Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner to the panel last Friday. 'I’m assuming the Conservatives are doing it to increase her profile and all the work she did on the gun registry,' says NDP MP Joe Comartin.PARLIAMENT HILL—Prime Minister Stephen Harper has positioned a high-profile Manitoba Conservative MP who led a Parliamentary battle against the federal long-gun registry as the chair of a top-secret panel of MPs that will vet candidates to fill two crucial vacancies on the Supreme Court of Canada.
Mr. Harper’s appointment of Candice Hoeppner (Portage-Lisgar, Man.) to the panel was quietly announced in a news release posted on the Justice Department’s web site last Friday, the same day the other two Conservative MPs on the panel elected her as its chair during the group’s first meeting.
The move—not announced widely through distribution of the news release to the Parliamentary Press Gallery—could spark concern in some circles that Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) may intend to fill the Supreme Court vacancies with judges whose records are more palatable to conservative members of the party’s base, who have long complained of controversial court decisions, most notably the decriminalization of abortion and legalized same-sex marriage.
NDP MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) declined to comment on or criticize Ms. Hoeppner’s appointment, in part because of the sensitive and confidential work the panel of MPs is set to begin and possibly also because of the crisis the NDP faced when its caucus was split over a private member’s bill Ms. Hoeppner introduced in the House of Commons that proposed to end the controversial long-gun registry.
The bill died after a majority of opposition MPs voted to halt its passage through the House, with six New Democrats voting to support it, and six others who had earlier supported it switching sides to vote against the bill.
“In terms of having her come in, I’m assuming the Conservatives are doing it, the PMO and Harper are doing it to increase her profile and all the work she did on the gun registry, I guess,” Mr. Comartin, the NDP representative on the panel, said. “I assume they’re saying it gives her some particular expertise in the area of judicial appointments.”
He added, however, that he’s “not upset” with her appointment. “I can think of any number of other people in that caucus who I would have wanted even less,” he said. “There are a few more now because of the larger caucus, but there were always about 20, 25 of that caucus who were really, really right wing, and right wing to the extent of they were just knee-jerk right wing and bullies at the same time, some of their conduct in the House and stuff like that. She doesn’t fall into that category fortunately.”
A Supreme Court of Canada decision paved the way for former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien’s government to go ahead with legislation it tabled in 1995 to establish the registry, ruling against claims by the provinces that the new law was an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. In part because the Firearms Act included Criminal Code provisions, a federal responsibility, the Supreme Court rejected the provincial arguments.
Ms. Hoeppner, a longtime Conservative organizer in Manitoba before she won nomination as the Portage-Lisgar candidate in 2008, came under criticism last September, after an initial Commons vote on the registry, for comments opponents claimed were dismissive of spousal violence.
“The only defence of it right now is domestic violence and suicide cases,” Ms. Hoeppner said at one point as she was campaigning for her bill. “Nobody is even saying it stops crime anymore.”
Opponents pointed out spousal assault and homicide are criminal offences.
Though Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.) has been responsible for establishing the terms of the panel and leading the initial consultations with judges, the Ontario attorney general and the Law Society of Upper Canada to strike an initial list of candidates, Mr. Harper selected the Conservatives for the ad hoc committee. It will go through the list of candidates and reduce it to six final candidates, and Mr. Harper, in collaboration with Mr. Nicholson, will make the final selections to fill the two court vacancies.
“The Prime Minister named the Conservative MPs to the panel,” Andrew Bernardo, a press aide to Mr. Nicholson, told The Hill Times in an email. He said Ms. Hoeppner was then elected chair in a way that was “similar to the process of electing a chair of a Parliamentary committee.”
Like Mr. Comartin, NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) also, perhaps uncharacteristically, declined to comment on Ms. Hoeppner’s new role. She is also Parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.).
“Actually that committee is a mystery to me,” said Mr. Martin. “And its utility kind of questionable.”
Mr. Comartin, who said he would have preferred an advisory panel made up of a minority of MPs and a majority of judges, lawyers and experts outside politics, has promised to disclose publicly whether or not the final selection of six candidates is the result of unanimous agreement or not.
The panel will interview judicial and legal experts as it conducts its secret deliberations.
The other Conservative MPs on the committee are Bob Dechert (Mississauga-Erindale, Ont.), a lawyer and founder of a committee of Ontario Conservatives in 2004 that wanted the federal Progressive Conservative Party to be more conservative, along the lines of the former Mike Harris government and the Reform Party, and lawyer Brent Rathgeber (Edmonton-St. Albert, Alta.) who was, like Mr. Dechert and Ms. Hoeppner, first elected to the Commons in 2008.
Ms. Hoeppner, who supported Mr. Harper in his 2004 Conservative leadership bid, is not a lawyer, but Mr. Comartin said that should not count against her.
“I don’t have any problem with a Parliamentarian not being a lawyer, I would just like the committee to be larger,” he said.
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Source: the Hill Times
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