Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning.
Before I begin, I would like to respectfully acknowledge that I am on the territory described in the Robinson-Huron Treaty, part of the traditional territory of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation.
My name is Renée Fuchs, and I am the president of the Centre Victoria pour femmes. I am also a lawyer specializing in criminal law and family law. As a francophone woman born in Sudbury, I must thank you for inviting me to share with you the successes of the women using the services of the Centre Victoria pour femmes, as well as the challenges they must face.
The Centre Victoria pour femmes is established in a number of rural areas in the Sudbury and Algoma District regions, with a large number of francophones. The Centre Victoria pour femmes has just celebrated its 25th anniversary. So, for 25 years, it has been offering francophone women a complete range of services in cases of violence against women, including sexual violence. These services include individual and group support, practical assistance, group counselling, and advocacy.
The Centre Victoria pour femmes provides its services in the Greater Sudbury region and in all of the Algoma District, including Sault Ste. Marie. To give you a point of reference for how big the Algoma District is, I can tell you that it is almost the entire size of Ireland. In the Algoma District, more than one person in every eight is francophone and, here in Sudbury, one quarter of the population is francophone. That is why I would like to highlight a major deficiency in these regions in terms of access to justice in French.
I will give you one recent example that made the headlines. A woman living in the Algoma District reported to the police that she had been sexually assaulted. The Centre Victoria pour femmes was one of her supporters. In 2019, she was expecting to testify in French before the court in Sault Ste. Marie. However, her testimony never could be heard, because the judge declared a stay of proceedings due to the unreasonable delay. The unreasonable delay was mainly attributable to the fact that, because of a number of failures in the system, no francophone interpreter had been scheduled for that trial. In her reasons for decision, Justice Dunn said that, in terms of providing services in French, local practice in the Sault Ste. Marie court was “flawed”.
The judge had a little room to manoeuvre in her decision to declare a stay in proceedings. As you perhaps already know, in the Jordan decision of 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada set the entire duration of a criminal prosecution in a provincial court at 18 months. The case in Sault Ste. Marie had gone beyond 19 months.
Testifying about a traumatic event in one's own language is not a privilege, it's a right. Ontario's Courts of Justice Act and French Language Services Act require that the services provided in French be of the same quality as those provided in English and that they be equally accessible. Despite the fact that the need for an interpreter was indicated from the start of the proceedings, this woman obtained no justice. This is a systemic failure.
Although the example I have just given is more in provincial jurisdiction, it very clearly demonstrates that the rights of minority groups can sometimes be trampled on because they live in rural regions far from major centres. These fundamental rights should not be in competition.
Moreover, the Algoma District has just lost its only official bilingual judge position. A unilingual anglophone judge obtained the position.
Let me quote former Supreme Court Justice Michel Bastarache: “…a community must fight for certain fundamental rights and, to do so, it must have the courage to persevere”.
Thank you for your attention.