Monsieur le président, I'll speak English in my presentation, because I want to make sure everybody can understand directly the message I'm bringing to you today and not with the aid of interpretation.
The reality is that when you are a member of a minority you need to have recourse to the courts because the protectors of minorities are not the majority. It's not because they're acting in bad faith; it's because they don't understand the needs of the minority. For the last two hundred years, minorities have had to have recourse to the courts to make sure their interests were protected. One of the courts' main responsibilities is protecting minorities. To have access to the courts, especially in issues of constitutional law, you need to have a lawyer.
What's special or different about linguistic rights is that the people who are going to court to have those rights defended usually have a very small personal interest. It's a community right. When they bring that right forward, they do not get any money in return. All they get is the respect of a right, which is why when they need to get access as the only way to get their rights respected, they have to proceed by way of the courts and they need to get financial assistance.
The reality is that when you're dealing with linguistic rights, the consequence of people not coming forward to make sure their rights are respected affects everyone in Canada. It's important to understand what a minority does and how a minority lives. The reason minorities go to court to have their linguistic rights protected is that when you're a member of a linguistic minority, especially the francophone minority outside of Quebec, every time you wake up in the morning you decide you're going to continue making efforts to live in French that day, but when you stop making those efforts that's when you have assimilation. Assimilation of francophones is simply francophones who stop making the efforts they have to make to continue living in French. It's an essential characteristic of Canada that linguistic minorities throughout the country be able to continue living in one of the two official languages.
When members of the linguistic minority--and they can be in Prince Edward Island, Vancouver, Kapuskasing, Sudbury, North Bay, Windsor--go before the courts they're saying there's a government decision or a law telling us we should not be making the effort to continue living in French. That's why we go before the courts. When that law or decision continues to stand, every day members of the francophone minority stop living in French. The result is we have weaker and weaker linguistic minorities throughout Canada.
The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that linguistic minorities are an essential feature of Canada, that the survival of linguistic minorities in Canada is essential to the survival of Canada as a country. When the court challenges program is cut what they cut is the access to the judicial system of very ordinary people to have those rights respected. The consequence--and it's a direct consequence of having cut the court challenges program--is that the assimilation rate of francophones throughout Canada outside of Quebec is going to increase. That is an irreparable harm to the community. It's an irreparable harm to the country. That's why the court challenges program is essential for Canada and must be reinstated.
Thank you.