Ideology drives every aspect of this government's behaviour. I would guess that every appointment must be vetted for ideological conformity and every appointment must fit DEI criteria. That takes time. I expect any successor government will face a hostile, ideological bureaucracy and court. That will be Trudeau's greatest legacy.
A lawyer friend tells me too many of the applicants for judge positions are white males. A brilliant white male colleague applied and did not obtain a position. A brilliant gay female colleague applied and quickly ascended to the position. Rather than have qualified applicants fill the empty positions, the Liberals are taking the 'principled' stance of leaving them vacant until a person with a diverse background becomes available.
My hypothesis for much of the federal dysfunction is that Trudeau is an incompetent control freak. By increasing the centralization of all decision making through the PMO, he’s paralyzed the government because he’s exceeded his managerial span, capacity for decisions, and has less capacity to deal with it all than his control freak predecessor Stephen Harper.
Matt says, and rightfully so, that the federal government is not very good at federal government things. I would add that they are even worse at provincial government things. Trudeau blames the Premiers, but he shouldn’t for the most part even be involved in many issues of provincial jurisdiction. Past time for every level of government to be given the taxing authority for their jurisdictional responsibilities and those responsibilities only. Maybe the judge problem would not be a problem if the PM wasn’t sticking his fingers in areas that are really not his problem.
The question that comes to mind for me is "well, why *aren't* they making appointments?"
This might (I emphsize might) not be Trudeau's fault, if there aren't enough qualified candidates to *be* judges? (I honestly don't know).
That said, I do know (from personal experience with people close to me) that these things are often held up for political reasons (and it doesn't just happen under Liberal governments). It would not surprise me to learn there are plenty of candidates, but they just don't check the right DEI boxes so they are left on the shelf.
I am appalled that the liberals would appeal that ruling. I have nothing else to say. Other than this level of incompetency should lead every female (at minimum) to never vote for Trudeau again if you hope to have a chance of seeing your day in court if you are victimized by a violent offender.
SHAME, SHAME.....This disgusted me and hurt my soul as I can think of no reason to have gotten to this state except the candidates in the PM's mind are not 'WOKE' enough... heaven forbid.
One of the most interesting cases that is threatening to run out the clock is the Lich trial. Lich of Freedom Convoy notoriety. Stalls, delays, inability to secure courtroom space has been featured in many articles.
It would be a real stunner if Lich and her legal team apply for the dropping of charges due to due process failures.
I will finsih this sentence: "This is a woman and now a kid, and other people in cases Gallant has written about and probably others we haven’t yet heard about, needing to be told that the person that hurt them gets to go free because Trudeau and a succession of justice ministers ... "
I suspect that there are plenty of qualified candidates to chose from, but that Trudeau has a set of soft criteria, other than competence, that he wants to be met before a potential judge's name will even be considered.
The record of the Trudeau government on appointing judges in a timely fashion has been both baffling and abysmal. The most common explanation is incompetence, which is an explanation not to be dismissed. I have another theory. In 2018, the federal government established the Gender Results Framework to “track the progress made towards achieving gender equality in Canada.” The methodology is simple. What’s the male/female ratio? Statistics Canada now provides annual reports documenting the increasing proportion of judges that are female. This is how the federal government appears to be measuring “success” with judicial appointments. It is more important to have proper gender balance amongst judges than to have judges.
My suspicion is that this is creating a bottleneck in judicial appointments. Even if there are qualified male judges on tap available to be appointed, nothing is done until there is a female ready for appointment.
If my suspicion is correct, the Trudeau government would rather see people accused of rape and murder have their charges dismissed because of timeliness rather than lose the opportunity to brag about their commitment to gender equality.
In a real way, I hope my suspicion is wrong. I’d feel more comfortable with incompetence.
I have so many words but I think you have captured my visceral reaction Matt. Unfortunately a Prime Minister and Justice Minister should be able to direct and mandate that this get done, they apparently do not want to make this happen in a timely manner.
How in any sense of reality can we move forward as a country when this very specific, mandated and linear process cannot function?!
Ideology drives every aspect of this government's behaviour. I would guess that every appointment must be vetted for ideological conformity and every appointment must fit DEI criteria. That takes time. I expect any successor government will face a hostile, ideological bureaucracy and court. That will be Trudeau's greatest legacy.
A lawyer friend tells me too many of the applicants for judge positions are white males. A brilliant white male colleague applied and did not obtain a position. A brilliant gay female colleague applied and quickly ascended to the position. Rather than have qualified applicants fill the empty positions, the Liberals are taking the 'principled' stance of leaving them vacant until a person with a diverse background becomes available.
Canada Is Broken.
Part MMMCMXCIX of a series by Matt Gurney.
Yet people will still willingly vote for Trudeau.
Madness.
My hypothesis for much of the federal dysfunction is that Trudeau is an incompetent control freak. By increasing the centralization of all decision making through the PMO, he’s paralyzed the government because he’s exceeded his managerial span, capacity for decisions, and has less capacity to deal with it all than his control freak predecessor Stephen Harper.
Matt says, and rightfully so, that the federal government is not very good at federal government things. I would add that they are even worse at provincial government things. Trudeau blames the Premiers, but he shouldn’t for the most part even be involved in many issues of provincial jurisdiction. Past time for every level of government to be given the taxing authority for their jurisdictional responsibilities and those responsibilities only. Maybe the judge problem would not be a problem if the PM wasn’t sticking his fingers in areas that are really not his problem.
The question that comes to mind for me is "well, why *aren't* they making appointments?"
This might (I emphsize might) not be Trudeau's fault, if there aren't enough qualified candidates to *be* judges? (I honestly don't know).
That said, I do know (from personal experience with people close to me) that these things are often held up for political reasons (and it doesn't just happen under Liberal governments). It would not surprise me to learn there are plenty of candidates, but they just don't check the right DEI boxes so they are left on the shelf.
I am appalled that the liberals would appeal that ruling. I have nothing else to say. Other than this level of incompetency should lead every female (at minimum) to never vote for Trudeau again if you hope to have a chance of seeing your day in court if you are victimized by a violent offender.
SHAME, SHAME.....This disgusted me and hurt my soul as I can think of no reason to have gotten to this state except the candidates in the PM's mind are not 'WOKE' enough... heaven forbid.
Shortages of judges, doctors, nurses, teachers, military, but we have an abundance of politicians, bureaucrats. How does this happen? 🤯 ☄️ 🤡
Wow. My guess is that only white males are left in the potential judge pool and they don’t want to go there.
A pretty sobering read…
One of the most interesting cases that is threatening to run out the clock is the Lich trial. Lich of Freedom Convoy notoriety. Stalls, delays, inability to secure courtroom space has been featured in many articles.
It would be a real stunner if Lich and her legal team apply for the dropping of charges due to due process failures.
Just when I thought this Trudeau liberal government had hit bottom, I see a new low has been found. How does this happen?
I will finsih this sentence: "This is a woman and now a kid, and other people in cases Gallant has written about and probably others we haven’t yet heard about, needing to be told that the person that hurt them gets to go free because Trudeau and a succession of justice ministers ... "
just don't care!
I suspect that there are plenty of qualified candidates to chose from, but that Trudeau has a set of soft criteria, other than competence, that he wants to be met before a potential judge's name will even be considered.
The record of the Trudeau government on appointing judges in a timely fashion has been both baffling and abysmal. The most common explanation is incompetence, which is an explanation not to be dismissed. I have another theory. In 2018, the federal government established the Gender Results Framework to “track the progress made towards achieving gender equality in Canada.” The methodology is simple. What’s the male/female ratio? Statistics Canada now provides annual reports documenting the increasing proportion of judges that are female. This is how the federal government appears to be measuring “success” with judicial appointments. It is more important to have proper gender balance amongst judges than to have judges.
My suspicion is that this is creating a bottleneck in judicial appointments. Even if there are qualified male judges on tap available to be appointed, nothing is done until there is a female ready for appointment.
If my suspicion is correct, the Trudeau government would rather see people accused of rape and murder have their charges dismissed because of timeliness rather than lose the opportunity to brag about their commitment to gender equality.
In a real way, I hope my suspicion is wrong. I’d feel more comfortable with incompetence.
I have so many words but I think you have captured my visceral reaction Matt. Unfortunately a Prime Minister and Justice Minister should be able to direct and mandate that this get done, they apparently do not want to make this happen in a timely manner.
How in any sense of reality can we move forward as a country when this very specific, mandated and linear process cannot function?!