From all reports, Suzanne Cote brings an eminent legal background to her new role as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada.
It is quite a paradox, then, that the recent appointment of the insightful Ms. Cote to the Court was done in such a cheap and arbitrary way.
In the past number of years, there have been both a hearing process and a Selections Panel in place, in which all parties in the House of Commons could confer with the legal community and participate in the short-listing and screening of candidates for appointment to our highest court.
Not any longer. In yet another move to consolidate power and silence debate, Prime Minister Harper has now twice bypassed both the hearing and the panel process, thus squelching this wider, valuable input into these crucially important appointments.
This is shameful, and exactly the opposite of the transparency and accountability Mr. Harper was first elected on. This begs the question: Are we simply to accept that “that was then, but this is now?”
Kent Macaulay
Quadra Island
