I would not want to judge Justice Rothstein in any way, but I believe that he is still using translation. I do not know whether he has learned French. Learning French for use in a social setting is one thing, but learning French so as to be able to hear court cases is something else.
I speak a little bit of Spanish, but I could not hear a court case in Spanish. However, if I wanted to be appointed to the Court of Appeals in Madrid, I would make sure that I could speak Spanish. We are told that court appointments are often made on the basis of competence. In my opinion, in a Canadian setting, with the legislation that we have and with our interpretation of bilingual legislation, to be competent to sit as a justice of the Supreme Court one must understand both languages.
If we tell the people that those are the requirements, I am confident that my colleagues, the anglophone lawyers who practise in various Canadian provinces will get organized, if they have an ambition to be appointed to the Supreme Court, so that they learn both languages. I am sure that Julie Payette, before becoming an astronaut, had decided to use all the means that would help her to get there. The same applies to anyone who wants to be appointed to the Supreme Court.