Evidence of meeting #51 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Connie Graziadei  Assistant Chief Statistician, Census, Operations and Communications, Statistics Canada
Johanne Denis  Director General, Census Subject Matter, Social and Demographic Statistics, Statistics Canada
Larry Shute  Deputy Director General, Economic Research and Policy Analysis Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry
Ronald Bisson  Senior Manager, Réseau national de formation en justice
Karine McLaren  Director, Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton, and member, Réseau national de formation en justice
Rénald Rémillard  Director General, Centre canadien de français juridique inc. et Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law inc., and member, Réseau national de formation en justice

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

Yes.

12:45 p.m.

Senior Manager, Réseau national de formation en justice

Ronald Bisson

The federal government is supposed to offer other types of programs. There are very few in the provinces.

If we offer training in legal French to a police force in Winnipeg, how many people are going to attend? However, if we add the St-Pierre-Jolys detachment, there might be more. This is what I had in mind when I talked about the efficient use of public funds. Because the number of people reached is very low, we could start working on reaching more people.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

You mentioned the 2003 action plan, but then there were the 2008 and 2013-18 plans.

Has the situation stayed the same or have there been changes since then in terms of funding, for example?

12:45 p.m.

Senior Manager, Réseau national de formation en justice

Ronald Bisson

I do not recall the figures, but until 2003, the former POLAJ, which Ms. McLaren mentioned, invested a total of about $650,000 per year in the field of justice. Starting in 2003, that figure rose to about $10 million. In 2008, it was about $14 million. Since 2013, it has been about $20 million. I am talking here about the total for training. We can see that there has been some growth.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

You said that outside Quebec, you train 300 people who will be able to work in the justice system in both official languages. Is that correct?

12:50 p.m.

Senior Manager, Réseau national de formation en justice

Ronald Bisson

Yes. There are 300 graduates.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

You say there is still a shortfall of 300, since 600 will be needed.

12:50 p.m.

Senior Manager, Réseau national de formation en justice

Ronald Bisson

That is correct.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

In your opinion, if the shortfall is not met, how will that affect our communities?

12:50 p.m.

Senior Manager, Réseau national de formation en justice

Ronald Bisson

I am going to answer as simply as possible. The biggest consequence is language insecurity. Ms. McLaren referred to this. Francophones show up and request a service in French. The person in front of them answers, more or less. We know what people usually do then: they immediately switch to English. That is the biggest consequence, obviously. People simply do not receive service in French.

We are talking about criminal law, but also about family law. Delivery of services should not depend on demand. The decision in Beaulac was clear on that point. The courts must be bilingual immediately; it has nothing to do with demand. In these circumstances, if we really want people to use the service, it has to be available.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

Thank you very much.

Mr. Arseneault has the floor.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Once again, as I said to the other witnesses, we parliamentarians are very fortunate to have the crème de la crème with us. You have come to share your extensive knowledge with us and answer our questions. I thank you very much for that.

Ms. McLaren, I listened to you talk a little earlier about all the work that remains to be done and all the backlog that has accumulated, given the evolution of the law, the common law, and the terminology. It reminded me a little of Ray Ventura's song Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise. Ultimately, what I understand is that everything is not going all that well.

So the problems relate mainly to the rapid evolution of new fields in the common law, and the shortage of people and funding.

12:50 p.m.

Director, Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton, and member, Réseau national de formation en justice

Karine McLaren

I think the problem stems mainly from the fact that there is no systemic approach. That comes from the way it was decided to standardize the common law in French. The work is done bit by bit, carefully, slowly, and every year we have to wait in order to plan the work. The problem stems, first, from the way it is funded and the way it is structured. For example, if we have $80,000 for a year, we can work on several standardization issues in a field, and at that rate, it is going to take us three years to complete the standardization in that field.

The resources are not adequate. The number of people working in this field needs to be doubled or even tripled. We really have to get to a point where we will be able to express ourselves as well in French as in English in the common law. The work must not be limited to the Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques. At the CTTJ, we have a person who works on standardization, but we need three times as many. That is also the case for the other organizations that work with us in Ottawa and at the federal government's translation bureau.

In the past, the Department of Justice was more committed and involved, but that is less and less the case. The person who handled standardization has left. Now, it is the translation bureau that handles standardization issues. Our centre is the Ottawa centre.

As I said, once all the funds for the year have been spent, we stop the work. This year, all the funds had been spent in November. That means that we have been doing absolutely nothing since November, and we will be doing nothing until March, when new funds will be injected. In fact, we are never sure the funding will be renewed.

For two or three years, we have been receiving less and less funding, since the support fund has received more and more applications for activities that fall within the fund's mandate. So that means that it is trying to fund more things with less money. As a result, centres like ours, which play a fundamental role, have less money to meet standardization needs.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

I understand. You live from one annual grant to the next. I know how that is. You are not able to do long-term planning.

12:50 p.m.

Director, Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton, and member, Réseau national de formation en justice

Karine McLaren

That is right. There needs to be a systematic approach. We should at least know what the budget for the next five years will be, so we could determine the fields we are going to work on. We have to be able to plan, instead of reacting when we receive $500,000, for example. It is hard to plan what we are going to do with amounts like that.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Fine.

Apart from the CTTJ at the Université de Moncton and its office in Ottawa, are there other centres in Canada that specialize in legal terminology in French for the common law?

12:50 p.m.

Director, Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton, and member, Réseau national de formation en justice

Karine McLaren

No. The Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques is the pioneer for common law in French. We coordinate standardization activity across Canada. I stress the fact that this is for everyone, for all the provinces and the federal government. The federal co-drafters use this terminology in federal legislation. We work with the Centre for Legal Translation and Documentation, which does the drafting for some things, and with the translation bureau, which has a terminology team. These are the three partners who write these things. That makes up the standardization technical committee.

We also have a steering committee, which that has more members, but I am not going to go into that too deeply.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Right.

I would like to come back to the context of the rapid evolution of the law and the need to agree on very specific terminology. In English, in the Commonwealth countries, technology law and environmental law, for example, have seen a lot of changes. Since I completed my law degree, those fields have seen incredible growth.

In English, is there the same problem with standardizing vocabulary and terminology?

12:55 p.m.

Director, Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton, and member, Réseau national de formation en justice

Karine McLaren

The question simply does not arise for English, because these concepts evolve in English. They are interpreted by the courts in English. I am talking about Canadian common law. In Canada, when there is a new term or a new concept, it is the courts that interpret it. The concept is interpreted and circumscribed, and it is found in context, in judicial decisions and in legislation. The problem never arises, then. The concepts continue to evolve in English. Obviously, there will always be problems of interpretation, but they are resolved in the courts.

In French, conversely, the situation is not the same. We are behind all that. We wait for the concept to evolve first in English, and then we determine what the concept means, how to circumscribe it, and how it is used in context.

I can give you examples, I have collected a few that are in areas under federal jurisdiction, in particular divorce. For example, there is the term "legal alien". That is a technical term that has a very specific meaning. In French, there are equivalents such as “étranger illégal”. That is a totally incorrect term, however. A person cannot be illegal. There are also “étrangère illégale”, “étranger clandestine”, “étrangère clandestine”, “étranger à situation irrégulier”, “étrangère à situation irrégulière”, “étranger en situation irrégulier”, “étrangère en situation irrégulière”, “clandestin”, and “clandestine”. We cannot practise common law in French with concepts like these. It is completely ridiculous. Do you see what I mean?

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Is there a next generation being trained in Canada? Do the universities offer programs where people can specialize in terminology?

12:55 p.m.

Director, Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton, and member, Réseau national de formation en justice

Karine McLaren

That is a very good question. Thank you for asking it.

The last point I want to make is that common law in French essentially arose from translation. The people who do this translation are also the ones who are constructing legal language in Canada. The legislation and case law are the product of translation. A decision translated by a poorly trained translator enters the law forever.

In Canada, there are no training programs in legal translation, and there are practically none in terminology or judicial interpretation. That is one of the questions we raised in our action plan within the Réseau. We absolutely have to invest in basic training, structured training, in legal translation. It is a highly specialized field. A person does not spontaneously become a legal translator. It calls for many years of practice, expertise, and a good understanding of legal concepts.

That training is not offered in Canada. What we have now is a very problematic situation. All of the experts who began their careers in the 1970s have retired or are about to retire. Recognized expert jurilinguists work or have worked at the CTTJ, my predecessor, Gérard Snow, being one. There is no one left to replace them, however. That is why we absolutely have to invest not simply in translation, but also in specialized legal translation, legal interpretation, court reporting, and so on.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

Thank you all very much, Mr. Bisson, Ms. McLaren, and Mr. Rémillard, for contributing to the committee's work.

We are going to meet again in two weeks.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

We are going to miss one another.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

Indeed.

Thank you, everyone.

The meeting is adjourned.