Chair Chong, Vice-Chair Nicholls, Vice-Chair St-Denis and members of the committee, good afternoon.
I'm Sonia Ouellet, and I'm the secretary of the Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario, or the AJEFO. With me today is Ms. Martel who will be able to provide you with more details on AJEFO’s projects.
I will start by introducing the AJEFO, which is a non-profit organization that has been operating in Ontario for more than 30 years. We promote access to justice in French in Ontario to ensure equal access to justice in both official languages. The AJEFO network is made up of more than 820 lawyers, judges, translators, law professors and students, and members of the public interested in access to justice.
The AJEFO provides services directly to the community through legal education and information programs. Our objective is to improve the understanding of law as a life skill for every individual. Ms. Martel will tell you about the various sites that seek to promote legal information. It is a strategy we have taken to make the information available to the public at large.
The AJEFO's programs target the general public, including youth and teachers, high school teachers. The website is available across Canada. Programs vary according to each provincial jurisdiction. We provide working tools for teachers to use in the classroom. Some of our programs are for seniors, but we also have programs for francophone immigrants.
Since AJEFO is a legal organization, we also provide services to justice sector professionals, such as continuing professional development and legal tools.
I will now hand things over to Ms. Martel, who will present five projects having a direct or indirect impact on francophone immigrant communities.