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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 316

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 23, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Mr. James Maloney
  • May/23/24 8:13:56 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am going to go back to a topic I touched on earlier. It has to do with the judiciary, judicial vacancies and delays in our courtrooms. As I said, I practised for a long time. I practised in Toronto, and there was a number of times I would have a trial ready to go in Newmarket, Oshawa or Brampton, only to be told there was no judge available or there was no courtroom available. In fact, there was a number of times I went to courts ready to start a trial, and they would say that there was a judge available, but there was no courtroom. Canadians also need to understand that, when they walk into a courtroom and there is a superior court judge sitting there, the person who is sitting on the bench was appointed by the federal government. Every other component of the system, all of the infrastructure, is the responsibility of the provincial government: the desks, the chairs, all of the staff in that room, and the buildings, including the number of courtrooms in those buildings. There are people who are in the trenches, and they know better. Conservative lawyers become Conservative politicians because they can make allegations without facts to support them. The fact of the matter is that the provincial governments are not committing the resources necessary to make sure that our judicial system functions at its maximum capacity. We have more judicial capacity in Canada right now than we have had at any time in my entire career, so I would like to hear more from the Minister of Justice on the complexity of the court system and the delays that are inherent in it because of these different factors.
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