I have not had a legal opinion on the impact of the government's reference on the Senate case, but I think, and my sense from the coverage in La Presse this morning is that, there is a substantial legal debate under way as to whether this would represent a significant change to the nomination process. Looking at the fundamental principles—and let me stress that I am not a lawyer, so I would await clearer legal decisions or legal advice on this before making a....
But if you look at the Official Languages Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the clear statement that French and English have equal status in this country, and you look at the degree to which various Supreme Court decisions have been made to repair damage done in the past so as to ensure equal status, I think you could make the argument that there is an obligation to ensure that there is equal status. And certainly we have heard and you have heard a series of complaints that equality is not now the case before the Supreme Court. I've given a number of examples in the past of how that equality....
Now when the Official Languages Act was being amended in 1988, the Minister of Justice at the time, Ramon Hnatyshyn, was asked about the fact that there was a specific exemption for the Supreme Court. He said he didn't think there was at that point a sufficient pool of judges to allow that exemption to be removed, but this would be something that could be examined in the future, which, to my mind, if you were looking at the intention of the legislator, at the point that the Official Languages Act was amended, certainly did not exclude the idea that this requirement could be introduced in the future.
Parliament has voted last night on one approach, but I think there are other approaches that could be examined that would not necessarily involve a constitutional amendment.