Justice committee  I would say the answer to that, for the most part, is a cue card. All of our officers have cards on which the right to counsel, the right to be advised of the right to counsel, and so on are written in English on one side and French on the other side. This gentlemen or this lady

Justice committee  But that's okay. Once the individual is in the back of the car, they can, as the Americans say, be Mirandized. I don't think it's all that difficult a situation. I don't think the police officer has to get into a fight with a suspect and read him his rights at the same time. He c

Justice committee  To answer your last question first in terms of consequences, although I think it's extremely, incredibly important, I'm very confused as to how you could put consequences for the non-respect of a certain right. You don't have that in the Criminal Code. I can't think of anywhere i

Justice committee  Yes, but even that, that's like the beginning. You have a right to a trial in English. So, now, we will begin.

Justice committee  But he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what's part of the trial. He doesn't understand. Does he get a document or does he not get a document? Can he cross-examine in English? He doesn't know that. He doesn't know any of those things.

Justice committee  Sure.

Justice committee  No. For us it's not a question of resources. I don't see at all the question of resources, definitely not in Montreal, and definitely not in the surrounding regions of Montreal. The resources are there. It's possible you could do an English trial at the drop of a hat. The questio

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Sorry. I mean Quebec, exactly. It's highly regulated. Only one time in 23 years have I seen an interpreter whose quality was unacceptable. The judge just stopped the trial and we continued the next day with someone else. That's once in 23 years. But in terms of the clerk, ther

Justice committee  Well, I presume each province regulates its interpreters, and each province decides who is a competent interpreter. I can't believe they don't.

Justice committee  I should tell you, though, that this is one of the reasons, although perhaps not “the” reason, we've gone away from the interpreter interpreting from mouth to ear, the way it used to be. Clearly nobody heard that. Nobody was recording that. So nobody knew if the quality of the in

Justice committee  Can I just add one quick sentence? There's a certain irony when you go into a courthouse—well, at least in Montreal, and I'm sure it's the case in the other courthouses too. There's absolutely no English outside the courtroom. But when you get into the courtroom, you can speak En

Justice committee  Very quickly, we have very strict guidelines on who can be an interpreter. We don't follow the American model in which anybody can walk in and there's a voir dire held to see if the person is a competent interpreter.

Justice committee  I've never seen that problem in Montreal proper. I've heard that the problem occurred a couple of times in slightly outlying regions. Does it occur more often? I don't know. I couldn't answer that question, but you should also realize that sometimes a judge who you think is uni

Justice committee  First of all, the code could be more specific as to when you have a right to an English something. I've had many judges who've said that you don't have a right to an English preliminary inquiry, that the code says an English “trial”. I've said, “No, it doesn't. Look at the code.