Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for welcoming us to address this issue, which is very important to the FAJEF.
As mentioned before, I am the president of the Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law inc., which brings together seven associations of French-speaking lawyers.
As you may know, the FAJEF works very closely with its network of French-speaking lawyers' associations. We also work with national legal organizations, such as the Canadian Bar Association and people from the francophone community, particularly with the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA). Actually, the FAJEF is a member of the FCFA. We are also one of the founding members of the Réseau national de formation en justice, whose representatives appeared before you a few weeks ago.
In a few minutes, I will be pleased to answer your questions about the themes suggested by your committee for your study on the full implementation of the Official Languages Act in the Canadian justice system. In response to your questions, I will be able to talk about a related topic, the issues of access to justice and the promotion and use of the French language in the legal system.
In terms of access to justice in French, the problems and solutions were well defined in the 2015 report of the Commissioner of Official Languages. This report is still the reference document for the work that the FAJEF wants to accomplish in this area. That is why I would like to address access to justice in both official languages.
I will start my presentation by suggesting a new and very specific measure that we would like the federal government to adopt. This measure is related to access to justice in French and to the promotion of the access.
Here is the request in question:
That the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages recommend that the federal government adopt the best approach to extend language rights to divorce so that all Canadians can have the right to divorce in the official language of their choice.
In the FAJEF's opinion, that's the next step. The fact that people around the table are surprised to hear that it is not possible to obtain a divorce in French across the country explains in itself why this is important for the FAJEF.
Clearly, in the past 20 years or so, access to justice in French has improved in Canada. A number of reasons explain that progress, including the fact that some provinces and territories have taken concrete, significant measures to improve access to justice in French. Those initiatives deserve to be highlighted. It is also important to note the government's leadership role in setting out, in part XVII of the Criminal Code, that all the accused under the Criminal Code have the right to stand trial in the language of their choice in all provinces and territories.
In fact, in provinces such as British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador, access to justice and to the courts in French is largely limited to this right in criminal courts. The fact that the federal government has given all Canadians the right to stand trial in the language of their choice and allocated the resources needed to protect this right has resulted in the promotion and implementation of a wide range of measures and resources for promoting judicial bilingualism and access to justice in French across Canada. We feel that, without this commitment and, of course, without other key decisions of the courts, such as the decision in Beaulac, access to justice in French would not have made such significant strides in the past 20 years.
It makes sense to focus on access to justice in French in the context of criminal law. After all, it is an important point of contact between citizens and the legal system. There are other areas, particularly family law, which has serious consequences for many Canadians. Actually, family law proceedings often leave indelible marks on the lives of Canadians.
The Divorce Act is a federal act, like the Criminal Code, and yet the right to divorce in French does not exist in all the provinces of the country. It does not exist in British Columbia, in Nova Scotia or in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In 2017, we think it is at least incongruous and inconsistent with the objectives of the Official Languages Act and the requirements of subsection 41(1) of the act for French-speaking Canadians to not be able to obtain a divorce in French in all the provinces and territories in Canada, a divorce that is in fact granted under a federal act.
Let me point out that the success of the project to expand access to justice in French also depends largely on the ability to operate as a network. I appeared before you a few months ago to talk about the importance of the network of lawyers' associations to connect the legal community and the francophone community. Right now, the existing networks could help increase access to justice in French in all the areas of law, including criminal law, family law and divorce, as I mentioned.
In conclusion, we believe that explicitly recognizing the right to divorce in French in all the provinces and territories in Canada, as well as the ongoing support of the national networks of lawyers, such as the FAJEF network, will generate positive results for francophone litigants. In addition, we believe that it would be a good use of the existing financial resources, because a number of necessary measures to guarantee the right to divorce in French have already been put in place by the Criminal Code and the Contraventions Act in some respects.
Those are some of my comments. I'm sure that I will be able to answer other questions.