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Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

Jun/16/22 1:00:30 p.m.
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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.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Jun/16/22 1:10:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue with the theme of what we have been hearing about this piece of legislation, Bill C-9. There seems to be broad support for it. It seems to be something that would be a good step forward at least. Everybody agrees on that. It has had a tortured history. I would say the government has been rather inept at bringing this measure forward, but now that it is here before us and we are facing the end of the parliamentary session at the end of the month, I am wondering if the member would comment on the possibility of moving this bill forward quickly, perhaps even with unanimous consent, so that we could get on to some of the more important issues facing us here.

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Mr. Arnold Viersen

Jun/16/22 1:11:37 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of moving this bill along quickly, although I am not in favour of shortcutting the process. I have experienced that in this place. I have seen bills moved forward very quickly, only to have groups come forward later on, saying they never had the opportunity to present at committee and that they had an amendment they thought was needed for that particular bill, but because the system was short-circuited, they never got to present the amendment. Those amendments never did come forward, and then we had to put forward a private member's bill, new legislation, in order to amend that piece of legislation. While I am hopeful that this bill will pass and pass soon, we should not be pushing it too fast, because Canadians will want to weigh in. We need to have the ability for the bill in front of us to be brought up in Canadian awareness and get feedback from civil society and all Canadians. I look forward to having this bill at committee and to hearing from Canadians on what they have to say about it.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Jun/16/22 1:12:50 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I normally do not want to see bills rushed through this place. The hon. member for Peace River—Westlock may know that I supported the Conservative vote on not rushing Bill C-11 through in the way that it was rushed through earlier this week. However, in this case, this bill has had an unusual course. In the last Parliament, it actually started on the Senate side, so it has already been studied in the Senate. On top of that, of course, there were deep consultations with the Canadian Bar Association and others in developing the legislation. On many issues, Canadians are inadequately consulted, but maybe if it does come forward, I would hope that we do find a way to move it quickly, because it should have been passed probably about five years ago, if not 15 years ago.

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Mr. Arnold Viersen

Jun/16/22 1:13:40 p.m.
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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.

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Mrs. Tracy Gray (Kelowna—Lake Country, CPC)

Jun/16/22 1:14:56 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, the member had spoken about Canadians losing trust in their institutions. One example we could look at is the CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada's national housing agency. It has one single reason for existence, and that is to make housing more affordable for everyone in Canada. Of course, it has failed miserably in that regard. We also know that through the justice system, we have a revolving door. Legislation like this that we see here today, and also the private member's bill that I tabled this week dealing with addiction treatment in penitentiaries, could help with the revolving door. Could the member comment on those types of initiatives, and whether they could help with restoring confidence in our justice system?

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Mr. Arnold Viersen

Jun/16/22 1:15:54 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kelowna—Lake Country for her advocacy around addictions. I know that is likely where a lot of the issues that we face in this country come from, so we have to work to ensure that we have a society that can treat addiction and does not just put addicted people on palliative care and basically say we will provide them with the drugs they need rather than trying to end those addictions and bring forward a country that is positive and hopeful.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

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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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Jun/16/22 1:36:29 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, one of the important changes in the legislation is the inclusion of the review and hearing panel system. I was wondering if the member could tell everyone what the difference between a review and a hearing panel is.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

Jun/16/22 1:37:28 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his speech. His ability to speak in depth on so many diverse topics will never cease to amaze me. I have sincere respect for his work and the way he carries it out. That said, why is it so urgent for the government to act on Bill C‑9 at this time? Given all the other urgent issues that the government should feel are priorities, particularly inflation, why is Bill C‑9 being dealt with at this time?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)

Jun/16/22 1:39:48 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I have heard it said that the most valuable commodity in this place is time, and here we are debating a bill for several hours. I have been here for most of it and heard a fair bit of repetition, but also some strong agreement that we want to move this forward. I wonder whether my colleague knows if there have been conversations about moving this bill forward by unanimous consent. We have seen that done before. Even on contentious issues, such as conversion therapy, we have managed to expedite the process. In the interest of moving on to issues that really require more debate than something that was debated in the previous Parliament, I would ask my colleague if he has made an effort within his party to expedite this process.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

Jun/16/22 1:41:58 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North mentioned a few times the disconnect between what we see the Conservatives do and what we hear the Conservatives talk about. These are things like being soft on crime, when the Conservatives are supporting illegal blockades and the Liberal Party is working to bring in better law enforcement. We have gone a long way since the patronage appointments of Stephen Harper. I am thinking of Vic Toews: Less than a year out of cabinet, he was appointed to the Court of Queen's Bench in Manitoba by Stephen Harper. Now, we are doing an independent review of appointments of judges. Could the member comment on how far we have moved things along to restore the public trust in our judicial system, and how Bill C-9 will help us to go even further?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Jun/16/22 1:45:03 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, throughout the discussion, I have heard from the other side the importance of moving through this legislation with due dispatch. However, it is also important to have due diligence. The last time I asked a substantive question, I did not get an answer, so I am going to attempt another substantive question just to prove once again that even the government does not know what it is passing. Can the member comment on the difference between the executive director screening it versus a designated officer?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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The Deputy Speaker

Jun/16/22 1:46:29 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

I will have to cut off the next speaker about five minutes into his speech for Statements by Members. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Jun/16/22 1:46:43 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I am actually going to go through the substance of this bill. I agree with many parts of it. I would say this is one of the least contentious pieces of legislation that we will go through and that we have discussed. However, I do believe that our job, for which we are very well compensated by Canadian taxpayers, is to make sure we understand any legislation that goes through the chamber as it will all have an impact our country. After all, that is why we were sent here by our constituents and that is why we are paid by the taxpayers. Some members of the government party do not seem to have a substantive grasp of this, as my last two questions pointed out. They were unable to answer even simple questions over the substance of this legislation. Let us start out on our journey of what happens in a disciplinary procedure. I actually had the privilege of sitting on another body's disciplinary committee and found it to be very important and critical. Just to put this into context before we walk through the process, it is by weeding out those poor actors who are not living up to the expectations of the community that we improve the profession. I must say that, by and large, our justices are amazing people doing great work. They are keeping our cities and our streets safe. They are working to rehabilitate those who have gone off course, and I truly applaud their work. It is not many jobs that place the fate of individuals in one's hands and have that type of stress, so I would like to start by giving my thanks to the justices. There are those justices who go off course, for whatever reason. They are unable or incapable of performing the duties that they are required to by law. It is incredibly important that when we have those folks off course we either bring them back on course or, in very severe circumstances when their careers simply cannot be salvaged, take them off the bench. For the most part, our justices are great, but it is incredibly important that we keep everyone accountable, from the House to the judges across our country and to the highest offices of the land. The first step is the issuance of a complaint. Under the old system, the executive director of the Canadian Judicial Council would screen them. Now, they are putting in place a screening officer. It would be a lawyer's job to have those complaints come in and to initially screen them. Having sat on a professional disciplinary board myself, often complaints are just vexatious. They might be from litigants who got a decision they did not happen to like, but the judge did nothing wrong. When someone is in a decision-making capacity, they cannot make all the people happy all the time. Unfortunately, some of that bubbles up into complaints. I believe that having a professional at the screening desk whose full-time job, as I understand it, is to review these complaints is a great step. I am sure the executive director was doing a good job, but they have multiple other tasks as well. Having a professional screening individual, who is a lawyer, review complaints is, I believe, a great step. The next step is a very important one. After the initial complaint has been issued, the judge who is the subject of the complaint will get a notification of that complaint. I assume it will be a written notification. They then get the ability to respond with written submissions. At that point, that could be reviewed to see whether it is a legitimate claim or not. That claim could be dismissed on the grounds of the written submissions of the justice. Once again, this is important. I like this part of the process. As I said, it is incredibly important that we hold everyone accountable so that if there are justices who are behaving inappropriately, we pull them off the bench. Also very important is that we make this as painless as possible for justices who have done nothing wrong, but are the subject of vexatious or unnecessary complaints. This is obviously a very stressful job to begin with, so if there are vexatious claims it is incredibly important we get them voided and annulled as soon as possible. Throughout this new process, there would be multiple off-ramps where multiple individuals could review a claim and say whether something was a real claim or whether it should be dismissed. One critical point in the initial review of the complaint by the screening officer is that discrimination and sexual harassment complaints could not be dismissed. I really like that, too. If we look at the numbers, the math and the history of our country, unfortunately sexual harassment claims have been way too often dismissed out of hand as “she said, he said” or otherwise. This would put an absolute right for those complaints to continue on, ensure they are not dismissed out of hand and that they do get a hearing, which is novel. I have not seen this in other professional disciplinary boards. It may exist, but I have not seen it and it is a great step. One of the lowest prosecution rates we have is for sexual assault and for discriminatory crimes. Putting that in place would put in another safeguard to make sure that where there is discrimination and sexual harassment going on, that claim, if submitted, would always get a hearing. Other claims that may be lesser in nature could be dismissed out of hand, and I support that. This makes a lot of sense. I also want to bring up that Conservatives agree this legislation needs to be reviewed. After we get to the screening officer and the reviewing member, the next step would be the review panel. After there has been a complaint, the screening officer has said they believe something is legitimate and the justice has written their submissions back that they still believe this deserves to be heard, it would go to a review panel that would include a member, a judge and a layperson. It is nice that a layperson has been included in a number of these bills. Sometimes it should not always be the profession judging the profession, especially when it comes to judges, because the impact of a judge is well beyond the legal profession. When it gets in front of the review panel, the review panel would consider the substance of the complaint, any related documents, observations provided by the viewing member, written submissions provided by the judge at issue and those of the chief justice. This would be a new addition in proposed section 99. The review panel would have the ability to do one of three things. The panel could refer the case to a full hearing, which should be done if it believes the removal of the justice is a potential outcome of the offence: The offence is serious enough that it could warrant the removal of the justice. Another option, or another off-ramp, if the review panel does not believe this is a legitimate concern is to dismiss the complaint. Once again, if a person is innocent, it is another opportunity for them to have their innocence expressed and to have an off-ramp. The next is to impose alternative sanctions short of removal. At this stage and level, the review panel could put in sanctions and penalties. This does not happen under the current system. It actually needs to be kicked back to the Canadian Judicial Council, which would then decide. This step would be taken away, which would expedite the process and make it that much more efficient. I will quickly go through the list of possible sanctions that the review panel could put in. It could issue a public or private expression of concern, a warning or a reprimand. From my experience working with a professional disciplinary committee, I know that oftentimes, if we can get to someone early, someone who may not be a bad person but may have made a mistake, then the opportunity to counsel them, educate them and put them in the right direction is far more productive. They may go on to be a fabulous justice, and this was just one indiscretion, one mistake along the way that they learned from. I think we need to give people, including justices, a second chance where it is merited. The review panel could order a judge to privately or public apologize or take specific measures, including attending counselling or continuing education. We are in a mental health crisis, and I do not believe that justices are completely immune to it, particularly given the stress of their job. Perhaps counselling is a solution. We may have an extremely talented person who has been going through a difficult time. As a community, we want to do everything we can to help them with whatever issues they may have. Also, they are an extremely valuable part of our community, being a justice, so we want to see the investment rewarded with a great, long career. The review panel could take any action that it considers equivalent to the above options. With a judge's consent, it could also make an agreement, which is great too because not everything is one size fits all. Overly prescriptive legislation, in my opinion, can often be challenging, so this would give judges the ability to sit with members of the review panel and decide and agree on some steps going forward so that we can get their career back on a path that makes sure they are dispensing justice in a way that the community would be proud of. With regard to the review panel, if one of the sanctions I talked about was put in place, there would be a review process or an appeal process, which is a little confusing in the legislation, called a “reduced hearing panel”. I would have named it the “appeal panel” for the sanctions or put the word “appeal” in there somewhere, but that is effectively what this is. The justice would have the ability to call for a review of the sanctions that are less important than removal. I will leave the step about a full removal for the second part of my speech because I do not want to continue with that, but I will note that the reduced hearing panel has an interesting part to it. Judges could go from getting sanctions to being put in a full panel hearing, which could actually lead to a worse circumstance. I have some questions about that and will raise them later on in my speech.

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