Thank you very much, Minister.
Good afternoon. It's lovely to be back with you again. Last year we started at square one to describe the process. I want to say how much I appreciate your comments and particularly your support and endorsement of this process. I know all of the members of the committee were very warmed to know that you were supportive of their work.
I will say this about the members of the committee. Each one of them is absolutely honoured to be part of this process and very dedicated to making it the fairest and most insightful but are also responsive to the need of Canadians to feel that every person who applies gets a full review and fair consideration. On their behalf, I want to again say thank you for your positive comments about the process.
This year, of course, we had the advantage of having done it before. We had one new member. Jeff Hirsch, who was the candidate for the Federation of Law Societies last year was replaced by Sheila MacPherson, who actually practices in the Northwest Territories and Iqaluit, and she quickly got up to speed on what we were doing.
One of the things we felt was that having done this before, we had come up with a pretty good working procedure. We had created some templates for our interviews with the references, for our interviews with the candidates themselves, and for ways of doing things that we reviewed but we didn't have to completely revisit. That made our time a little bit more efficient, which was good thing, because unlike last year when we were able to squeeze our work into the weeks before and after the Labour Day weekend, we were a little farther on in the fall, so people had court dates and things that were very difficult to manage. We wound up working across two weekends including the Thanksgiving weekend.
I want to say a particular thank you to the commissioner of judicial affairs and all the staff—Marc Giroux, Louise Meagher who is here, Natalie Duranleau, and the others, who were really wonderful about coming in on weekends and adjusting themselves to this necessity. I'd also like to thank the candidates who came down to Ottawa over the Thanksgiving weekend to be interviewed. That was a little bit stressful. We would like not to have quite that much pressure, but I think the more advance warning we have, the more people can make their dates and set time aside so they are not coming into conflict with pre-existing commitments.
Notwithstanding that, we did very similar work to what we had done before, in that we started by meeting with the chief justice. That was interesting too, because the first year when we met with the chief justice, we really went over in great detail the nature of the work on the Supreme Court of Canada. This time we could ask her what she wanted us to know that maybe she hadn't told us last year. We had a really wonderful conversation with her.
Again, the underlying philosophy of what we do in this committee is to try to find candidates who really can do the work of the court. The Supreme Court of Canada, as you all know very well, is unlike any other court. People not only have to work in two languages but also have to move to Ottawa. The caseload is very heavy.
I was at a symposium a couple of weeks ago, one of the Canada 150 events, about the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Stephen Breyer of the American Supreme Court was there. If you think about it, they also have nine judges for a much bigger population. He said the secret is that most law in the United States is state law, so far fewer cases are eligible to go to the Supreme Court of the United States, whereas in Canada, our criminal law is a federal jurisdiction. The workload for the court is very heavy, so we want to make sure that those candidates we recommend to the Prime Minister have a clear understanding of that workload and are able to engage in it as effectively as possible.
We did basically what we did last year. I don't want to go over all of the details again, although I'm very happy to respond to your questions. There were 14 candidates. We interviewed eight. As you know, after the interviews, the candidates go and do a French test to assess their functional bilingualism.
One of the things I think are important for you to know is that the regional basis of this particular process was western Canada, and you would be really quite astounded at how many westerners speak French and the extent to which jurists in particular in western Canada have embraced the possibility created through the Canadian Judicial Council and other bodies to learn French. It has become an integral part of their thinking in British Columbia and Alberta. It's very interesting. Mr. Boissonnault will know that the lawyers, the Association des juristes d'expression française, are very active in Alberta. We were very pleasantly surprised at the quality of French of the people we interviewed and saw.
I don't really want to go into much more detail because I'd rather answer your questions. Again, we were warmed and heartened by the quality of the candidates. The nominee, Justice Martin, is an extraordinary candidate who hits it out of the park on so many different issues. However, each one of the candidates on the short list that we gave the Prime Minister could have served with distinction on the Supreme Court of Canada. It is a very difficult job and a job unlike any other court in the country, but I think the Prime Minister would be very heartened by the quality of the legal minds that are out there and ready to serve in our highest court.
I think that I'll stop there and allow you to ask me questions because, since we've done this before already, I'd like to make sure that I'm addressing things that are new and not clear in your minds.