Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons he wants judges who will advance his government's law-and-order objectives.
"We want to make sure we're bringing forward the laws to make sure we crack down on crime, that we make our streets and communities safer," Harper said Wednesday in Parliament's question period.
"We want to make sure our selection of judges is in correspondence with those objectives."
Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals' deputy leader, said Harper's comment "confirms our worst suspicions."
The Harper government wants to give police a voice in the selection of judges.
Various groups have criticized the Conservatives this week for their plans to put either political or ideological partisans on committees that help vet judicial candidates.
In addition, they say the Conservatives have stacked the committees so their appointees now form a majority.
"Why is there so little respect for the independence and authority of the judiciary?" Ignatieff asked.
Harper said, "it's important that we choose high-calibre judges who will help us to ensure our communities be safer."
Ignatieff quoted Peter Russell, a noted Canadian expert on the Supreme Court, who claimed the Conservatives have lowered the bar for judicial appointments.
"He said, 'They have changed the role of the advisory committee so now they do not select the most highly qualified. And there is really no merit selection going on and that is a dreadful change.'
"How can Canadians have faith that our judicial system will be fair and impartial when our selection process is now about politics and no longer about the interests of justice?" asked Ignatieff.
Harper said the judges appointed so far by his government were selected under the process put in place by the previous Liberal government.
His government's approach of selecting judges based on merit and diverse input was very different from the Liberal approach "where Benoit Corbeil ... (said) for all intents and purposes, judgeships were available to those who gave the most money to the Liberal party."
Corbeil was an official in the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party who was involved in the sponsorship scandal.
The Liberals vigorously denied Corbeil's claim when it was made in 2005.
"The fact is that no judicial appointment is made until it has gone through a committee," Prime Minister Paul Martin told reporters in an April 25, 2005 CTV.ca story.
"Right now we're only talking about an interview with one person who made allegations, and those allegations have not been proven," then-Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said.
