Since I represent English-speaking jurists, I'll start in English anyway.
I won't repeat what Antoine had to say on the statistics. The problem is fairly clear.
It should be clear that it makes no sense whatsoever not to have Quebec jurisprudence circulating amongst the provinces, the United States, England, Australia, and all the other English-speaking jurisdictions in the world that read our jurisprudence. Unfortunately, the majority of the decisions that are rendered here in Quebec are not read, not understood, and not cited in the jurisprudence in the other provinces of Canada.
That was also the subject of a complaint made by Michel Robert when he was Quebec's chief justice.
Let us step back a little in time.
I'm the co-chair of a committee of the Montreal bar, which is called “Access to Justice in the English Language”, and I insist on having a francophone co-chair. My first one was Gérald Tremblay, and the one I have now is Pierre Fournier. They are both excellent co-chairs who understand fully the problem.
This committee is composed of lawyers and judges. The juge en chef du Québec insists and is a member of the committee.... I'll go back to Michel Robert, when he was the juge en chef du Québec. At almost at every one of our meetings he would raise the question of the jurisprudence, which is drafted in French in Quebec and is not going anywhere.
In his words, “without a translation, Quebec judgments are not cited. They are not read, they are not understood.” Those are Michel Robert’s own words.
This makes no sense whatsoever, because for what I call the “jurisprudence nationale”, there's no such thing, except in the sense that it's the jurisprudence that's invoked and cited in all the provinces of Canada. The other provinces all exchange their jurisprudence. When they draft a judgment, you'll find that in most of their judgments they're citing other jurisdictions that happen to be the other provinces of Canada and other courts in the other provinces of Canada, but what's happened to Quebec?
Quebec represents a quarter of the country and they're being set aside. They're not being cited. They're not being invoked. That makes no sense. Antoine mentioned that some of the decisions are being translated by SOQUIJ, but the complaints I had were from Michel Robert, and they have been repeated now by the new juge en chef du Québec, Nicole Duval Hesler. She has announced that he is taking his retirement. She sits on my committee and she raises this problem. It's something that on our committee we are all very concerned with.
These are very important matters, both inside and outside Canada.
The decisions and the Canadian judgments are cited and are consulted in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and in other jurisdictions that use the English language. It's not only, as some may complain, that Quebec is a civil list jurisdiction so it's only civil law. That's not the case at all, and Michel Robert and Nicole Duval Hesler would be the first to tell you that.
As Antoine has mentioned, it's all the criminal jurisdiction and all the other jurisdiction at the federal level. Whether it be in the corporate, the familial, or other areas, the civil list jurisdiction is of importance, apart from what is under federal jurisdiction. What is under Quebec jurisdiction is important, is cited, and is consulted for decisions, so that when they are called upon, they are able to cite those decisions.
When I spoke with both Nicole Duval Hesler and Michel Robert, they pleaded with me to say that we have to do something to provide for a translation service in Quebec that can deal with the decisions and judgments of certainly both the Court of Appeal and the Superior Court, and the Quebec court to a lesser extent, because many of their judgments are and should be of great interest. Leaving out Quebec cases—which represent a quarter of the country—when we cite Canadian jurisprudence makes no sense whatsoever. It's difficult to say that it represents Canadian jurisprudence when a quarter of the country has been left out.
I have spoken to the Department of Justice. I have raised this issue. They understand. They said that, first of all, the reason they cut off the subvention they were giving in the few years that they did so was that they don't subsidize translation. I said, “This is not translation.” It is way beyond translation; we're talking about something much more fundamental than mere translation. Translation can be done by anybody, anywhere. Here, we're talking about what I called earlier the “national jurisprudence”, and it's the jurisprudence for all of Canada that's being considered. We can't look at it as simply a question of translation and the money that's available for it.