Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the honourable members of the committee for inviting me here today.
I am a lawyer in private practice with the Cox & Palmer law firm. I have practised law for 12 years. I personally had an opportunity to plead a case in the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Arsenault-Cameron affair in 1998.
I fully share the impressions and the testimony from Mr. Doucet regarding translation and especially regarding the defects that can arise in translation and simultaneous interpretation at the Supreme Court of Canada, particularly in cases that seek to interpret constitutional and quasi-constitutional principles in legal documents, in legislative documents or even more so, constitutional legislation as such, namely the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
As for a judge's capability to properly carry out his duties in this position, I entirely agree with Mr. Doucet inasmuch as the issue of a judge's bilingualism, in these conditions, is not a merely political issue that only deserves lip service, but it is an issue of capability and competence so that a judge can fully carry out the duties of his position.
I have prepared a text, and I'm switching over to English because I want everyone present to be able to ask me questions in whatever official language they choose.
That brings me to the next topic, official languages.
The issue we are faced with today, of ensuring that all the justices of Canada's Supreme Court can understand the people who are under the court's jurisdiction, without any help from an interpreter, in either of the two official languages, is in fact a constitutional commitment made by this government and by this Parliament along with the other Canadian provinces. It was made when these provisions were included in section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, making both official languages equal in status and equal in law.
This has to do with the equality of both official languages but, moreover, it also has to do with the equality between both official language communities that use these official languages.
I will not present the entirety of the text that was submitted, because it is fairly technical. However, as you read it, you will see that language rights have evolved to some extent. During the initial years, some adaptations had to be made. Naturally, the legislator, who had made a constitutional commitment,
that had taken formal undertakings to protect the two languages in this country, that there was a necessity to have a certain evolution over time in order to ensure true equality.... That, obviously, spilled over to the Supreme Court of Canada, starting with one of the cases, the SANB case in 1986. There were a number of cases at that time that interpreted language rights, and at that point in time, unfortunately, language rights were interpreted differently from other fundamental rights stemming from the charter. That time of having a limited interpretation of language right, or what the court called the restrictive interpretation, was based on the fact that the court felt that language rights were a political compromise; therefore, the same type of beneficial interpretation that could come out from the courts should not apply to language rights. The court said it's basically up to Parliament, it's up to the legislator, to take the necessary steps to protect those rights by formal means.
So when the Supreme Court of Canada was faced with a situation back in 1986--in that case it was subsection 19(2) of the charter, which applied to New Brunswick, on whether or not that encompassed the obligation for the judges to be able not only to have parties appear in front of them in their official language of choice, but also to be able to comprehend without the aid of an interpreter--the issue, unfortunately, was interpreted very restrictively. You will note that in that decision, which is referenced in my text, there is a strong dissidence coming from two judges, Justice Dickson and Justice Wilson. I submit that the interpretations stemming from those judges are now the case law today, starting with the Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec, the Quebec secession case, in 1998, supported by Beaulac back in 1999, and then the Arsenault-Cameron case, which I had the pleasure of arguing in 2000, which confirmed that language rights are no different from other types of rights. They're different in nature, but they don't have any different application, and therefore the courts would give it a very wide, generous interpretation, with the ultimate objective of protecting the communities that are related to such official languages.
That is the ultimate objective here: making sure that in Canada the two official linguistic communities are able to be treated equally by the institution of this Parliament, by the institution, namely, in the federal court system. That is the ultimate objective.
So I'm looking forward to answering your questions.