Good evening, Mr. Chair and gentlemen members of the committee.
My name is Louise Aucoin, and I am the President of the Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law, the FAJEF. I'm here this evening with Rénald Rémillard, our Executive Director here in Winnipeg.
FAJEF represents seven associations of French-speaking jurists representing nearly 1,200 jurists. FAJEF promotes and defends the language rights of the Francophone minority in the administration of justice in Canada. We sincerely thank you for inviting us to testify before your committee on the impact of the 2003 Action Plan for Official Languages and our expectations of the federal government with regard to the future.
FAJEF firmly believes that the action plan has had real and positive results in the justice sector. To start with, provincial and federal stakeholders are more aware of the importance of access to justice in French. Through briefs, meetings and presentations, FAJEF and its network has increased the awareness of stakeholders such as the RCMP and other police departments, legal aid services, provincial ministries of justice and the federal department of justice of the issue of French in the justice sector. Works remains to be done, of course, but the question of access to justice has a distinctly higher profile and is definitely being discussed more now than in 2002.
FAJEF and its network have also made Francophone and Acadian leaders and members of the general public, as well as major association stakeholders such as the Canadian Bar Association and the Public Legal Association of Canada, aware of the importance of access to justice in French.
The action plan has had the following results: a revitalization of FAJEF and its network; the appointment of a number of bilingual judges; legal training is now offered in French in a number of regions of Canada; legal work instruments are now being prepared in French for practitioners; the promotion of careers in law and justice; the promotion of legal services in French to Francophone litigants; more legal popularization in French and significant networking with Anglophone and Quebec legal associations such as Éducaloi.
In addition, Quebec's new policy on Canadian Francophonie has stated that justice is a new target sector.
We believe that this progress, which we consider significant, would not have been achieved without the action plan. FAJEF and its network want to take advantage of the momentum created by the plan in the justice sector. For this reason, we will now tell you about our expectations of the Government of Canada for the future.
We want the federal government to comply with Part VII of the new Official Languages Act, specifically the two-part commitment stated in section 41.
The first component of that commitment is to enhance the vitality of the Anglophone and Francophone minorities and to support their development, while the second component is to foster the full recognition and use of English and French in Canadian society. By promoting and normalizing the use of French in the justice sector in Canada and in the Francophone communities, FAJEF and its network are contributing to the two components of the federal government's commitment.
How can the federal government manage to meet that commitment or, as we say in the legal community, take positive measures to that effect?
First, by granting adequate funding so that we and our partners can continue to contribute to the development of the Francophone communities and to enhance the recognition and use of French in Canadian society as a whole in the justice sector. Second, by restoring funding for the Court Challenges Program. Surprise, surprise!