Official Languages Committee on Dec. 4th, 2013

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

At the end of February.

I will continue to read the motion:

[...] for a two-hour televised meeting.

Here is the wording of the motion that had been submitted to the clerk. I would like to add, at the end of the motion: "to discuss new programming since the recent budget cuts".

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

The motion is now before us.

Any debate?

All those in favour of the motion? Opposed?

(Motion agreed to)

The clerk will contact

CBC to invite Mr. Lacroix to appear before the end of February 2014.

Thank you.

Mr. Godin, do you have a third motion to move?

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

Yes, it reads as follows:

That the committee invite the Minister of Justice to appear before the committee before the end of February 2014 to report on his department's strategy for implementing the recommendations of the Commissioner of Official Languages further to his study on access to justice in both official languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We will now go to debate.

Mr. Godin, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

From what has been heard in the news, and what the data and studies indicate, bilingualism has not been doing all that well over the last few years. The government's duty is to uphold the Official Languages Act and offer services in both languages.

A law passed about 25 years ago states that the Federal Court must hold its hearings in both official languages, in the language chosen by its clients. The same thing holds for the Federal Court of Appeal.

The Commissioner of Official Languages conducted a study on access to justice in both official languages and made recommendations on this matter. Mr. Gourde talked earlier about safety, but here, we are talking about official languages. Is he going to say that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights should do this study? What we are really dealing with here is access to justice in both official languages. It would be worthwhile for the Minister of Justice to come and explain his strategy to us and what he intends to do. It has been said that the number of francophones who learn English is higher. Mr. Daniel will be happy to hear it. However, the percentage of anglophones who learn French is going down.

We talked about Supreme Court justices. Lawyers' organizations throughout the country have said that there is a big enough pool of bilingual lawyers to support the motion on bilingual Supreme Court justices. It was the government who said that there weren't enough. Perhaps enough bilingual people or francophones have not been appointed to the Federal Court. Perhaps it was not sufficiently forward-looking. It was the government that argued that the pool of bilingual lawyers was not big enough.

There is also the Commissioner of Official Languages. He is mandated to conduct studies and made recommendations in this matter. I don't see why the government would refuse to have a minister come before our committee. What are our committees good for, if ministers don't want to appear before them and answer our questions?

Mr. Chair, we should ask you to move another bill to require that ministers appear before committees. That would be a great initiative coming from you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I already have enough work to do.

[Some hon. members]

Oh! Oh!

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

With this government, I understand.

Seriously, I don't think that our request is beyond the pale. It's normal for ministers to appear before committees and explain themselves. If the government refuses yet again, that shows that it's not transparent, that it's not ready to answer Canadians' questions.

I ask you to support this motion, which is very simple. It's normal to ask a minister to come before a committee and explain him or herself. This motion is really about official languages, without forgetting that the commissioner tabled a report containing recommendations in this matter. Besides, Canadian legal experts said that justice must be accessible in both languages. If the Conservative government refuses to support this motion, that will prove that it has a lack of respect for both official languages. It's blatant and that is what it is doing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you.

I'd just like to share with the committee that as an Anglo-Québécois I can get legal services in both languages in my home province. I would hope that at the federal level we would protect the minority language as much as they do in Quebec and that we would be able to offer these services in both languages.

This is a very simple request: to have the Minister of Justice appear and tell us about the strategy for implementing that. It's a very fragile relationship that we have and we should protect it and take care that we respect the engagements we have taken on over the past 150 years of our history. This plays a part in it. I think the minister shouldn't be afraid of coming before our committee and explaining to us his strategy for offering both official languages for justice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nicholls.

Is there any further debate on the amendment moved by Monsieur Godin?

Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

We are going to vote against this proposal, simply because we believe that the issue of access to justice for all Canadians is a matter for the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, until otherwise proven.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Very well. Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

I assume you want to have a vote, or...?

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

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Yes, Mr. Godin?

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

Did I correctly understand that this has nothing to do with official languages? I had to go get myself a glass of water.

If possible, Chair, could we ask Mr. Gourde to repeat himself? I would like to hear what he said. If he is unwilling, that's all right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Ms. St-Denis, you have the floor.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I wanted to ask the same question as Mr. Godin.

If we invite the Minister of Justice to appear, it's so that we may discuss the official languages commissioner's recommendations with him. Does this come under justice or official languages?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

It is not the committee chair's role to ask a member to answer questions.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I am asking a question; I must address it to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

All right.

Does anybody else want to comment?

Monsieur Godin and then Mr. Benskin.

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

Through you, Mr. Chair, we are asking Mr. Gourde to repeat what he said. He does not have to do so. But we must address the question to you. I thought I heard him say that this issue does not pertain to official languages, but rather justice.

Of course, we wish to speak to the Minister of Justice. It is quite normal for different ministers to be invited to appear before our committee. We do not wish to discuss the number of people that will be incarcerated nor the number of prisons that will be built with the Minister of Justice. We simply wish to know what he plans to do about access to justice in both official languages. This issue does not fall under the mandate of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, but rather the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

As Ms. St-Denis correctly stated, the official languages commissioner did not state that this issue did not fall under his jurisdiction and that he would not deal with it. He produced a report and made recommendations. We would like to know what the minister is prepared to do in response to the official languages commissioner's recommendations. That falls under our mandate.

If you are claiming that this is not the case, well, you are stuck in the St. Lawrence and you will not be able to get out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

Mr. Benskin, you have the floor.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

There are a couple of things that have jumped out at me during these last discussions, one of them being that because of the discussions we have on the search and rescue stations, because of the discussions we'd like to have with Justice, these aren't matters of official languages.

This just kind of makes my head spin a bit, because we just went through a day and half with the Commissioner of Official Languages, who essentially said that it is the responsibility of this government—and when I say “this government”, I'm talking about the government and Parliament—for us as leaders in this country to set an example, to take on a leadership role on the question and the issues of official languages.

The questions and the issues of official languages do not sit in a little box by themselves in this committee. This affects every single, solitary thing that we do. It affects justice. It affects arts and culture. It affects the environment. It affects everything, because if we don't have people who work in those areas in both languages, either for the government or within different organizations, we have people who are affected directly by that.

In terms of justice, there are people from one language or the other who want to be assured that the arguments they're making are both understood by them and can be expressed by them the best way they can. If that's not a question for this committee, I don't know what is.

In terms of search and rescue, the issue isn't simply, as my colleague Pierre Dionne Labelle said, a matter of language. It's a question of the leadership of this government—that we put forward to other Canadians the importance of both official languages in this country. If we are saying that it is better to save a penny here and risk potentially losing a few lives because it's more efficient to have somebody who is a C, D1, A, B, C, D, H, Z level-French in Halifax responding to these, as opposed to somebody who is competent, who exists already in the Quebec search and rescue station, what does that say? What does that say to Canadians about the importance of linguistic duality in this country? What does that say about this committee when we're not even willing to step up and say, “Let's have a discussion about it”?

It boggles my mind. It really does. It boggles my mind how we in this committee can sit and say that this is not the purview of this committee. To sit down and have a conversation with the Minister of Justice to ask him what kind of strategic plan he has in place, or envision, to make sure that official languages are represented right across this country? Yes, every Canadian has the right to access to justice. What we're talking about is, do they have that access to justice in the language of their choice, according to the laws of this country and according to the spirit of official languages and linguistic duality? That's what we're saying.

Is it not irresponsible to find out from the people who are going to be affected by the closure of the search and rescue station in Quebec…is it not important enough to sit and have a discussion about this?

I'm speaking to the motion at hand, and I'm using the conversations we've been having over this table the last hour or so as an example of the limitations being put on this committee to do its job.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Benskin.

Mr. Dionne Labelle, you have the floor.