Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for your presentation and your brief.
Like Mr. Lemay, I have some concerns about your proposal and this bill, but I'm perhaps concerned for very different reasons than is my friend Mr. Lemay.
I come from Alberta. Alberta currently does not have a justice on the Supreme Court of Canada. The last incumbent from my great province, Justice Major, appeared before this committee and spoke passionately against this private member's bill. He, as I'm sure you know, is a unilingual anglophone, as am I. Under the proposed bill, but perhaps not under your proposed amendment, he would have been deemed incompetent for appointment to the Supreme Court, and I would argue that would have been a blow to Canadian jurisprudence and the Supreme Court.
I don't disagree with your answer to Mr. Petit, that he ought not straitjacket himself with his unilingualism. I appreciate that advice. But my suggestion to you is that those of us who come from western Canada do not have the opportunities to become bilingual as those of you who are fortunate enough to grow up in New Brunswick or Quebec do. So what am I to say to my constituents who are very concerned about the prospects of not having another Supreme Court appointment if either the bill, as Mr. Godin wrote it, or your proposal were to become the law?