Mr. Chair, it ought to be clear why we've proposed this amendment. It's because the government bungled the Supreme Court appointment, which some journalists have called a spectacular mess.
We're not blaming the nominee, Justice Marc Nadon, for anything. The blame lies squarely with the justice minister and the Prime Minister, for going ahead with an appointment when there was clearly risk of litigation, and there was a question of whether Justice Nadon met the specific rules regarding who can assume a seat on the Supreme Court from Quebec.
The justice minister himself hinted the statute needed to be changed over the summer, and in the fall he released a legal opinion that the government had sought to defend the choice of nominee. The problem is that an opinion, even from a great jurist, does not make one immune from a lawsuit. The minister took the risk of making the appointment. The lawsuit challenging the government's interpretation of the law was filed, and since then the court has been sitting with eight justices and Quebec is under-represented in the nation's highest court.
Through the back door, and with Bill C-4, the government is attempting to retroactively rewrite its appointment law, while at the same time it's asking the court to interpret the law by means of a reference. The problem is that it's not even rewriting its own appointment law well, and that's where this amendment comes in. The government's rewrite is to say that the members of a bar with 10 years of standing at a bar at any time are eligible for nomination to the court. Our amendment would make it that they would have to be in good standing, and that the 10 years would have to be consecutive.
At committee we heard from Professor Adam Dodek of the University of Ottawa. He and others were asked if these changes were good ideas, and they agreed that we should want bar members in good standing only to be eligible, and it would make sense that their 10 years of membership in any bar be consecutive.
Frankly, we're trying to be constructive and help the government to deal with this issue. It's awkward, because it ought not to be before this committee and we are trying to be constructive. My colleagues, Sean Casey and Irwin Cotler, a former minister of justice during better times, have been extremely helpful and constructive on this, and it is in the interest of good government that we are proposing it.