Members of the committee, Mr. Chairman, good morning, bonjour.
On behalf of the Quebec Community Groups Network, the QCGN, and its member organizations, I wish to thank you for inviting me to speak to you about the ramifications of the government's decision to abolish the court challenges program.
My name is Sylvia Martin-Laforge,
and I am the Director General of the Quebec Community Groups Network.
The network currently brings together 22 sectoral and regional organizations from the English-speaking minority communities of Quebec. The QCGN was established in 1995 and promotes the vitality of English-speaking minority communities.
I'll do my best with the few minutes that have been allocated to me today to demonstrate some of the successes of the CCP and its importance to English-speaking communities of Quebec.
As I said, the network was established in 1995. It has been an active member of the program since 2001. The QCGN has also had a representative sitting on the CCP's advisory committee on linguistic rights since 2002. This advisory committee keeps the court challenges program aware of the preoccupations of its members, particularly on behalf of both official language minority communities.
Let me be up front. I guess it's no surprise to you that the QCGN supports the CCP in its entirety and hopes that the Government of Canada will acknowledge the detrimental impact of its decision and act immediately to reinstate the program. Had the government consulted the QCGN or any member of its organization prior to the cancellation of the program, the government would have realized that it had monumental impacts for advancement of the rights of English-speaking minorities of Quebec.
Here are a few representative examples. In Chiasson v. Quebec, the Quebec Superior Court held that there were limits on the power of the Office de la langue française. It declared that the charter of the French language did not allow the Office de la langue française to prevent any employer from providing English-language programs in the workplace where French-language programs were already available to employees.
In Quebec v. Blaikie, the portion of the same law that made French the only language for all provincial laws enacted and the only language of Quebec courts was also struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. This example provided the groundwork to allow anglophones in Quebec the fundamental right to be heard in the language of their choice before the courts of Quebec.
As a follow-up to Quebec v. Blaikie, the Quebec Court of Appeal, in its decision rendered in the case of Cross in 1998, held that the government, in particular the Attorney General, had the duty to assign cases to a crown counsel who could conduct the proceedings in the official language chosen by the accused.
These cases are examples of the advancement of rights of the English-speaking minority in Quebec. In these instances, those petitioning the courts to have their rights recognized did not have the financial means to do so. The court challenges program helped them achieve the justice they sought. I wonder how these decisions could have been rendered without financial assistance from the CCP.
The successes of both official language minority communities are also important to the vitality of English-speaking communities of Quebec. Many examples—as in the case of Doucet-Boudreau v. Nova Scotia, which found that the government had the duty to create institutional structures to ensure quality education for children of official language minorities—have given us the opportunity to build bridges with francophone minority communities across Canada and learn from their experience to the benefit of the English-speaking minorities of Quebec.
Predicting the future is never an exact science, and that is particularly true with respect to both politics and law. I'm sure you would agree with that. One can never have an idea of when something untoward might happen—a law passed, a workplace rule introduced, an SOS Montfort of our own—that goes against one's constitutional rights.
The beliefs expressed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as in the Official Languages Act form the basis of Canadian society and guarantee the right to minority communities to challenge any element of legislation or action taken that goes against those fundamental principles.
It has often been said that governments exist to protect the rights of minorities, or that a democracy can be measured by how well it treats its minorities. The QCGN hopes that the Government of Canada will abide by that principle in the future.
Last, I wish to reiterate the importance for the Government of Canada to make a better effort to consult at times when it chooses to make major changes that will affect official languages in minority communities. Such practice could have avoided the controversy that arose from the cancellation of the court challenges program.
I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for granting me the opportunity to speak to you today. I hope that my appearance marks the beginning of a dialogue with this committee on this and other matters pertaining to the advancement of linguistic duality in Canada and English-speaking minority rights in Canada.
Thank you. I look forward to questions.