Members touched upon the justice system and how we need to modernize it, finding different resources so that they’re not disparaging people who are seeking justice.

One of the government’s initiatives in this bill—I believe it’s schedule 5—is to hire retired judges back into the system. That’s a temporary solution.

I’d like to ask the member, what is the long-term plan to actually hire new judges to fill the void for cases that are long predating the pandemic, that need to be dealt with? Can the member speak to if they do have that commitment in place so that new judges are hired—and not just recycling the retired judges?

As the bill has a few schedules, I want to focus on schedule 3, which is the Juries Act that has just been brought up—how easy it’s going to be for people to participate in the justice system as a juror. I know that there are barriers to being a juror, one of them being financial, and perhaps other areas that stop people or prevent people from being jurors.

Can you speak to the fairness about access to justice? Being a juror—if you have to compromise your salary during the day, how is that going to help the juror system be involved?

I appreciate the member’s statement and her providing the information about her experiences, but as a part of our commitment to break down the long-standing barriers in justice specifically—and as we were talking earlier, the system previously was literally paper-based. It was not up to date. It was not in a place where it was going to be moving efficiently for very much longer.

Our government is moving more services online by investing in technology and improving processes to deliver a better experience for prospective jurors. Not only will this reduce administrative costs, but it will make it easier for jurors to participate in the court system no matter where they live.

Will the member opposite agree that moving from the paper format to a digital-first experience would benefit the judicial system?

Thank you so much to my friend and colleague for her excellent presentation. I really appreciated that she talked about legal aid.

I think we should all agree in this House that finances shouldn’t be a barrier to justice, but of course there were cuts to legal aid that happened—by this government, in their last session of Parliament.

Can you tell us why it’s really important that access to legal aid is something that this government should be striving for and reversing these cuts should be a priority?