• Knowledge, skills and abilities should decide appointments
  
• Proposal amounts to affirmative action

CALGARY: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation's Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change responded today to Ottawa's consideration to appoint an aboriginal person to the Supreme Court of Canada.

"Any appointment to the bench should be based on an individual's knowledge, skills and abilities, not on their ethnicity," stated Tanis Fiss, director of the Centre.

For much of this year, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler and the Prime Minister have mulled the decision to appoint aboriginals to the Supreme Court of Canada. Now the Canadian Bar Association's aboriginal law section wants Ottawa to change the Supreme Court Act to ensure an aboriginal justice will always sit on the country's highest court.

"The proposal amounts to an affirmative action plan for Canada's courts. Canadians need to be assured their judges have a seat on the bench due to their abilities and knowledge of the law, and not because of their ethnic heritage," concluded Fiss.

Under the current system, the Prime Minister has the task of appointing judges to the high court.