Mr. Chairman, I didn't want to paint a dark picture. In fact, although seven of its judges are bilingual and only one is a unilingual anglophone, the Supreme Court will never have a unilingual francophone. To carry on the profession of lawyer or judge, you must have been educated in English. So that problem will not arise. That's the first thing.
Second, there are moments when all Supreme Court justices must attend proceedings. It's not like in the provincial superior courts or appellate courts. In those courts, there may be only certain judges who have been selected in order to be sure that they are all bilingual. On the Supreme Court of Canada, there are nine judges, and there are important cases, brought by the government, that may concern the Constitution, or other very important cases. The nine judges sit on the Supreme Court, and people must plead before the nine judges. It is therefore possible that a citizen may find himself opposite a unilingual judge.
In my view and that of our witnesses, one can be competent in interpreting the law, but what happens if the judge does not understand what the other person is saying? With all due respect to our translators and interpreters, errors can be made and negatively influence the decision the Supreme Court should take. These are the reasons for our position. It's not a matter of painting a dark picture of the Supreme Court. Parliament has passed an act that recognizes that the country is bilingual. That's all we want.