Jamie Sarkonak: Liberal diversity mandates must end if we’re to solve the judge shortage
2025/11/03 2 Comments
Not sure if there is real evidence for the assertion “focus on diversity necessarily comes at the expense of excellence” and citing one example rather than a broader sample does not cut it. The shortages assertion may or may not be true, as the government has a record in many areas of not meeting targets and levels:
…This tends to involve standard-bending because the pool of bench-eligible senior lawyers is going to be more white and more male than the country as a whole. The senior tiers of any profession reflect the demographics of students in professional schools 40 years ago, not today. While excellent candidates can be found from all walks of life, the Liberal focus on diversity necessarily comes at the expense of excellence. And because the Liberals are obsessed with maintaining an acceptable ratio of white male to “diverse” appointees, we can infer that they’d rather leave some seats empty until a correct number of diverse judges can be put forward at the same time. Shortages ensue….
Source: Jamie Sarkonak: Liberal diversity mandates must end if we’re to solve the judge shortage
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
I don’t think there is much doubt that there is a shortage of judges, at least in Ontario (I don’t know about other provinces). But the solution, at least to this economist, is to raise wages. The problem is that the ratio of lawyer earnings to judge earnings is out of balance. DEI is a fig leaf, to my way of looking at it.
Thanks for flagging that angle. Likely has a more material impact.