Official Languages Committee on May 13th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I checked with the clerk: as long as a committee member wants to speak, it is my duty as Chair to give him or her the opportunity to do so. I think that answers your question, Mr. Nadeau.

However, from what I understand, you are appealing for cooperation among committee members so that we can move forward. I'm sure the witnesses have followed our discussion with interest, but we want to hear from them this morning.

Do you agree with me that we should hear my colleagues? I think that's the wish of committee members.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Coderre spoke about his initiatives. That's good, but he did not really answer the essential question about Mr. Rothstein. I asked the question again. Mr. Rothstein was on the Liberal list, and Mr. Coderre was minister. So—

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

No I wasn't.

[An hon. member]

That's not necessary.

[The Hon. Denis Coderre]

I wasn't the minister.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'd like to know what he did at the time.

If I remember correctly, Mr. Rothstein was appointed as a Supreme Court judge two years ago. I don't remember Mr. Coderre openly opposing that appointment. So I would like to know why he was silent at that time and why he no longer is now. We're talking about barely two years ago.

Furthermore, I believe Mr. Coderre does not give the Supreme Court enough credit, and that's a bit insulting. He suggests that the Supreme Court currently isn't functioning—

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I have a point of order.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

—and that there are major problems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Coderre, do you have a point of order?

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I still have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

If you want, I can add your name to the list.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I have a point of order because there was never any question of insulting anyone, Mr. Chairman.

I would ask the member to change his remarks because I never insulted the Supreme Court. I talked about translation and other things, but I did emphasize the fact that the laws were drafted in both languages and that one had to understand the nuances of each. For that reason, we want to ensure ther is bilingualism.

No one insulted anyone here today, except you, perhaps.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Let's say I don't find there is any reason for a point of order, but the point is noted.

We'll go back to Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I simply said that he seemed to suggest that the Supreme Court was not functioning well. He also cited an example according to which it was possible for someone to lose his case before the Supreme Court because he could not be properly understood.

I think, as I previously said, that our Supreme Court has the ability to function in both languages and that the judges are able to work in both languages as well.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

That's good.

Let's move on to the last speaker on my list, if there are no additional speakers.

Mr. Chong, it's your turn.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The other problem that this motion raises is that there aren't a lot of bilingual candidates from those three provinces: Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.

So by passing this motion, the committee would be severely limiting the ability of the government to appoint a candidate from one of the other three Atlantic Canadian provinces.

The last two justices on the Supreme Court from Atlantic Canada were both from New Brunswick, so there's a strong sense out there that the Supreme Court candidate should come from one of the three other provinces. The challenge is that this severely limits the ability of the government to find a candidate from one of those three provinces, particularly, for example, from Newfoundland and Labrador. There has never been a Supreme Court justice from Newfoundland and Labrador, in part because it has only been part of Confederation since 1949. There's a sense that maybe it's time for Newfoundland and Labrador to have a judge on the Supreme Court. The challenge is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, for the government to find a distinguished judge from that province who has all the qualifications and who is also bilingual.

That's the first point I'd make. The second point I'd make is that symbols are very important. I agree with Monsieur Godin on this, and with Monsieur Rodriguez as well, that symbols are very important. But symbols without the foundational substance behind them are just facades. I think you need both. I think we, as a committee, have focused too much on the symbolic aspects of federal institutions, and we have not tackled the difficult foundational causes that create these sorts of issues. That was the point I was trying to make earlier.

The third thing I'd say is this. If you believe in the Montesquieuian division of powers between the triumvirate of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, we would not, as a legislative branch, tie the hands of the judicial branch in a way that we don't for either the executive or the legislative branches. We don't require that députés be bilingual. We don't require that members of the cabinet or the prime minister be bilingual. In practice we try that, but it's not an official requirement. In fact we don't even require that you be a jurist in order to be a candidate for the Supreme Court. Justice Ian Binnie had no judicial experience before he was appointed by the then Liberal government. That's a case in point, where there's not even a requirement to have any experience on the bench to be a candidate for the Supreme Court.

We don't have these requirements to be bilingual in the legislative or executive branches of government. Neither should we have those requirements in the judicial branch if you believe that the three branches should be holding each other in balance, as many people believe is essential to a free and fair society. If we don't even have requirements that you have experience on the bench, that you were some sort of adjudicator at some court in Canada, then it seems to be putting the cart in front of the horse to put on stipulations with respect to the other qualifications a candidate might have.

Those are the points I would make, the first being that by restricting this to only bilingual candidates, in essence we are reducing, if not eliminating, the possibility of a candidate from Newfoundland and Labrador or Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia.

Secondly, I agree that symbols are important, but what's equally, if not more, important are the foundational aspects on which these symbols rest. Symbols without these foundations are mere facades.

The third point is this. If you believe in the division of powers, what's key to a good society is to have the division of powers and these three branches of government in balance. If the legislative and executive branches of government don't have this requirement, you are putting an especial burden on the judicial branch.

Furthermore, the judicial branch presently doesn't even have a requirement that its candidates sit on the bench or have any judicial experience in order to qualify as a candidate. To put this requirement on, in some ways, is putting the cart in front of the horse.

Those are the three points I'd make.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

One speaker has been added to the list.

Mr. Yvon Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, once again, it's not a matter of symbols, it's a matter of being able to serve people in the country's two official languages. That isn't a symbol. In my opinion, that's a duty of the government. When Mr. Justice Rothstein was appointed to the Supreme Court, he appeared before our committee and promised that he would be speaking the other official language in two years. That was promised. I don't know what progress he has made now, but a promise was made. That was my second argument.

Mr. Chong contradicts himself at times. He says that the universities should force people to learn the other language. However, in the Supreme Court, we can't force the judges to learn the other language. What we can do is send a clear message to all lawyers and judges in the country that, if they want to get into the Supreme Court, they must learn both languages. That would be one way of doing things. That wouldn't just be for anglophones, but for francophones as well. If they know that it takes two languages to the get to the Supreme Court, they'll learn both languages and get to the Supreme Court in possession of both languages.

On that note, Mr. Chairman, I'd like us to move on to the vote. I move that we hold a recorded vote immediately.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Your motion is entirely in order, since you are the last speaker on my list, Mr. Godin.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I've already requested a recorded vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

We'll proceed in that manner. I'm going to ask our clerk to direct the vote.

All committee members will say whether they are for or against the motion, which reads as follows:

That the Standing Committee on Official Languages recommend that the government ensure that the judges that they appoint to the Supreme Court are bilingual, and that the adoption of this motion be recorded to the House.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

There, we've completed the study of the motion.

I would like to thank you, colleagues, for having, on the whole, stuck to remarks intended, in each speech, to raise new points. I thank you, even though this is a hot topic. I want to thank you for your cooperation.

Without further ado, we can now focus entirely on our witnesses: Mr. Lussier and Mr. Lafontaine. Mr. Lussier, who is not making his first incursion here, is Director General of the Official Languages Support Programs. Mr. Jean-Bernard Lafontaine, who is Regional Executive Director of the Atlantic region, is also with us today.

We welcome you both. I thought you were in Moncton, Mr. Lafontaine. We hope the Atlantic people are recovering from the floods. Without further ado, we'll turn the floor over to you. Thank you as well for your patience.

Would you like us to take a brief five-minute break?

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

All right.

Then we'll begin without delay. We are anxious to hear from you.

[Hubert Lussier, Director General, Official Languages Support Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll be making a few introductory remarks, my colleague as well. We are very pleased to be here. I know you have been studying the collaboration agreements for a few weeks now. For that reason, our remarks will be quite brief, because we assume you already know essentially what those agreements are. Our remarks will focus mainly on certain clarifications that we consider important.

You introduced me. I am indeed the Director General of Official Languages Support Programs, that is to say that I am responsible for designing and managing the Canadian Heritage programs that support official languages. A number of components of those programs are managed in the regions. We at Canadian Heritage have five regions, in the administrative sense of the term, of which the Atlantic is one. The Regional Executive Director is my colleague Jean-Bernard Lafontaine, who is also responsible for the official languages portfolio. He is the colleague I turn to for a regional perspective on the design of new official language policies.

He's the one who interfaces with the four other regional executive directors to provide a voice on the regional perspective. Jean-Bernard, by definition--because he's the one who delivers on the ground--developed programs we're going to talk about today. In many senses he's more able than I to provide you with the on-the-ground perspective.

What are these collaboration agreements? As you know, they are binding agreements between the Department of Canadian Heritage and 13 communities represented by 13 representative organizations. There is one in every province and territory. These agreements, which bind a federal institution to a community network, have no financial value. They are not instruments for transferring funds, but rather documents stating the values, principles and operating frameworks concerning the relationship between Canadian Heritage and those community networks. I emphasize that point because, in spite of everything, many questions and remarks that you've heard have focused on the financial aspect of our relationship.

All these agreements contain an appendix in which we specify the amount allocated to each of the 13 communities. That's what we call the envelope. That's the amount that will be paid out each year through the community collaboration component. That is part of a Canadian Heritage program. I nevertheless come back to the fact that the agreements as such are not financial transfer instruments.

What is the history of these agreements?

Since the early 1970s, there has been a collaboration between the then Secretary of State and now Canadian Heritage and communities in each region of the country, each province and territory.

Beginning in 1994, these relationships have been framed by what used to be called, from 1994 until 2004, Canada community agreements.

It is these Canada-community agreements that you've probably heard about in some of the testimony before your committee. In 2004, they became the collaboration agreements. This is a new way of framing our relationship. We changed the name of the agreements, in particular to specify that they were not financial agreements. I emphasize that point.

In 2003, an evaluation of the official languages program drew attention to what could be characterized as a deficiency. Our evaluators noted, in particular, that, between 1994 and 2004, some communities had had the opportunity, through the Canada-community agreements, to make recommendations to the minister on the use of the funding that I referred to earlier.

However, that opportunity for community members to make recommendations was not [Editor's note: inaudible], if I may use that familiar expression, to the extent that it is up to the officials of the Department of Canadian Heritage to make those recommendations. The agreements somewhat changed the situation, and also clarified certain matters that I'll explain a little later.

I'll give you a very brief overview of the progress that, in spite of everything, was made over those 10 years, in fact from 1994, the year in which these agreements were introduced. Those were very busy years from the standpoint of the incubation of certain issues that today have become important, such as community health, immigration and early childhood. These are crucial sectors that, as a result of the collaboration that the Department of Canadian Heritage had with the communities, are now on the agendas of a number of other federal departments and are now areas in which there is continuing collaboration.

It obviously isn't just the agreements and accords that made that possible, but the Department of Canadian Heritage was at the centre of a thinking process by the communities that led to developments that have now been completed.

To what do the agreements commit us, a little more specifically? On page 5 of the presentation, you'll find some of the commitments of the Department of Canadian Heritage to the formulation of concrete results for the programs, in particular the duty to be informed about the needs of the communities and to reflect them in the prioritization that is done in recommendations to the minister.

With regard to the community movement, and thus the community network, the commitments have a lot to do with the cooperation of the community environment and the ability to reflect the community's priorities in the recommendations made on priorities to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

I'll now hand over to my colleague, Jean-Bernard, before we move on to questions.