Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you everyone.
Thank you very much for your time and for sharing your experiences with us.
My question is for the president of the French-Speaking Jurists Association of Saskatchewan.
I have here an article that was posted on #ONf by Benjamin Vachet on September 17, 2018. He is talking about the return of federal MPs to Ottawa. It reads:
The modernization of the Official Languages Act (OLA) will constitute a large part of the FCFA's work since it intends to present its own bill at the end of November, but the return of the court challenges program remains one of the organization's main priorities in the short term.
The President of the FCFA, Jean Johnson, said: “We have been told that members of the expert panel should be appointed in October, but we want to make sure that the funding that was not used over the past two years will also be transferred to the program so that none of it is lost.”
The reinstatement of the court challenges program was announced at the end of February 2017. It was also announced in 2016. Two years later, funding still cannot be requested under that program because no one has been appointed to implement the program yet.
Are you aware of that? Are you working with the FCFA on the implementation of the court challenges program? You mentioned earlier that the return of this program has been a success, but it still cannot be used. There were some very important cases in your neighbouring province of British Columbia, for example, but funding could not be requested under the court challenges program.
What is actually happening on the ground and what are your requests in that regard?