Vic Toews then and now
by Romeo St. Martin
[PoliticsWatch Updated 5:10 p.m. February 20, 2006]
OTTAWA —
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's first pick for the Supreme Court
will be a candidate weeded out by a selection process created by the
Liberal government.
"The fact that we will be choosing a candidate from a Liberal list I believe we are ensuring a larger consensus on the nomination of the next justice," Harper said.
The Liberals created a three-part system for Supreme Court
nominees.
The first part was to create an initial list of five to eight
nominees based on consultations former justice minister Irwin Cotler
had with the chief justice of the Supreme Court, chief justices and
provincial attorney generals from the region where the nominees must
come, local bar associations and the Canadian bar association.
An advisory panel of nine people -- including representatives from
the four main political parties -- would then whittle that list down
to three names for the prime minister.
Harper will make his choice from one of three names from a longer
list first developed by Cotler. However, he does promise further
reforms down the road, which may include changing the selection
process.
Cotler appeared before the Commons justice committee in April to
explain the process and was met with a large dose of cynicism about
how the names of the nominees were selected by then justice critic
Vic Toews, who is now the Justice Minister.
Here's some excerpts of Toews criticisms of a process his government
will use to make its first Supreme Court pick this week.
After
Cotler delivers a lengthy opening statement outlining the process,
Toews delivers his assessment.
"I have three major concerns with this process."
"In terms of identifying prospective nominees, what we have seen in fact is the minister or the government essentially picking out eight individuals, and the committee is then asked to pick from the people who've already been picked.
"There is really no substantive input by any parliamentary committee, even the committee that's being set up.
"All this committee is being asked to do is to limit to one person the list of people the Governor in Council has already chosen.
"In that sense it's not a particularly good process; it is simply a confirmation of who the government or the minister thinks is the appropriate person."
______
Cotler responded by telling Toews that the original list of five to
eight is open to suggestions based on the consultation. But
Toews described the consultation process as lip service.
"What I am concerned about, Mr. Minister--through the chair--is that you can consult with whoever you want or the minister can consult with whoever he wants.
"In the end, it's the minister's or the Prime Minister's decision as to who makes it onto the list. He can consult with anyone he wants. There simply isn't any substantive input, so the list is determined essentially by the minister."
_______
Toews then wraps up his first round of
questions by suggesting the consultative process will only result
with "Liberals"
landing on the bench.
"I haven't seen anything different in what you're saying today compared to what you said the other day, and to suggest that by putting it on fancy paper and making it a little thicker it is in any way more substantive--that's serious concern I have.
"There is simply nothing more here than a Liberal minister and a Liberal Prime Minister picking eight candidates and then asking the committee to choose one of eight Liberals, for example...if there were eight Liberals on the bench.
"That's all it is."
_______
In his second round of questions, Toews agitates Cotler when he
compares the selection process to so-called meaningless Soviet-style
processes.
"The point is that at the onset you still determine the list; ultimately you determine the list. After consultation, it's still your list, and at the end of it you come to explain which individual....
"So having a process in place doesn't mean progress, and it doesn't necessarily mean fairness. We can look at processes around the world. We can look at the troikas in the Soviet Union in 1937 and say there was a process in place; it was all
'a process'.
"But again, no rational person would say simply that because you have a process in place the system wasn't unfettered, and it was unfettered. In the same way, your system is unfettered in terms of there being no substantive control over who you can eventually put on that list. It's not set out in legislation."
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