Official Languages committee  The bilingual capability of judges is evaluated very much unofficially. Generally it's lawyers who are able to say, during an appearance, whether that person is able to understand French. That's often done by the lawyers' association, which is able to identify actual deficiencies when people appear.

Official Languages committee  That would indeed be a way. Perhaps it should also be determined whether there aren't any other ways of reaching that population for which those services are indeed important.

Official Languages committee  We have received few requests from the correctional community. That at least is what I conclude on the basis of what my AJEFs report to me. There have been presentations and discussions on the subject. Requests could of course eventually become more frequent. Everything related to the prison or correctional community is related more to careers in justice.

Official Languages committee  First, the difficulty—

Official Languages committee  That varies by province, the definition of what is bilingual and capacity, in particular. It would be very difficult to determine in some provinces, much easier in others.

Official Languages committee  In justice, the Roadmap has enabled us to focus on what I call emerging clienteles. Seniors are a growing population, as are newcomers. In the field, the lawyers associations are receiving increasing requests from people dealing with real, genuine problems. If a man or a woman has a legal problem concerning leasing or family law, for example, we try to find solutions.

Official Languages committee  There are a number of lawyers' associations, that take on different forms depending on the province. Sometimes it's a task force. Other times, there is constant communication through which, for example, they identify a particular problem in a province or region. These are unfortunate problems or situations that they try to resolve through remedial measures so that they do not reoccur.

Justice committee  Exactly. Some judges decide to take French courses. I know some who constantly listen to their radio when they commute between work and home, so as to practise their French. Training is available, but some very highly-motivated unilingual judges have become sufficiently bilingual.

Official Languages committee  The various organizations may put forward training projects, but there's no dedicated training budget. I don't know of a lot of training projects, except for legal training in French.

Official Languages committee  Awareness and tools have been identified as priorities because, in concrete terms, jurists who want to work in French need tools, models, interpretation services and so on. All these tools are very important. Obviously, the justice sector is a bit similar to the health sector in that there are a lot of stakeholders and various departments of justice.

Official Languages committee  A number of associations of French-language jurists have been in existence for a long time, including Ontario's, AJEFO, which has been around for nearly 25 years. Five years ago, the network of associations of French-language jurists was operating on a much smaller scale because it had very few resources.

Official Languages committee  Access to justice in French has always been FAJEF's core principle. That's our starting point. Our principle is not to reduce access to justice. For a jurist, that's an essential point. We see that constitutional rights are extremely important. Having access to the courts to defend our constitutional rights is a core principle.

Official Languages committee  You're hitting on a very important point. Challenges are an extremely important tool for community development. We want to make demands. We all know the history of Francophones outside Quebec over the past 100 years or so. Since the Charter was passed, since section 23, we've been able to get our own schools.

Official Languages committee  Jurists take action in two areas: first, assistance for the development of language rights, that is to say finding the necessary tools to make progress in this area, but also in the justice community, and a distinction must be drawn between the two. The justice community comprises the police departments, the right to appear before the courts, such as the Court of Queen's Bench or the Provincial Court, and also commissions.

Justice committee  Here's the only possible answer: ultimately, the Supreme Court is the arbitrator as to whether or not an act is constitutional. It's really up to the Supreme Court to determine whether an act is constitutional or unconstitutional.