John Cummins, M.P. Delta-South Richmond

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 21, 2001

But Why Was Bastarache Missing?

OTTAWA--"The rejection of the Mi'kmaq demand (by the Canadian Judicial Council) that Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache be removed from the Supreme Court of Canada means that he will not be permanently side-lined but leaves unanswered why he was side-lined on the Donald Marshall appeal," said John Cummins, M.P. (Delta-South Richmond).

An explanation for Bastarache's absence has circulated since the Marshall decision, that then Chief Justice Lamer had refused to allow the sole Maritime member of the Court to sit on the Marshall appeal. The story has gained new credibility in light of a January interview published in The Lawyers Weekly, where Bastarache indicated that he disagreed "fundamentally" with where former Chief Justice Lamer had taken the Court, and in particular, with the Court's decision in Marshall.

Constitutional convention requires the nine-member Supreme Court to have representation from every region. It is a common practice on key regional decisions to ensure the region is represented when the appeal is heard, and when the decision is written, yet that practice was not followed in Marshall. It is curious that no explanation has ever been offered for his absence.

The Mi'kmaq complaint noted that the full Court normally sits and only in extraordinary circumstances are individual judges side-lined. The Judicial Council agreed, ruling that "it is desirable that all members sit."

"Why then was Mr. Justice Bastarache denied the opportunity to sit on the Marshall appeal?"

"In the most important appeal from the Maritimes in a generation, the region was denied a voice. The already weak majority decision in Marshall would have been cast in a fundamentally different light and would have become perhaps untenable if Bastarache had been allowed to bring the knowledge, experience and wisdom of the Maritimes to bear."

"If Bastarache had been allowed to speak from the bench on Marshall rather than having been relegated to giving interviews on the subject, fishermen would have been saved from the nonsense that Dhaliwal and Nault are spouting about the Marshall decisions and from their massive scheme to transform the public fishery into a native communal fishery," concluded Cummins.

- 30 -

For more information, please contact:

John Cummins, M.P.
(613) 992-2957
(604) 970-0937 (Cell)