Mr. Mackintosh: On a matter of privilege, Mr. Chair.
I have in this Legislature a role that is prescribed in the unwritten constitution and practices and procedures of this Assembly, as do other members of the opposition, as does the minister, and the fundamental role in terms of the Estimates process is to ensure accountability of the minister for actions taken by the minister personally and in his role as the head of the Department of Justice. Accountability can only be ensured through questions and answers, and accountability can only be ensured by a minister who is indeed accountable to the Legislature. When a third party intervenes and thwarts that accountability to the Legislature, the system cannot work, and the foundation on which the official opposition is to conduct its work is thwarted.
It appears obvious from the minister's answers to my questions that the minister has either taken it upon himself or has entered into an agreement with a third party, namely, the Chief Judge, not to answer questions and therefore not be accountable to the public of Manitoba through the members of the Legislature. It is our charge that this minister has agreed with the Chief Judge that he would make no further comments on the discussions that took place at the meeting with the Chief Judge on May 4, and further, would not make further comment relating to the negotiation process that led to his ministerial statement in the Legislature.
This committee has to do a job, and it can only do the job if the minister has respect for the process, rather than the contempt he is demonstrating. It is untenable that the minister will not answer these questions. He does not appear to understand how he has compromised not just his position and his office but that of the Chief Judge. I do not know if the Chief Judge understands how seriously compromised she as an individual and her office now are.
The minister has been putting the interests of power of the Conservative Party ahead of the repute of the justice system and the confidence that Manitobans must have in it, because right now we are looking at a system whereby the Chief Judge of Manitoba is making a back-room deal with a politician for the sake of a political party, a Chief Judge making a deal with a politician to protect a politician's rear end and protect the Conservative Party.
I do not think the minister understands the anger and dismay, particularly in the legal community, for one, people who have devoted their lives to buttressing and shoring up the justice system and making sure that people know when they have disputes or when their safety is threatened, their loved ones injured, there is a place to go that they can trust will answer their needs, and the minister knows darn well the effects of a loss of confidence in the judicial system and the justice system generally.
The minister can repair this damage, and he can repair it by providing answers to the questions that we pose, because it is our duty to ensure confidence in the justice system, not to the extent that it is the minister's, but it is our responsibility to protect that system within our prescribed role in the legislative process. He cannot stop us from doing that. He is stopping us from doing that by this agreement that we are charging he has with the Chief Judge to be silent on these critical matters of public importance.
I, therefore, move that the committee censure the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) for refusing to answer questions related to meetings held between representatives of and the Chief Judge and the Minister of Justice.
Mr. McCrae: The honourable member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) has raised a question of privilege. In Parliament, one of the requirements is that of timeliness, and that is something I would leave to you, Mr. Chairman, to examine. The other requirement is that there be some prima facie case raised to allow a motion to be taken forward.
The honourable member for St. Johns has spoken about the relationship which exists between the Chief Judge and the Attorney General of this province, and I participate in this question of privilege as House leader for the government. However, I had some experience in dealings with the Provincial Judge of Manitoba when I was Attorney General. I think that what we have heard from the honourable member for St. Johns, disguised as a question of privilege directed against our Minister of Justice, was an unparalleled and unprecedented attack on an individual member of the judiciary in Manitoba.
The honourable member for St. Johns, I believe, chooses his words fairly carefully and knows exactly what I am talking about in his efforts to raise points about this. He has attempted to bait the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba in an extremely unseemly way. I have been around Manitoba for many years and I have not seen anything like this since Joe Borowski and his dealings with I think it was Judge Manwaring up in the Dauphin area. I have not seen this kind of abuse of the judiciary by a politician since the days of Joe Borowski.
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Mr. Chairman, disguised as a question of privilege, we have cheap shots being fired by the honourable member for St. Johns. This is no way resembles anything approaching a question of privilege. This is not a courtroom. Maybe the honourable member wishes it was, but this is not a court room. This is a committee of the Legislature where accountability is something that is the result of questions asked and answers given. The real test of accountability is what the people think about it, not what the honourable member for St. Johns thinks about it.
So, I think this is an appalling and really quite despicable attempt by the honourable member for St. Johns to do in this place to a Chief Judge what cannot be really done anywhere else. The fact that judges in our system rarely speak publicly except through their decisions makes the shot even cheaper still, and anybody who thinks a politician, including an Attorney General, could in some way muzzle a member of the judiciary is an extremely naive person. These people do not get appointments to the bench by being as unsophisticated as the honourable member for St. Johns and his question of privilege and in his questioning suggests the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba must be.
So the relationship between a Chief Judge and an Attorney General is one that we hope the honourable member for St. Johns would never participate in and in my view never would happen, but there is an administration job to be done in any jurisdiction, and the Attorney General is the person designated by statute to conduct the business of the province with the judiciary. The honourable Attorney General is quite capable of answering specific questions for himself, but simply by responding to the questions in a way which is unsatisfactory to the honourable member for St. Johns by no means suggests unsatisfactory to the people of Manitoba but in any event has nothing whatever to do with any grounds for a question of privilege.
Mr. Chairperson: I am just going to intercede here for the benefit of the committee. The member for St. Johns has raised a matter of privilege. I must inform the committee that in accordance with Beauchesne Citation 107, it has no power to deal with a matter of privilege. Such matters can only be dealt with by the House itself on receiving a report from the committee. Therefore, I am prepared to entertain a motion to report the alleged matter of privilege to the House.
Mr. Ashton: You are quite correct. It is reported to the House and I think by the addition of those words at the end we can accomplish that. I wish to add some comments as well.
Mr. Mackintosh: I move, seconded by the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), that the alleged matter of privilege be reported to the House.
Motion presented.
Mr. Chairperson: The motion is debatable.
Mr. Ashton: Mr. Chairperson, I want to deal with some of the comments made by the government House leader. I want to say it is ironic that one of the terms he used was abuse of the judiciary. Well, indeed, that is exactly what is at root in this whole matter, abuse of the judiciary. We believe that this Minister of Justice abused his position in a very important matter, in this case matters related to the appointment to the judiciary. That is exactly the root of the problem. We also believe that this matter is a matter of privilege, because the minister has gone beyond just not answering questions. We have seen the unprecedented situation in this House where the minister has, at his initiative, developed what in the courtroom analogy--because I think the minister would understand this too--has come up with an out-of-court settlement--and I use that term here with conditions attached to it--whereby this minister felt that he could put an end to this whole controversy by standing up in the House saying: well, I speak for me and I speak for the Chief Judge, and this is my recollection and this is hers.
The matter is done with. Then afterwards, I think we have seen by the questioning in this past week, the minister not only has confirmed essentially the Chief Judge will make no further statements, but that he will make no statements. In fact this minister, by way of agreement with the Chief Judge, has agreed not to make statements of any further kind related to this matter other than what is in that statement, and that is reflected in his comments in the House.
That is unprecedented. That is showing complete absolute contempt for this Legislature. I say to the government House leader that he fundamentally misunderstands the role of this Legislature and of Parliament if he suggests this is not a court. There is the law of Parliament. There are elements of our processes that reflect that.
In fact we have a procedure whereby we can call witnesses, call people to the bar to deal with matters of privilege. That is part of any Parliament. That is one of the fundamental roles of any Parliament. Mr. Chairperson, that is also the route of privilege. Privilege deals with the matter of contempt. It deals with the violation of the ability of members of the Legislature to be able to perform their duties, and it does so in a way that directly reflects judicial process. We essentially make a motion a matter of privilege and, at that point in time, it is a question of whether it is a prima facie case.
I say to the government House leader: this is raising contempt of the Legislature to a new level. I point to recent precedents in the House of Commons, where the Speaker of the House has made, I think, a very significant ruling, finding it was a matter of privilege in the House just a matter of weeks ago that a government minister refused to bring a matter before the Parliament, made an announcement outside of the House, and did not make that announcement in the House.
Mr. Chairperson, I think that is a matter that may come up again in this House because this government routinely ignores what has been a common courtesy, and I think it has shown contempt of that kind. We now very rarely see statements made in the House, but now we have a Speaker of the House of Commons ruling that is a matter of privilege. We have practised the last number of years--perhaps that is somewhat different here--but I ask you consider this: the precedent we would set in this particular case if we now allow ministers to say, oh, sorry, I cannot say anything; I have agreed with somebody outside of the Legislature--cannot say a word. I say to the minister and I say to this government, whatever agreement the minister, through his lawyer, one Mr. Olson, I believe, had with the lawyer responsible I guess working on behalf of the Chief Judge, is null and void, it means nothing in this House. It means nothing whatsoever. He can make whatever arrangements he wants outside of this Legislature. He can tape his mouth shut before he comes in to this committee, but it does not mean he has the right to show contempt for members of this committee and the legislative process.
You cannot just turn it around and say: hey, I agreed I am not going to speak. You cannot do that and expect members of the opposition and, more importantly, members of the public to sit back and say: nothing we can do. I want to stress what I said earlier--because I raised this on a point of order, because we cannot compel the minister to answer. This is not the Spanish Inquisition. We can do nothing more than keep asking the questions, but what we can do is expect that the minister not show contempt for the Legislature, which he has been doing repeatedly; first, by not giving answers to many questions that were asked; second of all, by bringing that ridiculous statement--and I put on the record that statement was ridiculous.
The Chief Judge shares my recollection that was outlined in Question Period. Of course, he only picked one day in Question Period. I say to the Minister of Justice and I say it to the government House leader: do they not realize what they have done? I mean, are we going to do this on a routine basis?
I find it interesting, you know the minister talking about judicial independence. In this case we are talking about the Chief Judge in her capacity as a member of the committee looking at judges. We have made that very clear, that the minister's comments are irrelevant. But we now have the minister standing up and saying: I am not going to say anything more than the fact that through my lawyer and through her lawyer I now get to speak for her based on this Question Period.
We now have this minister dragging the Chief Judge in, given comment on Question Period--Question Period--at his initiative, and he and the government turn around and wonder why we have concerns about what is happening? I say this Minister of Justice has compounded a very bad situation into a fundamentally worse situation by trying to drag the Chief Judge in. This government House leader now turns around and has objections for us asking about this process now for close to a week? And the member for St. Johns turning around and suggesting that indeed if this minister--and I remind the government House leader, it was this minister who decided to bring the Chief Judge into this process by doing what? By going at his initiative, starting this process, this "out-of-court settlement." I put that in quotation marks because it is very equivalent to what happens all the time. He started that process.
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What are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to sit back and accept this statement that the minister brought in as being the end result? I would suggest not, Mr Chairperson. This minister raised a thousand times more questions by bringing the statement than he answered by doing it. We still do not know the full process that occurred here. I said when we first debated in this committee: what did the minister do when he contacted Mr. Olson, and I assume he did? Did he have direction to Mr. Olson? By the way, did he hire Mr. Olson? If so, who paid for the bill or was this just some favour for past connections? Did he ask if there were other considerations, to use a good legal term in this particular case? What then happened? What did the minister's lawyer do? Phone the Chief Judge's office, and, say: I would like to meet with someone, a representative on your behalf? What was the direction of the minister to the lawyer: get me out of this bind? Come up with some agreement, so I do not have to answer questions in the House on this.
What kind of process could you start here where you know you are going to get a lawyer to contact someone who is directly responsible representing the Chief Judge?
An Honourable Member: Get me out of Estimates.
Mr. Ashton: You know, get me out of Estimates. Was this part of the directions? I do not want to keep answering those questions, but I am sure if I have the Chief Judge's agreement here, that overrides anything else. I mean this becomes an absurdity, Mr. Chairperson. The minister's actions complicate his culpability in this matter far more than even the initial incident, and the initial incident, by the way, is very clear. It is very clear that this minister attempted to use the process, attempted to add a requirement which would only fit that of one person who had been interviewed, a person who had political connections with the party in government.
This minister knew that. He got his fingers caught in the cookie jar. He then went and got the Chief Judge to come in and say what? If you read the statement, what the Chief Judge essentially says is that the Chief Judge came out of the meeting with the minister thinking that exactly what we have said all the way along is what happened. There was no misunderstanding in the perception of the Chief Judge coming out of there. So what the minister was trying to do is get the Chief Judge to do what? To back up some fabricated statement that the minister has put together, constructed, that tries to somehow say, well, maybe I said certain things and maybe the Chief Judge understood it this way, but you know, I did not really mean it that way.
Mr. Chairperson, we all know what the minister meant. We know what was the result of that meeting with the Chief Judge, because the Chief Judge then talked to other members of the committee, and they have confirmed exactly what the impression of the Chief Judge was at the initial meeting. So for the minister then to turn around and come up with an agreement--I mean this is the root problem with this--that he will speak for the Chief Judge and then they will no longer answer any more questions on that, that shows the ultimate in contempt.
This is not a simple case of the minister not having to answer questions in Question Period. It is not even a simple case of the minister being obstructionist, which he has been in this committee, it goes far beyond that. I ask you to think about this for a moment, because the government House leader (Mr. McCrae) I thought makes our point without realizing it. He turns around and says, well, it is only up to public opinion here.
I ask the government House leader to reflect on what he is saying, that a minister of the Crown does not have to answer questions. A minister of the Crown could contact the Chief Judge. A minister of the Crown can then speak for the Chief Judge in the Legislature about a matter related to Question Period. Who has politicized the Chief Judge in this process? It is the minister. I cannot think of how this minister, who likes to lecture members of the opposition on propriety, can see any way, shape or form in which it is proper for him to get up and quote in a general term the Chief Judge commenting on a Question Period of the Manitoba Legislature. He has involved the Chief Judge, I believe, in the most political part of our process, Question Period. He has done it selectively. He has done it through an odious agreement whereby he gets to speak for himself and the Chief Judge.
Members opposite wonder why we are frustrated as an opposition and have been continuing to try and get this minister to answer questions and to be responsible to the Legislature for well over a week now. Do they not understand the severity of this? Now this would not have happened if the minister had not tried to interfere in the process in the first place. But you know, we would not have spent the last week plus if the minister had not then compounded it by trying to do anything possible to stop anybody pointing the finger in his direction as being responsible for this matter.
The appropriate thing for this minister to have done, I believe initially, would have been to resign, call an independent inquiry. If he did nothing wrong, the independent inquiry would have shown that to be the case. A clear precedent for that, Ontario is in that process right now with the Solicitor General, Mr. Runciman. It was not good enough for the minister. He desperately, understanding that perhaps in the Filmon cabinet, unless you get moved out in a shuffle, you pretty well have job security for life. I mean I do not know what it would take to have someone kicked out of the Filmon cabinet.
It must be frustrating for some of the backbenchers, because I am sure some of the backbenchers must sit there and say, well, there goes another minister messing up again. But you do not have to worry about getting the call if you are a backbencher in this government. You can mess up all you want, but they have 10 rules on ministers in trouble. Number one is no one resigns; number two is no one resigns. It goes down, and it is the same response 10 times. They will not even do what other provinces do, bring in an independent investigation. You know, people have been cleared. In fact, their former federal leader was out of cabinet for a period of time. Jean Charest was forced to resign, in fact, a very similar parallel to this situation, although, I would say, less complicated.
But I ask, Mr. Chairperson, members of the government what they feel they are accomplishing by this, by the minister now, I believe, the minister, not the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh), the minister is the one who brought the Chief Judge directly into this debate by speaking for the Chief Judge. Now I want to suggest that perhaps the minister was afraid that the Chief Judge might just have spoken directly to the public. Would that not have been interesting if the Chief Judge had spoken directly to the public and that is why I think you see this whole construction of this agreement? The reason is if the Chief Judge had gone to the public, the Chief Judge, I believe, would have confirmed essentially what the other members of the selection panel have reported, would have said quite directly that the minister clearly left the impression with the Chief Judge of his attempt to participate directly, to rig the process.
The minister was afraid that he would be faced not only with the president of the Law Society and the president of the Bar Association who made public comments reporting on what was reported back to them as members of the committee but that he would have the Chief Judge who was part of the meeting saying exactly what had been reported back to the other members. That was what he was afraid of.
So what he did is he came up with this odious statement. He then tied the Chief Judge into commenting on Question Period. He has gone and tied the Chief Judge now into agreeing not to make any further statements, and now he turns around and says, ah, my hands are tied; by agreement with the Chief Judge, I cannot say anything either.
That has been the purpose of this one-week filibuster. We see the minister not wanting to answer questions based on this agreement.
Mr. Chairperson, I will say this on the record, that that agreement with the Chief Judge means nothing. It means nothing to anyone in this House who is concerned about proper process. It means nothing to any member of the public who wants to know what really went on in that case. I say to the minister that what he has done by his action, very much so, I believe, is hurt his credibility as Minister of Justice far more than the original incident ever had or would have.
I want to state, Mr. Chairperson, that this issue was raised to me this weekend by constituents, including a number of lawyers, including people who are saying, you know, we know what is wrong with this. The minister tried to rig the system, tried to use it, and when his fingers were caught in the cookie jar, instead of saying, look, I got caught, I made a mistake, I was wrong, he then turned around and essentially tried to say, well, it may look like a cookie jar, that may look like my hand, but I can speak for not only me but the other person who was there and tell you, in context, maybe it was not my hand, and if it was my hand, maybe it was not a cookie jar.
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You know, I have attended a number of court cases, and I have seen some leaps of logic in my time. I realize--and this is no offence to lawyers by the way. If you hire a lawyer, you want someone who is going to go and give you a good defence, but I have seen these kinds of constructed legal arguments where it starts off, well, you have someone accused of an assault or some crime, right. So the arguments start running from, well, first of all, was it really me there, and was it really him that was hit? Well, if it was me and if it was him, was he really hit? Well, if it was me and it was him and he was really hit--you know, you start running through all these other layers of defence. That is what the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) wants to do in this case.
He seems to think that he is in some civil case or even a criminal case, and the lawyers are sitting down and it is kind of like, well, you know, this does not have to go to court. It does not have to go public in this case. It does not have to continue to be raised in the Legislature. Hey, listen, out-of-court settlement; let us get this resolved. What is the No. 1 element of a lot of these out-of-court settlements, that people not comment on the matter any further. Hmm. I think the minister's legal training has probably tripped him up on this one here. He thought this was just like any other court case, civil or criminal. Just come to an agreement; get your lawyers to do the dirty work. It is done; it is over. When he came back in the House, it was sort of, you know, he put in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said what a good boy am I. He really thought he had it resolved. You know, hey, look, I speak not only for me, I speak for the Chief Judge--did he expect anyone to accept the veracity of that statement?
I, by the way, put this on the record. I do not believe his statement. I do not see any reason to believe it. The minister has not been consistent in his statements on this matter from day one. In fact, he confirmed my suspicion when in the statement he referred to one Question Period where he admitted he raised the issue, he raised the issue of bilingual capacity, but omitted the Question Period a few days before where he had told us that he did not raise it. I mean, it confirms to my mind--here the minister confirms through his own action that, in essence, he did raise the matter.
Mr. Chairperson, this matter is not over. This matter will not be over until this minister accepts and this government accepts that what the minister did by bringing the Chief Judge into this process was wrong, that this agreement that they have, apparently, which he will not answer to in terms of the details, quite conveniently, is an illegitimate agreement, when the minister realizes that he is going to have to answer those questions, because if he does not answer those questions, he may think he can use the majority of the government's side to defeat any motion that we bring before this committee. They have been using that majority on a number of occasions, but I can tell the minister he does not have the credibility of the people of Manitoba, and he does not have the credibility of the legal community, and if I was the minister, I would be concerned about at least having the credibility of the legal community.
He has been involved in some very difficult circumstances with the Law Society, the Bar Association, but I can tell you right now that I have talked to lawyers as recently as this weekend who say that what the minister has done with the Chief Judge, if he had any credibility before on this, has destroyed that credibility.
I say to the minister, the minister, within a matter of a week of trying to rig the judicial process, talked about electing judges. Do you think anybody believes that? Most of my constituents, they picked it up, yes, that was the guy who wanted to elect judges. Was he not the same one who was just conveniently trying to get one of his select people appointed on that? I mean, that is what has been wrong with the system for years. The minister knows that, and I say to the minister, he does not have credibility when he turns around and then gives these kinds of statements the next day.
I mean, he should talk to some of his members. I bet you they are hearing the same thing out there. You know, credibility is not saying I am the Minister of Justice; I was appointed by the Premier, so therefore I have credibility as Minister of Justice. One of the things about the parliamentary system, that it is based on, something that we are losing ground on in this province I believe, is ministerial responsibility. The Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), for example, we would not necessarily--
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
An Honourable Member: Is this relevant?
Mr. Ashton: Well, the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) is appointed as a minister, and I am just saying the minister--well, she may actually like what I am saying, I have only mentioned her title. All I am saying, Mr. Chairperson, is the minister is not only a minister in name, I would suggest despite our disagreements that she has credibility as a minister in her department. I would say that of many of her colleagues, including the government House leader (Mr. McCrae). I would have said to the Minister of Justice, before he engaged in this, I would have disagreed with some of the political things he has done. I think, there has been the case of St. Johns, but ministerial responsibility is based on an ethical code that is based on the very roots of the parliamentary system going back hundreds of years.
It used to be that ministers would resign over items for which they were not personally responsible but that they were responsible for because they were the minister, the buck stopped there, and if this happened, well, it was on their watch, so to speak, then they were responsible for it. There are literally dozens of examples of that occurring throughout history. That has been redefined by the Filmon government to the point where now we have a minister not, in this case, responsible for the actions of others. This is the minister himself who tried to rig the process, who then tried to deny it, who then tried to construct the statement and drag the Chief Judge into the process. So this minister is culpable directly. He is the one that has been responsible for his credibility as a minister, I think, certainly in the 10 years that we have seen this government in place.
We may have been critical of ministers in the past, but I do not think any minister has had this lack of credibility, particularly in a matter directly within their responsibility. We were critical of previous ministers of Justice for policy items, for negligence as we saw it--the Headingley riot and other issues. You know, we were critical and will continue to be of ministers for policy decisions that were made, either directly or indirectly, that we disagree with. We had exchanges with the ministers in the House today, but there is a big difference between the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura), where we disagree on policy.
The Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) where now I say regrettably that we not only disagree with what he did, we are basically making the case here in this committee that the minister has no more credibility because he has shown contempt for this Legislature, for this committee, I believe, for the Chief Judge, many of the legal community. I do not know, to the minister, how he can get out of this. A few weeks ago when this first arose, an easy way out was for the minister to resign, call the independent inquiry. I do not think the option of the independent inquiry is even necessarily applicable at this point in time, because in the end result what the minister has done this week to 10 days goes far beyond his original involvement.
So I say that, indeed, we have raised this as a matter of privilege. We believe this is unprecedented for a minister to refuse to answer questions asked by members of the Legislature on behalf of the people of Manitoba, because he at his own initiative agreed to gag himself, as well as the Chief Judge and then speak for the Chief Judge once, and at that point on in time say that he has nothing more to add. This is not a civil case in the court. There is no parallel for this in any courtroom. The only judgment we can make is based on the parliamentary system which I believe makes it absolutely clear that this minister is responsible not only to the Premier (Mr. Filmon) who appoints him but to this Legislature, its committees, to the House, and to its rules and traditions. I believe the minister has been negligent in each and every case.
I say to the minister: you may be able to cling in there because the Premier does not see anything wrong with your conduct. You may be able to cling in there because you are a majority on this committee that cannot outvote you, but you are doing damage every day you sit there and allow this to continue, damage to not only your own circumstance but to the Chief Judge, the legal profession and, I believe, the confidence that the people of Manitoba have in you and the court system.
I say to you, and I want to finish off on this, Mr. Chairperson, I say to the minister: please, please, please, for the sake of not only your own personal political circumstance but for the fate of the position that you hold, which I believe has responsibilities that surpass pretty well any other ministerial portfolio in this House, please stop doing this kind of damage, reflect on what is happening and do the honourable thing. I believe, in this case, you do not have the confidence of this Legislature and the people of Manitoba as Minister of Justice, and it is time to resign as the Minister of Justice.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): I am not too sure if we are going to have enough time to have the vote today, but I did want to get a few comments on the record. Listening to both the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) and the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) and having used my opportunity as a grievance recognizing the importance of this issue, I used my opportunity to grieve on this particular issue, and I will go into that in a little bit more detail at the next opportunity I am given to address the committee.
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Before I do that, we cannot underestimate the serious allegations that have been put forward. I think consistency and credibility is important, and if you listen to what the members for Thompson and St. Johns are talking about, even if you buy into your arguments, what you are in essence saying is that we have a Chief Judge that has allowed herself to be manipulated. That being the case, I would ultimately argue that the Chief Judge is just as guilty and therefore should be resigning as the Chief Judge. There is just as much merit for that primarily because, if you have a chief judge that allows that position to be manipulated, that chief judge has done a real disservice to the whole judicial system in that whole area.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being 5 p.m., time for private members' hour. Committee rise.
When this matter is before the committee, the member for Inkster will have 29 minutes remaining.