Politics: Canada: Cheri Au calls Elizabeth May (Greens) 'gutsy,' but Jane Taber asks May, 'Are you crazy?'

Mainsonneuve the email newsletter that often annoys me, carries an item by Ceri Au, about Elizabeth May's notorious move, "May bets the House as Harper counts his chips" (Mar19,2k7).

...On the federal political stage, both the biggest player in the game, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the newest kid on the block, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, are constantly flexing their strategic political muscles, ensuring they are ready to take their parties to the next level. ...[Conservative] election preparedness is a smoke-and-mirrors action plan to stall the drop of the writ until polling numbers can [better] predict a Harper majority with more certainty.

On the flip side of cautious calculation is the gutsy decision by Green Party leader Elizabeth May to challenge Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in the Tory stronghold riding of Central Nova. “Are you crazy?” Jane Taber inquired, after May acknowledged yesterday on CTV’s lunch time political program Question Period her intentions to run against the cabinet minister. Dismissing lunacy as a driving force behind her decision, May let out a hearty chuckle and insisted she looks forward to the immense challenge ahead. “I think that Peter MacKay is, no question, a popular local constituency MP. He’s a very nice guy. I’m fond of him but he represents Harper government policies.” Nonetheless, for many political observers, challenging MacKay is not seemingly the quickest path to Parliament, especially for the leader of a party still hungry for their first seat in the Commons. Yet, as David Akin on CTV News reported, for Green party members who have seen their political stock rise in recent years (4.5 percent of the vote in 2006), there is only one credo of worth: “In Elizabeth we trust.” May recognizes the uphill battle she faces in what promises to be one of the most-watched races in the country in the next election...."

Juridics: Fed Canada: Canadian Judicial Council pouts its way to acceptance of reforms in Judicial Advisory Committees

The effort of the Conservative minority govt of Canada to reform the existing Judicial Advisory Committees has been poutingly accepted by the main national body of Federal judges, the Canadian Judicial Council. At least, as I read CJC's rather arch Overview of the judicial appointment process (released Feb20,2k7), the CJC has now accepted the reforms suggested by the government.

The Canadian Judicial Council accepts, despite these changes to the Advisory Committees, that judges can continue to participate in the deliberations of the Advisory Committees,...

The remainder of the sentence continues the whining quality of the document's overall tone, crystallizing it into an unabashed full pout:

...but only if the principle of judicial independence is respected and judicial candidates are recommended strictly on the basis of merit.

Of course, this is a signal that the CJC still doesn't want to face the consequences of the reform, which seeks to protect the judiciary from the kind of stacking hitherto practised by Canada's Liberal govts of the last 40 years. In part, we may expect that in this latter subordinate clause the CJC is trying to position itself for future quarrels it hopes to provoke and to lay a basis for obstruction.

The two buzzwords that the CJC constantly invokes are "independence" and "merit." Both these terms need a law-philosophical analysis in conjunction with the fact that different definitions prevail from law philosophy to law philosophy. Nowhere is it mentioned that a plurality of las philosophies must be represented in the judiciary, since no single law philosophy can give us judicial independence. The monoculture of a single law philosophy would make the judiciary dependent on that sole philosophy, without the benifit of other philosophies competent to call its fiats into question, to open other avenues of deliberation, to ensure an indepth dialogue among the law phliosophies in order to reach judgements and render sentences that are more fair, and hence more meritorious. Is "merit" a matter of formal degrees from the "best" law schools, as ranked by the graduates of those very over-represented schools? Is "merit" itself an absolutely neutral concept? A technical concept only?

I find the CJC's statement to be very shallow from the standpoint of legal philosophy, and very astute politically from the standpoint of keeping a closed guild closed.

The full text of CJC"s Overview follows below, with the above key passage in bold.

Canada's system of government comprises three branches: the Legislative Branch (Parliament), the Executive Branch (the government) and the Judicial Branch (the judiciary). Under Canada's Constitution, each Branch has important responsibilities that are distinct from one another.

Superior Court judges are appointed by the federal government. Under Canada's constitution, and established law, the status of judges is recognized as fully independent. Once appointed, a judge can serve until age 75 and cannot be removed from office except by joint address of both Houses of Parliament.

Judicial independence is of fundamental importance in a democracy. Those who interpret the laws must do so without fear or favour, and without regard to whether their decisions are popular. This is a cornerstone of the rule of law.

In that context, the most important goal in appointing a judge is that only those of highest merit and legal qualifications are selected, independent of any political or ideological considerations.

Creation of the Judicial Advisory Committees

The Judicial Advisory Committees (JACs) were created in 1988 following recommendations of the legal community, and others, that an independent process should be followed to assess the qualifications of candidates for appointment to the Bench. The model adopted by the government was the result of more than two years of consultations and enquiries with Canadians, including judges, lawyers and scholars. The key element in the adopted model was the creation of advisory committees independent of the appointing government. These committees were intended to screen all candidates for competence, to ensure that merit would govern the selection process.

At the time, the Honourable Ray Hnatyshyn, Minister of Justice, wrote "The concept of merit is central to the new appointments process. I firmly believe that no government can afford to approach the issue of appointments to the bench without a commitment to selecting the best person available, determined by objective criteria. The stakes for our Canadian society are too high to settle for anything less."

Since then, successive governments have adopted this independent advisory committee model, making occasional changes. Each time, the legal community was fully involved in consultations regarding proposed changes. In late 2006 however, the government unilaterally announced changes to the composition of the committees and the manner of their deliberations.

Composition and functioning of the Advisory Committees until 2006

Judicial Advisory Committees, since they were created, maintained their independence of the appointing government, while including representation from the federal government, the provincial government, the provincial law society, the Canadian Bar Association and the judiciary.

At their creation in 1988, committees were asked to assess if candidates were "qualified" or "not qualified." In 1991, further to a government review of the process, the committees were asked to use new categories: "recommended," "highly recommended" or "unable to recommend." The change was made in recognition of the fact that some candidates are much more qualified than others.

The size of the committees was increased from five to seven members in 1994, giving the federal government three members, instead of just one who represented the Minister. The two additional members were to be a lawyer and a lay person. The Minister of Justice at the time said that the new structure would "facilitate the appointment of committees that more fully reflect the diversity of society in each jurisdiction and, in the case of lawyer members, of the legal community." At the same time, it was understood that the majority of members would not be appointed by the government.

Recent changes to the Advisory Committees

One change recently made to the functioning of the Advisory Committees is to eliminate the distinction between "recommended" and "highly recommended" for the assessment of candidates. This raises questions about whether the most qualified individuals will continue to be identified for appointment.

The qualifications needed to be a judge are extensive. In addition to a number of personal qualities and competencies, candidates for judges must demonstrate proficiency in various areas of the law.

This is particularly important because Canada's Superior Courts hear cases in many areas that affect Canadians in their day to day lives: family law, commercial law, torts and liability law, administrative law and criminal law. Most cases heard by Canada's Superior Courts have nothing to do with criminal law. Many non-criminal cases also involve disputes between citizens and their government.

Another change made was in the number of members who serve on the Advisory Committees. The government is now appointing a fourth member to serve on each Committee. A related change is to remove the right to vote for the representative of the judiciary, except in the event of a tie. This means that there are seven members who are ordinarily entitled to vote, with four chosen by the Minister of Justice.

Because the majority of voting members are now appointed by the Minister, the advisory committees may neither be, nor seen to be, fully independent of the government. This puts in peril the concept of an independent body that advises the government on who is best qualified to be a judge. Judicial independence is not the private right of judges but the foundation of judicial impartiality and a constitutional right of all Canadians [footnote 1]. As the Supreme Court of Canada has stated, "Litigants who engage our judicial system should be in no doubt that they are before a judge who is demonstrably independent and is motivated only by a search for a just and principled result. [2]"

The Canadian Judicial Council accepts, despite these changes to the Advisory Committees, that judges can continue to participate in the deliberations of the Advisory Committees, but only if the principle of judicial independence is respected and judicial candidates are recommended strictly on the basis of merit.

Choosing the best judges for Canadians

The responsibility of appointing Superior Court judges rests with the Governor-in-Council. It is the government that has the authority and mandate to select and appoint judges.

That responsibility, however, must be exercised with due regard to the responsibilities and authority of the other two branches of government. The fundamental importance of appointing only the most meritorious candidates, irrespective of political or ideological conviction, should guide all three branches of government in working together to serve the interests of all Canadians.

The Canadian Judicial Council will continue to work toward the fundamental goal of maintaining an independent judiciary in Canada.

-----------

1 Canadian Judicial Council, Ethical Principles for Judges.

2 Provincial Court Judges' Assn. of New Brunswick v. New Brunswick (Minister of Justice); Ontario Judges' Assn. v. Ontario (Management Board); Bodner v. Alberta; Conférence des juges du Québec v. Quebec (Attorney General); Minc v. Quebec (Attorney General), [2005] 2 S.C.R 286, 2005 SCC 44.

The reform of the Canadian judicial mind and the jurisprudence it begets can only be in its infancy, but the Conservative minority govt will not and can not be more than a fine-tuner of existing arrangements. The real work belongs to the field of scholarship in legal philosophy. And that will require at least a generation of work by gifted and civically-minded persons who see thru the Liberal facade that can not see beyond its own limited philosophical horizons--where it has stacked not only the judges of the courts but words like "equality," "independence," and "merit."

Enviro: Canada: Why did Libs (Chretien, Martin, Stewart, Dion) not demand equal carbon-fuel constraints on China?

The irrepressible publisher of the China e-Lobby's email newsletter, JD Maguire offers some astute remarks on Communist China's now-leading role in worldwide pollution.

Whatever one may think of the Kyoto agreement, the fact that it exempts Communist China, has long been a chief argument of its critics against the deal. Proponents have argued that Communist China's emission levels wouldn't challenge America's for years to come.

Well, that line of argument has passed its best-by date, literally. New figures from the Communists themselves (of all people) have revealed that the United States will fall behind Communist China in carbon-dioxide emissions as early as this year. In fact, emissions from Communist China have nearly doubled since 2001 (San Francisco Chronicle). Or, to put it another way, "China's greenhouse gas emissions have recently been growing by a total amount much greater than that of all industrialized nations put together."

Even those who fervently believe in man-made global warming must now agree that Kyoto is useless without including what will soon be the largest carbon emitter on the planet. All it will do is allow the Communists to continue to rapidly overdevelop, destroy its ecology, build up its military, and arm or otherwise aid terrorists without any qualms while the free world geopolitically handicaps itself.

I checked out the live-links with which Maquire documents his remarks. In the SanFransisco Chronicle, Robert Collier, "A Warming World: China about to pass U.S. as world's top generator of greenhouse gases" (Mar6,2k7).

Far more than previously acknowledged, the battle against global warming will be won or lost in China, even more so than in the West, new data show.

A report released last week by Beijing authorities indicated that as its economy continues to expand at a red-hot pace, China is highly likely to overtake the United States this year or in 2008 as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

This information, along with data from the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based alliance of oil importing nations, also revealed that China's greenhouse gas emissions have recently been growing by a total amount much greater than that of all industrialized nations put together.

"The magnitude of what's happening in China threatens to wipe out what's happening internationally," said David Fridley, leader of the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"Today's global warming problem has been caused mainly by us in the West, with the cumulative (carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere, but China is contributing to the global warming problem of tomorrow."

New statistics released in Beijing on Wednesday by China's National Bureau of Statistics show that China's consumption of fossil fuels rose in 2006 by 9.3 percent, about the same rate as in previous years -- and about eight times higher than the U.S. increase of 1.2 percent.

While China's total greenhouse gas emissions were only 42 percent of the U.S. level in 2001, they had soared to an estimated 97 percent of the American level by 2006.

Maguire also puts us on to a telltale graph accompanying Collier's article but on another page. The graph makes clear that China has well-surpassed Europe, has rapidly risen to American levels, and is now a rapid projectile that is moving without check either to protect its people, air, water, and cities; but is becoming a menace to the whole world.

Meantime, Japan has reached equilibrium and is, for the good of the whole world, manufacturing hybrid-fuelled battery-driven cars that are slowly gaining increased public favour there. While that be true, India which was close behind Japan in the production of carbon-increasive fuel emissions, now without equilibrium it has surpassed Japan on India's upward climb on the chart. But this should be clear, neither Japan nor India come near to producing what Europe, USA, and most/worst of all China are doing. The pace and time factors of China's climb threaten the world's air and water--even if all the other countries mentioned manage to reduce their carbon-incresive emissions to Zero!

Now, Canada doesn't even appear on the lists. However, while Canada under the Liberal Party govts of the last 40 years has slaveringly touted among its own entrepreneurs and abroad thru "trade missions" sponsored mass siginings of Canada/China business deals and investments, became signatory to the Kyoto Protocols without requiring its dubious trade partner China to undergo the same restrictions required of all signers to reduce carbon-increasive emissions. China should have had its feet held to the fire with all the rest of the signers. Instead, Canada was complicit in China's carte blance, free pass, whatever you may wish to call it. This lack of analysis and fores+t regarding China, was the result of extremely poor plannning on the part of the Liberal government, its prime ministers Chretien and Martin, and its environment ministers Stewart and Dion (who is now leader of the Fed Libs). In truth, Dion never cared for the environment and he never cared about either China's or Canada's meeting the targets of the Kyoto Protocol. Allowing China to go scot-free was a kind of Munich that his party's China boosterism foisted on the Canadian people thru short-term thinking. It was a most astounding betrayal of environment.

Dion now talks grandiosely about his commitment to longterm planning, but he's all along been part of unleashing China's rapid-increase worldwide lead in destroying the global human heritage of air and water. He was a cabinet minister of a govt which signed on to giving China a free hand, because he and his party had no longterm plan; now China is repaying Canada by making our own signing of Kyoto irrelevant to the world's sink into deep environmental sickness.

Whether Stephen Harper's minority Conservative govt will make a really positive difference for environmental concerns in Canada longterm (given that any plan from Harper will have to be effective in the huge quintupling of the Alberta oil fields and refining of tar and other impurities out the carbon-increasive oil products, consequently thereby increasing the longevity of carbon emissions from traditional autos [etc]) on Canada's roads--all that remains to be seen.

But Stephane Dion has had his chance. He has proved a lousy steward of the environment, now that the Liberal past is exposed for lack of longterm planning inherent in its signing on to Kyoto while exempting China, all to the world's longterm extreme damage. Dion should not be rewarded for this perfidy by being elected Prime Minister.

Juridics: Fed Canada: Libs politicize ameliorative improvements of Advisory Commissions for the appointment of judges

At last the minority Harper govt of Canada has brawt in proposed legislation to improve the process of appointing Federal Judges. The predecessor Lib govt had tried to dodge the patronage and stacking system that had long left Canada with a single-party judiciary on the Fed level, but it's dodge had proved dodgey, in that the then-Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, arranged for two new justices to be appointed under the guise of democratic scrutiny, while failing to allow the justice critics of the other three parties in parliament to question and probe the nominees in public.

My colleague Politicarp carried forward a discussion of the situation that prevails in Canadian legal philosophy, jurisprudence, and practice down to the particulars of such matters as the sentencing of criminals and the attentive regard for their victims. Since his most recent post on Feb23,2k7, he analyzed the slanted law-journalism that typifies the law industry in Canada.

A recent Liberal Party press release (Feb12, 2k7) gives the impression that there's a level playing field in Canada's law schools, lawyers guilds, and jurisprudence. But this disingenuous self-portrait is h+ly selective in examining Liberal practice over the last 40 years, as to its impact on the content and trends of jurisprudence as judgments are actually handed out. The main facts are the facts about Liberal law-making and Liberal law-judging cumulatively, not a few counter-practices since a Conservative minority govt has sawt to exercize its responsibilities alternatively.

Stacking the Courts threateans Judicial Independence

By attempting to stack the courts with ideologically-based nominations, the Conservative minority government is putting the independence of Canada’s judicial system at risk, the Liberal Opposition said today.

“Our courts are recognized around the world for their competence, fairness and independence, but today Canadians are expressing grave concerns about the Prime Minister’s obvious maneuvers to drastically change the composition of the committees that select our judges,” said Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

“Canadians want our judges to continue being selected without political or ideological interference. Will the Prime Minister stop his shameless attempts to stack the committee with his ideologue friends?”

This is Dion's effort to mask over the monophilosophical system established by the Libs, in order to create ideological uniformity in the courts and , thus, to prevent law-philosophy to law-philosophy dialogue intrinisic to the pluralist approach that Canadians would want and have a r+t to, if only they knew it could exist.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it no secret that they wish to appoint judges who are more favourable to the social conservative viewpoint in the future.

Again, Dion's poisonous selectivity. He neglects to acknowledge that among the several conservative philosophies (for instance, those of well-trained jurists who could be labelled "socially conservative") will enrich the overall jurisprudential dialogue by interacting with other well-trained jurists some of whom would continue to be labelled "Liberal," while others of whom also appointed thru the new system of Judicial Advisory Commissions proposed by Harper would lead to a very positive deeply-pluralist sytem of adjudication more strenuously fair to all Canadians. Dion's publicists continue their artless dodgery:

During the last election campaign Prime Minister Harper told reporters:

"The reality is that we will have for some time to come a Liberal senate, a Liberal civil service, at least senior levels have been appointed by the Liberals, and courts that have been appointed by the Liberals. So these are obviously checks on the power of a Conservative government." (CPAC, January 17, 2006)

What should Harper do? Lay down contented with the distortions introduced into Canadian jurisprudence by 4 decades of Liberal hegemony over the courts and the way they think and judge? -- indeed, how they collectively view "merit" in the profession?

Rather, he realistically points to the checks and balances that are already overabundantly in place to preserve that very Liberal hegemony over the courts, checks and balances (often unfair) that Conservs of all stripes must take as the condition of existence in addressing the country's legal needs for some time yet to come. Wheareas the Liberals themselves have not had to face any such checks and balances for all that time of their overlordship. And were they catapulted back into power they could steam ahead with their already-entrenched court-control system and their established mono-minded anti-dialogical preferred jurisprudence.

There's nothing wrong with Harper's statement, despite the self-serving twists of the Lib publicists who want at all costs to smother his ins+t into that very establishment of a Leftist Liberal jurisprudence that has made a shambles of the professions of law-teaching, law-journalism, and jurisprudence of judges in our courts.

Liberal Deputy House Leader Marlene Jennings pointed out the Conservative government has since made quick work to appoint their ideological counterparts to the courts system and rectify this so-called “Liberal check.”

“Within months of taking office, the Conservatives began stacking the bench with their friends: the former President of their party in Quebec, the Conservative Co-Chair from New Brunswick, a Conservative fundraiser from Alberta and even someone who back-stopped a legal defence fund for the Public Safety Minister,” said Ms. Jennings.

What?--only 4 Conservs to stand against the cross-country Liberal horde in the country's judgeships? Is that all Marlene can come up with? It's obvious that she simply has no case. But even in citing this paltry dilution of the wall-to-wall Liberal jurisprudence, Marlene (a television character) catches herself in her own faux pas, realizing that this is not the dominant Conserve trend because the Harper govt had to finish its research and preparations to develop the Lib-initiated Judicial Advisory Commissions, precisely in order to ameliorate the JACs' deficiencies and make them structurally more responsive to the norm of public dialogical justice. Something Marlene and Stephane seem incapable of fathoming.

Again, precisely to that end, Harper slowed down the filling of vacancies until a more just structure could be developed for the Lib's jerry-rigged JACs that were slapped together in the spirit of Paul Martin's appointments to the Supreme Court without any honest public questioning and probing of the nominees--a doubleheader, two new judges who were stacked into the Court most shamelessly. Without even acknowledging the shameful Lib judicial legacy, Marlene prattles on:

“This government allows more and more judge positions to remain vacant and all the while they are looking at the list of defeated candidates to fill their positions [she assumes that none of these would have sufficient "merit" to become judges] while turning up their noses at qualified applicants [she assumes that only her kind could possibly be qualified]. In other words, it should be a conservative or no one.”

Bull! This simply doesn't follow from her premises, even before they're decoded of her doublespeak. Marlene's plop should not cow us.

Not only does this new process introduce partisanship into our court system, it also has created a huge backlog of judicial appointments waiting to be filled, resulting in delays and, at worst, the denial of justice for Canadians in our court system.

Not a bull now, not a cow now, but a Chicken Licken screeching that the sky is falling.

“The public wants independent voices, voices beyond politics,” said Liberal MP Ken Dryden. “The Prime Minister clearly doesn't trust independent voices. Doesn't he have the confidence that he can win the day if there are voices beyond his influence?”

I think he does, and what's patently clear is that this advancement of independent voices in the judiciary has never been the intent of the Libs in establishing their mono-minded anti-dialogical system of appointsments to the courts, without believable nominations and without public scrutiny and examination before finalizing apppoinments. Even Ken Dryden's brain is not so dry as to miss the lack of independence in the Lib legacy of law, judging, and sentencing.

Canada’s Constitution calls for a clear separation of powers between Parliament, the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. As Liberals we believe that judges should be selected based on the over-riding principle of merit and not on the political leanings of the government of the day.

Mono-mindedness and anti-dialogue, enshrining one law-philosophy so that its judges never have to share thawts with the fine minds of alternative jurisprudential orientations, case by case, is not a principle of merit--no matter how much doublespeak Ken amasses to make his passes.

By stacking judicial nomination committees [JACs] and benches based on candidates’ ideological views, the Harper government risks transforming the courts into arenas where political battles are fought, rather than justice is pursued.

No matter how much the Libs try to hide their dubious record, fewer and fewer Canadians are conned by their legacy of self-serving abuse of the judiciary over most of 40 years.

The live-linked article (accessible by clicking our headline) contains numerous valuable facts, and far more balance, than the propaganda put out by the Liberal Party and the Law Times cited earlier by Politicarp's blog-entry. An actual glimmer of common fairness shines thru the headline-linked article here, by Cristin Schmitz, "Conservatives aim to replace judicial 'Charterphiles' with 'Charterphobes'," (Mar9,2k7) Lawyers Weekly; nevertheless, as the just-mentioned epithets prove, a hateful bias is still present and even brawt to the forefront by the latter publication's headline writer. The Charter can be loved in toto by those jurists who can not conscientiously read into it the distortion of the meaning of marriage (the meaning as intended by the Charter writers--unless, God forbid!, the whole text were a sham from the beginning and thus would be quite worthy of being hated): the distortion of the meaning of marriage such as we have seen in the massed ranks of Liberal antipluralist antidialogical judges, on all levels of the Canadian court system. May the imbalance that results from their inflated numbers recede, may judges adhering to alternative law-philosophies increase on the basis of merit, so that a fairer and more honest system may result.

Juridics: Fed Canada: Libs begin smear attack on judicious proposals of Conservative govt

A rather extreme headline appeared over an article by Helen Burnett in Law Times, "Independent judiciary put in peril" (Feb21,2k7).

The Canadian Judicial Council is openly criticizing Prime Minster Stephen Harper’s changes to federal judicial advisory committees, raising questions about the independence of the committees from the government and whether the most qualified candidates will continue to be appointed to the bench.

The author fails to mention that the Federal Canadian system of judges is a h+ly biased single-party entity built up by the law professions pandering to the Liberal Party over many decades. If you want an appoinment, you take your law degree and join the Liberal Party and start working for it and its candidates. That's the lore of Canadian juridics. Every Canadian acquainted with the realities of judging in Canada knows that the system is riddled with false convictions, on the one hand, combined with ideological biases dictating appointments to the bench, on the other. Plus, the law schools haven't had a fresh idea since they haberdashed the concept of "equality" in such a way as to outlaw the recognition of all differences. "Qualified" in Canada largely means a candidate for judge single-mindedly reads everything but the kitchen sink into the Constitution's Charter of R+ts.

Parker MacCarthy says the new judicial appointments system will permit block voting to install judges whose views adhere to those of the government.

MacCarthy is hysterical in this statement heavy on rhetorical flourish, and weak on particulars. The courts, each and every one of them need desperately a policy of jurisprudential diversity, appointment of basically qualified judges in a pattern that seeks competent judges of different philosophies of law. The teaching of philosopy of law in Canada is extremely weak, in English-speaking only one Left Liberal view prevails. And it translates down into the extreme favouritism toward serious law-breakers in sentencing.

Last November, the government announced changes to the appointment process for federal judicial advisory committees, which are responsible for assessing the qualifications of lawyers who apply for federal judicial appointments and for recommending candidates to the minister.

"Qualifications of lawyers" who asspire to appointment in a system dominated by LeftLiberal lawschools churning out a surplus of one philosophy of law, and obstructing the development of another. This apppointment system, again dominated by one party, the same old party and its same old leftwing, has never led to a dialogue of experts who tend to the articulation of points from different law-philosophies to arrive at the settlement of cases after decent interactive deliberation. Indeed, the Liberals set up their "federal advisory committees" as a smokescreen to give the appearance of non-apppointment (Canada seems incapable of even contemplating the election of judges, yet it has had no checks or balances on the multiple decades-long Liberal appointment process based on patronage. That's why the Liberal evolved not only as the party of graft, but as the party of graft and an absurd patronage that saturated the judiciary appointments. It matters very much as the minority Conservative government tries to rectify an historically obscene one-party judiciary that allows criminals to prosper and victims are ignored. These patterns also obtain when the Liberals dominate the provinical judiciaries too.

The changes increase the number of members on the committee from seven to eight, including a judicial representative, one from the provincial attorney general, one from the provincial law society, and one from the Canadian Bar Association.

A patently more fair arrangement which does not do away with the Liberal smokescreen advisory committees, but makes them more widely constituted, and thus permits other views to occasionally come into the picture on the bench in the various federal courts.

The number of ministerial appointments is also boosted from three to four, including a law enforcement officer.

Bravo! A legally-qualified law enforcement officer increases the value of the adcom approach which the Libs have always stacked in favour of judges who followed the party line on liniency for criminals, and disregard of the victims of crime.

Under the new system, the judicial representative is no longer allowed to vote, except in the event of a tie.

A quite healthy provision. The court judges don't themselves become a self-continuing group with a monopoly on determining advice regarding new appointments.

The distinction between “recommended” and “highly recommended” for potential candidates has also been removed.

Excellent! A potential judge is either qualified or not. "H+ly recommended" smacks of a second standard, nothing short of ideological approval.

What's remarkable is that the body of the article does not bear out either the writer's apparent intent (slant) nor the headline writer's inflammatory prejudice against the intelligent just new proposals of the Conservative minority government which would, by way of non-drastic revisions ameliorate the traditional Lib policy of stacking the Fed judiciary. But this flows counter to the obsolescent mindset of the law professions themselves.

It's time for diversity of law philosophies in the Canadian judiciary.

My headline derives from the fact that Law Times' headline is only the opening salvo of a campaign building steam steadily with former Justice Minister in the last deposed Liberal govt, Irwin Cotler (who himself aspires to a seat on the Supreme Court), heaping contumely on the reasonable minority Conservs' proposal, when he himself was responsible for the smokescreen double appointment of two extremely biased Justices to the Supreme Court who had moved to the top of the heap of Liberal approvees. There was no public examination of these then-nominees by Parliament. As a result the Supreme Court of Canada continues to be a grandiose monologue with only one philosophy of law permitted to participate in its "deliberations". Shame!, Mr Cotler.