Good morning, everyone. There are some new faces, so I'll explain that the Quebec Community Groups Network is a not-for-profit organization that represents Canada's English linguistic minority communities, which we refer to collectively as the English-speaking community in Quebec. There are just over one million Canadians in our community, and as I said, our official language minority community is located in Quebec.
Good morning, Mr. Nater, Mr. Donnelly, and members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages. I'm sorry, I didn't know Mr. Choquette wasn't going to be here.
We're very pleased to be here today to provide evidence in the committee's study of the full implementation of the Official Languages Act in the Canadian justice system. We're also happy to be joined at the table by the Association of English speaking Jurists of Quebec. I'll be very brief in our opening remarks to allow Michael Bergman to introduce the association and its future plans.
Our community is very excited about the promise of an organic access-to-justice capacity. Please note that the QCGN has submitted a detailed brief that provides commentary on the topics under the committee's consideration. I'll outline the brief's main points now and will look forward to answering your questions.
Just to touch on a few points on the Supreme Court of Canada judicial appointment process, the QCGN supports a process for appointing Supreme Court of Canada justices that is transparent, inclusive, and accountable to Canadians. Incidentally, we have also supported, and will continue to support, legislation that would make functional bilingualism without the aid of an interpreter a requirement for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.
There are two principal reasons that we support a bilingual capacity in all Canadian courts, and a bilingual superior court and court of appeal judiciary. First, where rights exist, there must be a systemic capacity for justices to hear cases and render decisions in both official languages. Second, the language skills of judges at this level must be sufficient to ensure stare decisis in the evolution of Canadian law. Maître Bergman can expand on this point.
We have three thoughts on access to justice. First, possessing rights and having a bilingual judiciary is of limited value if the infrastructure surrounding access to justice is not able to operate to provide services in both official languages. Second, we need a shared definition for access to justice, especially when discussing and developing evidence-based public policy. Finally, we need stable programming seed money from Justice Canada to help develop the association.
We are very concerned about the application of the Official Languages Act in Canada's correctional system. A recent visit to the Correctional Service of Canada's federal training centre in Laval was troubling. We witnessed prima facie violations of the act that we have every reason to believe are systemic in nature and therefore likely affecting English and French minority inmates in other institutions. Our concerns are detailed in our brief and may warrant a separate visit to the committee.
It is now my pleasure to introduce Maître Michael Bergman from the Association of English speaking Jurists of Quebec.