Plus ca change

Sigh:

The Conservative government has loaded the committees that determine who can become a judge, selecting a series of Tories including former politicians, aides to ministers, riding association officials and defeated candidates.

The influential but little-known judicial advisory committees were created in 1988 to take partisan politics out of the appointment of judges. But half -- at least 16 out of 33 -- of the people chosen by the federal justice minister as his nominees are conservative partisans, a review by The Globe and Mail has found...

Partisan appointments include defeated Tory candidates such as Mark Bettens, a firefighter from Glace Bay, N.S., whose résumé lists one year at Cape Breton University and two runs for the provincial Tories. There are three Quebeckers who worked as Tory political staffers during Brian Mulroney's government and the Conservative Party's long-time Alberta lawyer, Gerald Chipeur.

The lists initially included Mr. Harper's best friend, Calgary geologist John Weissenberger, but federal officials said Mr. Weissenberger resigned after he took a government job as Immigration Minister Diane Finley's chief of staff.