I think you're absolutely right to say that it's elementary, in a country that defends both official languages, for the highest court to be able to operate in both languages. It seems to me that's elementary. If we look at the problem at its source, judicial appointments are said to be a federal jurisdiction. Everyone knows that the government proceeded unilaterally to amend judicial appointments last November by changing the composition of the evaluation committee. On the evaluation committee, of course, they forgot to take the language provision into account.
You know that, previously, to appoint a judge—and that's a federal jurisdiction—the evaluation committee had to have a member from the Canadian Bar Association, a member from the provincial bar association, the Attorney General, a member of the judiciary and three individuals appointed by the government. They changed that way of appointing judges by designating a member of the Canadian Bar Association, a member of the provincial bar, a member of the police department, or who represents it unilaterally, and three individuals from the government. The committee was completely changed.
Do you think we could change it more in order to take language into account? Currently the Conservative government's claims are very much taken into account, but could we introduce this provision in the way judges are appointed, in the evaluation committee?