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A Canadian Road To Hell Paved With Court Decisions
By
Bob Orrick
Recent rulings by Canadian courts have caused normally stoic citizens of the world's second largest country to become a bit more aware of just how powerful the judges are and how little Canadians can do about changing the status quo.
Canadian culture is overwhelmed by American television and from watching the highly charged Americans, Canadians, slowly but surely, take on some of their Southern cousins' patina. One such area is in the appointment of judges. In the United States, Supreme Court judges undergo a rigorous 'under-the-microscope' check into their background with a good look at their past case decisions. The Americans, it would appear, try to ensure that those elevated to the high court arrive untainted by scandal or by extreme, unpopular decisions. In other words, the vetting of the applicants is done to ensure that they represent the mores of the American society. As times change, so do the mores but essentially the American system works well enough.
What does not work well enough is the Canadian system of appointing Supreme Court judges. In Canada, the prime minister has sole discretion in the appointments. Granted, the PM has input from others who have put forward a candidate but in the end, the PM accepts or rejects and appoints his choice. In a word, the PM is a dictator who is beholden to no one.
Some Canadians, and the number appears to be growing, are beginning to chaff at the dictatorial aspects of Canada's current prime minister. Not only in the area of Supreme Court appointments but in other areas as well. For instance, within his own political party, where Members of Parliament are told what to do, when to do it and how to do it. The 'it' is vote on a Commons' bill. It is very much a case of do as I say; it is not, as one would expect, a situation where the elected MP voices or represents constituents, the same constituents who elected the MP in the first place. The world looks with disdain at dictators, yet Canada has one and nobody outside of the country seems much to care. Granted, Canada's prime minister is not in the same league as Liberia's Charles Taylor.
Imagine if Canada's Supreme Court judges were subjected to a vetting process that resembles the United States system. Imagine a candidate for Canada's Supreme Court being grilled by a joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons composed of 'ordinary' members. Rather than have the committee stacked with lawyers-turned-politicians [not a good mix at any time] who would see only their own profession and would likely pump for their type of candidate. If the 'mores' of Canadian society is to be understood and respected in the Supreme Court judges, then any vetting committee must be made up of 'ordinary' Canadians.
This country would be better off, in my opinion, if more elected representatives were from the kitchens, the fields, the factories, the warehouses, the markets, and the offices of the land than is much the case today when lawyers and union representatives and business leaders are in the foreground. There is nothing wrong with lawyers, union reps and business types but to have an elected body such as a legislature too deep in such types, the balance becomes rather skewed.
The successful Supreme Court candidate would still be 'appointed' by the prime minister but only after a searching vetting. The high court would then more likely represent Canadians coast to coast to coast and less likely the prime minister's political bent. Gone would be the days when the Supreme Court would be stacked with liberals or conservatives depending on who the prime minister of the day was. In its place would be a truly representative court stocked with quality judges who have demonstrated by their history of cases judged, to be fair. Of course, all this presupposes that the country-killing Charter of Rights and Wrongs is turfed in favour of a return to common sense. Sadly, that is unlikely to happen as more and more liberals, socialists, and do-gooders find more and more ways to convince the existing courts to right a perceived wrong and to demand, as the Ontario Supreme Court did only a fortnight or so ago, that Ottawa rewrite legislation. The writing of legislation is the responsibility of the legislators, not the courts. The courts' responsibility is to interpret that legislation but not to demand that it be rewritten to reflect their personal bias.
As someone once said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Canada is fast becoming a hellish place to live; and not all of its stupendous natural beauty can overcome that definite road to hell.
Bob Orrick is a private tutor of English grammar, literature, poetry and Canadian history to off-shore youngsters. His pupils hail from such places as Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Venezuela. He was previously in international marketing, was a ministerial assistant to a provincial cabinet minister, spent a few years as a reporter then editor of a community newspaper and enjoyed a career in the Royal Canadian Navy.
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