Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Andrée Duchesne, Senior Counsel and Manager of the Justice in Official Languages Unit within Justice Canada's Office of la Francophonie, Justice in Official Languages and Legal Dualism. I am here with my colleague, Linda DuPont, Legal Counsel within the same unit.
As you know, Justice Canada is one of the partners of the roadmap. Our office, together with the department’s Programs Branch, manages the programs identified in the roadmap, including the Justice in Both Official Languages Support Fund and the Contraventions Act Fund. Under the roadmap, justice is one of five priority service sectors for official language minority communities.
The justice sector, traditionally considered to be concerned mainly with judges, lawyers, and the court system, is in fact much broader in scope. It is first and foremost a sector that provides services to the population, which involves many levels of interaction. Think only of social workers, police officers, probation officers, mediators, or community organizations that provide education and guidance to seniors, new immigrants, at-risk youth, and other groups.
More and more Canadians faced with a legal problem choose to defend their own rights and interests, putting additional pressure on the system for easy-to-understand and accessible legal information services in both official languages. Departmental data supports this: Canadians are increasingly looking for relevant legal information to help them take care of a problem quickly at the lowest cost possible, both to the justice system and to their own wallet.
Allow me first to provide you with some background to the consultation mechanism that Justice Canada established nearly 10 years ago and that enables us to work closely with our government and non-government partners. We co-chair the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Access to Justice in Both Official Languages, and we chair the Advisory Committee on Access to Justice in Both Official Languages. Both groups meet on a yearly basis. The FPT working group’s meeting took place on February 16 and 17, 2012, and the advisory committee will meet on March 15 and 16. The advisory committee includes our non-government partners. Beyond these formal mechanisms, we also maintain ongoing ties with all our partners.
Justice Canada has received $93 million over five years under the road map, and this sum was allocated as follows: $49.5 million to secure agreements with the provinces for the implementation of the Contraventions Act, $41 million to improve access to justice in both official languages, and $2.5 million for the accountability and coordination framework.
The Contraventions Act provides an alternative to the summary conviction procedure of the Criminal Code for the prosecution of certain offences under federal statutes and regulations. It allows certain federal offences to be prosecuted, using provincial court processes, by means of a ticketing scheme.
The Contraventions Act Fund was established to support the implementation of the Contraventions Act in a manner consistent with all applicable constitutional and legislative language rights. The fund provides financial assistance to the provinces and territories that have implemented the Contraventions Act in order to increase their capacity to offer justice services. To date, five provinces have signed contribution agreements to this effect, that is British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. These provinces, in addition to New Brunswick and Quebec, are able to provide services in both official languages for proceedings brought under the Contraventions Act. Discussions with the other jurisdictions are ongoing.
The principles that led to the creation of the Access to Justice in Both Official Languages Support Fund were improving access to justice services and knowledge and understanding of language rights by Canadian citizens and the legal community, and developing a training initiative to help justice system stakeholders provide services to Canadians in the official language of their choice, especially in the area of criminal matters.
Since its creation the support fund has helped make the justice system more accessible, more relevant, and better able to meet the needs of Canadians.
Now I will hand the floor over to my colleague Linda, who will explain certain roadmap projects to you in greater depth.