Late yesterday Supreme Court justice Russell Brown announced his resignation from the Court, putting an end to an ongoing Canadian Judicial Council investigation into a complaint about Brown’s alleged behaviour at a bar in an Arizona resort in late January.
The really important discussion should be about the CJC's processes. The vast majority of complaints have no prospect of getting to the review panel stage. Even when they do there is a wealth of evidence demonstrating an institutional bias. E.G. this panel was chaired by Quebec's Chief Justice Manon Savard. She was also on the previous panel for the David E. Spiro case. In two records on the CJC's website, this press release - https://cjc-ccm.ca/en/news/canadian-judicial-council-completes-review-matter-involving-honourable-de-spiro - and this news release - https://cjc-ccm.ca/en/news/report-review-panel-regarding-honourable-de-spiro - issued about five months later, I see the Council manipulating the record by belatedly adding to the press release the link to the report, and by claiming in the news release that the review panel was responsible for the decision to publish the report.
I remember that Brown's tweets prior to his appointment didn't show judicial temperament. And from his wiki, 'has expressed his views on a number of topics in a University of Alberta law faculty blog, prior to his appointment to the bench. He called the Canada Health Act “an inappropriate [federal] intrusion into sacrosanct provincial swimming pools,” referred to third party election spending limits as "odious" and "restriction on private expenditure during elections" as "objectionable", described human rights commissions as "puritanical functionaries", and described himself as a "conservative libertarian".' The reader can decide if his departure is a bad thing or not.
"Minimally responsible and principled" by Poilievre et al is an impossibility.
The really important discussion should be about the CJC's processes. The vast majority of complaints have no prospect of getting to the review panel stage. Even when they do there is a wealth of evidence demonstrating an institutional bias. E.G. this panel was chaired by Quebec's Chief Justice Manon Savard. She was also on the previous panel for the David E. Spiro case. In two records on the CJC's website, this press release - https://cjc-ccm.ca/en/news/canadian-judicial-council-completes-review-matter-involving-honourable-de-spiro - and this news release - https://cjc-ccm.ca/en/news/report-review-panel-regarding-honourable-de-spiro - issued about five months later, I see the Council manipulating the record by belatedly adding to the press release the link to the report, and by claiming in the news release that the review panel was responsible for the decision to publish the report.
I remember that Brown's tweets prior to his appointment didn't show judicial temperament. And from his wiki, 'has expressed his views on a number of topics in a University of Alberta law faculty blog, prior to his appointment to the bench. He called the Canada Health Act “an inappropriate [federal] intrusion into sacrosanct provincial swimming pools,” referred to third party election spending limits as "odious" and "restriction on private expenditure during elections" as "objectionable", described human rights commissions as "puritanical functionaries", and described himself as a "conservative libertarian".' The reader can decide if his departure is a bad thing or not.