Evidence of meeting #13 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was accused.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Counsel, Litigation Coordinator and Supervisor, Official Languages Directorate, Department of Justice
If I may, based on the wording of sections 530 and 530.1, they do not apply to appeals.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
No, I was referring only to the number of bilingual judges. I am satisfied with the answer, thank you very much.
Senior Counsel, Litigation Coordinator and Supervisor, Official Languages Directorate, Department of Justice
I see.
I would like to come back to a point you raised and specify that the Supreme Court, in the Beaulac decision, found that the proficiency of the accused in the other language is not relevant in any way. The accused may exercise his or her right and request a trial in French even if perfectly bilingual.
Senior Counsel, Litigation Coordinator and Supervisor, Official Languages Directorate, Department of Justice
In the Beaulac case, various appeal courts had dismissed the applications for a French trial, and the dismissals rested exclusively on the fact that Mr. Beaulac understood English. The Supreme Court clearly found that this factor was not relevant in any way.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
The good news, Mr. Godin, is if you commit a crime in any province, we'll get you a trial judge in French.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
We have no more questioners and we have another item here.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming today. We had you back after a year. I appreciate the extensive presentations you gave today on the issues and answering the questions. We will be dealing with this in the next number of weeks. There is a possibility you will be called back based on if we get input from other provinces and so on. I want to thank you for that.
Just so the committee knows, these officials were our witnesses for today. We have set aside next Tuesday to continue this study. Let's be frank. We have asked so far those six provinces that have submitted. None of them are terribly interested in being witnesses. They don't have anything more to say. They have said to the clerk that basically their letters speak for themselves, that they really don't think it would be useful.
We haven't heard from the other seven, the rest of the provinces and the three territories. You could ask us to follow up one more time with them.
Just as a reminder, you had other witnesses or at least the New Democrats had other witnesses last time. We have next Tuesday set aside. Thursday's meeting is cancelled because we have the presentation in the House from our special guest, the Aga Khan. Next Tuesday is available for witnesses. If you have some witnesses you'd like to see for next Tuesday, please let the clerk know and we'll work on that.
Next Thursday, the 6th I believe it is, the minister has offered to come here to talk about supplementary estimates (C), the estimates which we normally should do. Since he's available that day, I have made the executive decision that we will have him for the first hour on March 6, and then we'll have officials for the second hour, if we need them for the full time, to talk about supplementary estimates (C).
Then there will be a two-week break. When we come back from the break, we will decide either to proceed with some suggestions, or a report, or if we need to see more witnesses. I think we can have that discussion at the end of next Tuesday's meeting, if that's okay. Is everybody okay with that?
Sounds good.
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, there is no such thing as an executive decision.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
This is true. A decision was made. The minister offered to come.
That is part one today.
The second part is I need a motion regarding the second report of the subcommittee on agenda. It's been moved and it's carried.
With that, a reminder that we won't see you until next Tuesday.
Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.