Absolutely; I see a problem.
I also think that one of the issues currently is that a judge's linguistic competence is not really evaluated before his nomination. It is, rather, a self-assessment. I could talk to you about a situation that occurred recently in New Brunswick, but I won't go any further.
I do believe that a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada should be able to understand the exchanges, participate in discussions with the lawyers, and read the documents in both languages. So his or her linguistic capacities need to be evaluated. It is not enough to be conversationally bilingual. The judge must be sufficiently bilingual to understand a legal debate without the help of translation or simultaneous interpretation. I think that that level of bilingualism needs to be evaluated.
Some have said that it is difficult to find judges that satisfy that requirement in the different provinces. However, I have argued cases in several Canadian provinces, and I was often surprised to realize that in provinces where people believed there were none, there were judges who had that capacity. Take for instance the recently appointed Judge Rowe, who is from Newfoundland and Labrador. At a certain point, several people told us that it was impossible to find a judge or a lawyer who was perfectly bilingual in that province. And yet we found one, Judge Rowe.
And so it is possible, but training has to start very early. That is why I referred to law faculties.