Thank you. The Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law is pleased to be here today.
Allow me to briefly introduce our association. Seven francophone lawyer's associations comprise the FAJEF. Its mandate is to promote and defend the language rights of francophones in minority situations, particularly, but not exclusively, with regard to the administration of justice.
For those who may be wondering whether there are many bilingual or francophone lawyers in Canada, I'd like to point out that there are French-speaking jurists' associations in the four western provinces, in Ontario, in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia. The seven francophone jurists' associations represent approximately 1,350 francophone jurists.
The FAJEF is also a member of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, the FCFA, and it works in close cooperation with the FCFA. In fact, Ms. Diane Côté, responsible for government relations for the FCFA, is here today.
To begin, I would like to state unequivocally that the FAJEF, strongly supports Bill C-232, as does the FCFA, because we believe Supreme Court justices should all be functionally bilingual, for two main reasons.
First, as Mr. Godin stated, as the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court is frequently called upon to interpret French and English-language versions of federal legislation as well as that of a number of provinces and territories in order to determine which version of an act best reflects the legislator's intent. In this context, we believe that bilingualism should not be simply considered an asset but rather an essential skill and mandatory criterion for an appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Second, if the French language is to truly have equal status to English at the Supreme Court of Canada, as it should, in fact, francophone individuals subject to trial should be heard and understood without interpretation, as is the case for anglophones today. We should have no double standards, especially not before the highest court in Canada.
We certainly do not believe it is unrealistic to demand that only bilingual justices sit on the Supreme Court of Canada, especially given that there currently are already eight bilingual judges out of nine. Not much would be required for all nine justices to be bilingual.
We believe this to be realistic, because even in provinces that are largely anglophone, for instance in western Canada and the Territories, more and more judges' panels have the capacity to hear French cases, without interpretation, at the appeal court level.
Over the last two years, a number of cases were heard without interpretation: the Halotier case, before the Yukon Court of Appeal; the Rémillard case before the Manitoba Court of Appeal; FFT versus NWT; the Caron case. These are all French cases which proceeded without interpretation.
So, if francophones can be heard in French without interpretation before courts of appeal in mainly anglophone provinces and territories like in Alberta, Manitoba, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, why would that not be possible before the Supreme Court of Canada?
In closing, in Canada, regional representation is viewed as an essential criterion—regional representation is considered important—in the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court of Canada. So, we have three justices from Quebec, three from Ontario, one from the Maritime provinces and two from the western provinces.
No one is calling this criterion into question. It is a limitation, in a way. However, we believe that when it comes to language rights and the status of French and English within the Canadian legal system, the criterion of mandatory bilingualism for justices on the Supreme Court of Canada is just as important if not more so than that of regional representation. In essence, they are the very cornerstones of the Canadian federal pact.
I believe we can say that the world has changed a great deal since the Official Languages Act was drafted. Over the last 40 years, we've seen significant progress in the area of language rights. I believe the next step would be to support Mr. Godin's bill to make bilingualism a mandatory requirement for Supreme Court justices.
Thank you.