i don't like the idea of putting a law professor on the supreme court.

i've been over this before: the way you fix this is that you try and fix the balance at the lower levels, and then you promote based on whatever you want. when you're promoting a supreme court judge, it's less about qualifications (they all have the same qualifications) and more about disqualifications. but, you have to give everybody the same chance to fuck up.

the worst thing that could happen for advocates of minorities is to put in a candidate that hasn't been vetted, and then watch them fail - and that's what is bound to happen with any candidate that hasn't been vetted.

canada's judicial system is really unusually tight. it's one of the things this country really does right. and, this hokey neo-liberal american kind of identity politics type of thinking shouldn't be being serious contemplated.

we don't need to make our system more like theirs. they need to make their system more like ours.

but, are there representation issues? it's a complex problem, because you can't just pluck people out. it's a feedback loop: the less opportunities, the less representation. but, the political optics of the situation aside (and if they think voters  are going to even care, they're wrong - you do this for justice, not for votes; you do it for justice, or you don't do it), keep in mind that indigenous people spend more time in lower courts than they do at the supreme court, which is expensive to get to. the indigenous issues at the supreme court are going to be a lot broader - treaty rights, pipeline projects, that kind of thing. this government is likely to think that a "government indian" on the court will appease opposition to resource extraction (again: dream on.), but that's not the issue that the press tosses around. the issue you see in the press has to do with incarceration. how, exactly, does putting a law prof on the supreme court address an issue that exists at the lower levels?

it doesn't. it's politics. and, it's bad politics.

the real solutions lie in addressing the funding problems that this government won't address.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2017/10/23/justin-trudeau-should-name-an-indigenous-justice-to-the-supreme-court-editorial.html

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.