Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to thank all the witnesses: Mr. Michaud, Mr. Doucet, Mr. Godin, MP, Ms. Aucoin and Mr. Rémillard.
Congratulations, Mr. Godin! This is a good step forward. I support this bill. However, in Canada, it remains a legal issue, an issue of human rights and language rights.
I would like to explain to the people who are not yet convinced of this that it is an issue of human rights,
how important it is to look at this in this way. Would you accept that a judge of music could be deaf? Would you accept that a judge in a painting exhibit could be blind? This is the opposition to this bill. The opposition to this bill are saying that there may be some judges from some parts of Canada who don't have the same background of being trained bilingually, knowing the languages well, who may be excluded in the process of selection from becoming Supreme Court judges. That is where this opposition is coming from. And that's not the right way to look at this. The way to look at it is this.
As Mr. Michaud already said, when he was a lawyer pleading before Canada's Supreme Court, one or two of the judges did not understand him—it all depends.
I went to the Supreme Court of Canada for a client--and every case at the Supreme Court of Canada is important, let's not kid ourselves--and I was not understood. I was not understood by a judge or two judges. We have to put our parochial beliefs that some judges will be excluded behind the idea that the right to be understood has to be protected.
With that in mind,
the only question I have for the lawyers is this: is it perfectly clear, after the three cases that Mr. Michaud mentioned, that according to Canadian law, in court, before a judge or when dealing with legal cases, we have the right to be understood, and not only to be heard?
Do we have the right before judges to be understood and not just heard?
I'll start in any order you want.
Time is running short.
We know your points of view very well.