Sometime in the last century, I used to be president of the previous federal program that was helping minorities. I sat for five years as chairman of the committee of official languages. I replaced Mr. Goldbloom after he was named as official languages commissioner. I replaced him as a volunteer there. On that committee, we had strong Quebec representation from the minority, and we were then aware of some of the problems... I'm not a member of the Quebec bar, I wouldn't know. I still have friends at the last meeting of the new program last November. I was pleased to meet Casper Bloom, who used to be one of my committee members in those years.
I suppose in many provinces there are still problems because if the ministry or department of justice of a province takes the position that they don't have to be generous in their interpretation of language rights, then there are all kinds of interpretation that will be a problem for the accused and his or her lawyer.
I'll give you an example. When I went in front of Justice Brown and won in 2011 a good interpretation of the language rights under Alberta law, she really laughed in both languages because her judgment was in both languages about the interpretation given by Justice Alberta on language rights. She said it was like clapping with one hand, hoping to hear a sound. I was sure that the case would be appealed, but obviously the department didn't want to take a chance with that kind of judgment. They waited two years to take back by regulation without public debate whatever had been gained. When the appeal period was finished, I wrote to the Department of Justice of Alberta and said that since they did not appeal a decision, they should at least amend the manual of transcripts so that French language proceedings will be considered. They said they didn't think it was necessary. They said that maybe the opposite would happen where a person would testify in English in a French trial, and maybe it won't appear in the transcript.
He didn't answer my other letter. First of all, it would be against your policy that if it's not English, you put those quotations. It means it has to be in English, either the invitation or the original language. Second of all, I've never seen in Alberta a transcript where somebody would have been speaking in English and it would not be in the transcript. It would be replaced by “foreign language spoken”.