Trudeau's changes to the supreme court

[dre]

A no. Not without diluting the definition of 'talented' to be point of meaninglessness. Also what people seem to ignore is the bilingualism requirement greatly reduces the 'diversity' of the pool because the vast majority of the candidate will be francophones from Quebec. It is unacceptable to vast majority of Canadians to have a SCC consisting only of francophones from Quebec so the actual pool of qualified bilingual non-Quebec francophones will be tiny.

You're making the assumption that there isn't 9 people in the pool that meet your criteria. That may or may not be true, but its no necessarily true.

And the funny thing is, its you and Argus that are up in arms about this, but both of you constantly ramble on about the courts ignore the law anyways and just "do whatever they feel like". So I kinda wonder why you even care about legal acumen if you feel that way. But hey! Lets get down to the real point. What you guys are REALLY worried about is that bilingual judges will be on average less conservative and more liberal. At least thats a salient and fair point, you should have just come out and said it.

IN ANY CASE, this is much to do about nothing, because the Liberals can appoint whoever they want. They could only appoint judges that are over 6 feet tall and have brown hair and green eyes, if thats what they wanted to do. And when the Conservatives take back over in a term or two, they will get to appoint whoever they want as well.

Trudeau will get a couple of appointments during his tenure, and we will end up with a couple of bilingual judges out of 9. OH MY GOD THE SKY IS FALLING. We dont have a merit system NOW anyways. Its not like the pool is analyzed to find the very most qualified justice. Some politicians and their rich friends, and some lobbiests get together and decide based on whatever criteria want to.

Edited August 6, 2016 by dre

[TimG]

You're making the assumption that there isn't 9 people in the pool that meet your criteria.

If your pool criteria leaves you with only 9 that meet the arbitrary minimum criteria then the selection process it reduced to taking whoever is left no matter what other criteria may be relevant. A better process is make bilingualism one of many criteria that is weighed when selecting a judge. Making it an upfront requirement is ridiculous.

And the funny thing is, its you and Argus that are up in arms about this, but both of you constantly ramble on about the courts ignore the law anyways and just "do whatever they feel like".

What I want is judges to stop inventing new constitutional entitlements whenever they hear a sob story. Judges appointed because they fulfill a diversity quota are more likely to expand the scope of the completely ungovernable entitlement state which the SCC seems so keen to establish.

the Liberals can appoint whoever they want.

SCC vetod one the Conservative's appointments because they were so concerned about his "legal acumen" that they decided to create a completely non-nonsensical reading of the constitution in order to justify the dismissal.

Trudeau will get a couple of appointments during his tenure, and we will end up with a couple of bilingual judges out of 9.

So you are assuming it will be reversed by whoever follows Trudeau then? Edited August 7, 2016 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Bilingualism isn't an arbitrary criteria.

It's also not that the case that you're left with so few candidates. The number of people who are bilingual in the general population cannot be generalized to the sub-segment of he population who are judges eligible for the SCC.

[TimG]

The number of people who are bilingual in the general population cannot be generalized to the sub-segment of he population who are judges eligible for the SCC.

And most of those who are bilingual grew up in Quebec or Eastern Ontario which makes the SCC even less representative that it is already forced to be because of the pool of candidates. That is why imposing nonsense criteria for purposes of political pandering is a bad idea.

[dre]

So you are assuming it will be reversed by whoever follows Trudeau then?

Of course it will.

[Argus]

And the funny thing is, its you and Argus that are up in arms about this, but both of you constantly ramble on about the courts ignore the law anyways and just "do whatever they feel like". So I kinda wonder why you even care about legal acumen if you feel that way. But hey! Lets get down to the real point. What you guys are REALLY worried about is that bilingual judges will be on average less conservative and more liberal. At least thats a salient and fair point, you should have just come out and said it.

But the reason we have judges who ignore the written law in favour of their own ideology is because of the habit of appointing judges due to ideology and geography rather than merit in the first place. There are few legal scholars on the supreme court, few whose writings are admired by other lawyers. So just because things are bad enough as is that's no reason to support making it even worse by paternalistically patting some little black lesbian on the head and appointing her to the Supreme Court BECAUSE she's a Black lesbian - and a bilingual one at that. (TRIPLE SCORE! says Trudeau).

The very notion that the Supreme Court should be in some way diverse and representative is totally ridiculous unless, of course, you want the court to be creating and changing laws based on social preference and ideology. Clearly the Liberals do want this, and are adjusting its makeup to make certain those laws and changes are done by a court with a very liberal mindset.

But the Supreme Court's only task should be one akin to technocrats examining the fine points of law and rendering unemotional and unbiased decisions based on the constitution. Does anyone care about the diversity of a group of accountants or engineers? Of course not! They should have no more care about a group of judges.

[Smallc]

But the reason we have judges who ignore the written law in favour of their own ideology

Citation?

[SpankyMcFarland]

My best friend immigrated to Canada from Ireland and sent his four kids through the French system (not immersion) in Burlington, Ontario. Three are completely bilingual adults now and two speak French at work. It can be done.

[SpankyMcFarland]

Any bilingual country that has English as one of its languages will struggle to keep the other alive these days.

[cybercoma]

And most of those who are bilingual grew up in Quebec or Eastern Ontario which makes the SCC even less representative that it is already forced to be because of the pool of candidates. That is why imposing nonsense criteria for purposes of political pandering is a bad idea.

Most of the population of Canada lives in Ontario and Quebec.

[Argus]

My best friend immigrated to Canada from Ireland and sent his four kids through the French system (not immersion) in Burlington, Ontario. Three are completely bilingual adults now and two speak French at work. It can be done.

It CAN be done. Anything CAN be done. But how good an idea is it? What use is French in Burlington anyway?