying to address. We are addressing all of them. I am certainly doing my part with judicial appointments, but we need to be working collaboratively with the Crown attorneys and the provinces in overall administration of the system.
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- May/23/24 7:35:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the process has improved because the candidate assessments are now valid for three months instead of two and the mandates of the judicial advisory committee members are now three years instead of two years.
To answer the previous question, the Court of Appeal needs two judges and the Quebec Superior Court needs six.
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- May/23/24 7:33:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what I can say is that I will do my best to fill any vacancies across the country. I want to point out that the number of vacancies in Quebec has diminished significantly since I took office. I am working very closely with the chief justices of the Quebec Court of Appeal, the Quebec Superior Court and the Attorney General of Quebec. As I just mentioned, I have already made 106 judicial appointments in my first nine months in office. That is a record-breaking number in modern Canadian history.
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- May/23/24 7:30:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the first point I would make is that I have appointed 106 judges in nine months, with respect to the heckles opposite. That is the fastest rate in modern Canadian history.
The second point I would make is that if all judicial vacancies evaporated, and there are only 6% around the country, we would still have issues that relate to court infrastructure, court personnel, backlogs and delays that are a result and a by-product of COVID and the need to modernize our court processes.
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- Mar/21/24 2:59:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a rather important question. What I want to point out to all Canadians who are watching right now is that we have never had any former Liberal staffers sit on a committee that recommends judicial appointments. That is not the case in my own province of Ontario, for example.
We put measures in place to prevent partisanship, to appoint top-notch judges who reflect the diversity and bilingualism needed by judges, not just in Quebec, but across Canada.
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- Sep/20/23 4:31:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would say a couple of things. What is critically important is understanding that, when we have automatic registration, as we are proposing, for child offenders and repeat offenders, and we also have a rebuttable presumption, we are going to end up with the vast majority of individuals who are sexual offenders maintaining to be registered. That is the first point. That is is critical to public safety and to empowering victims.
The second point is a critical one about what happened in Parliament before I was ever elected, and that was that there had been a notion and suggestion coming out of the committee to remove prosecutor's discretion but maintain judicial discretion. That is exactly what we are proposing to do here today in compliance with the Supreme Court of Canada.
As the Attorney General of Canada, my fundamental role is promoting safety, always in compliance with the charter. When the courts give me a directive that says one aspect of our pieces of legislation is not compliant, it is incumbent upon me, on behalf of all Canadians, to ensure that we are enacting new legislation that complies with the charter. This bill would do just that by ensuring that there is judicial discretion guided by important criteria. However, in the main and in the majority of the cases, people will be registered, which is, I think, the important point the member opposite is making.
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