Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Justice Major, for your appearance here today. We do appreciate your appearing here as a witness.
A couple of the points you did make really stood out to me. First, there is no question of the right of a litigant to be heard in their own official language. Also, you made the point about the translation obviously being probably very good at the Supreme Court of Canada. On the point about competency being the overriding goal, as a government, when we make our selections for the Supreme Court, I happen to agree with you that competency must be the overriding goal.
A point was made that at some point in a person's life they would decide that when they grew up they would want to be a Supreme Court of Canada judge, and then they would begin taking lessons in order to make themselves bilingual no matter where they were from in the country. I don't see that as realistic in any way. I don't think that's how most people's lives or careers unfold.
I wonder if you could comment on that. I know there is no typical path to the court, but maybe you could comment on why that would be an unrealistic premise.