Official Languages Committee on Nov. 21st, 2017

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Further than the principle, sir.... I saw you on CTV and you were pretty good in French and English.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Seriously, further than the principle, don't you think it should not be just a transparent process thing but should be in the law?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

No.

Thank you for your question.

Also, I just want to take a moment to thank the members of this committee as I make my way in learning French.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

That's good.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Hopefully, I have been able to communicate some of the fundamental concepts and ideas that are directly responsive to your questions. I want to assure you that this a very personal thing for me, and that I will continue to work on it for the benefit of all of us.

Having said that, I will tell you that this is the subject of an ongoing debate. It's an important debate. We know there are important ways that we can explore in terms of how to protect these principles beyond the life of any government. As I've said before, we're prepared to listen to all manner of ideas on how we can achieve that goal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Mendicino.

Mr. Samson, you may go ahead for four minutes.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I'm being given just four minutes? Mr. Clarke had eight. In any case, he raised some excellent points that I feel compelled to revisit.

To begin with, he said that the government should make decisions without letting lawyers assess the legality of the proposed provisions. The Conservative Party, would, even before things got off the ground, create legislation that was sure to be unconstitutional, thus putting off, by a year or two, the making of a genuinely favourable decision. The nine times that the Conservatives submitted references to the Supreme Court, it ruled the provisions in question unconstitutional. They submitted nine references to the Supreme Court; it was a game to them. They threw it all into the trash. That's what's so interesting.

My colleague also said that, if Canadians wanted to challenge the legislation, they would. That is from a member of a government that abolished the court challenges program. Its approach was to create legislation, claim that people simply had to challenge it if they felt the need, all the while, knowing full well that there was no funding for such challenges and that it could carry on with its agenda. That's rather incredible.

Mr. Clarke, I'm not referring to you, personally, but to your party. We know how its members voted.

Mr. Mendicino, I'd like to thank you for your work and your appearance before the committee today. I would especially like to thank you for the action plan. Work on the plan began a year ago, and it is going to give us the guidance we need to be successful going forward. That is pivotal.

You talked about the amounts allocated. I would like your department to request an increase in the $40-million envelope, as well as in the $2 million for legal translation. That is crucial.

What are you doing to encourage people to become bilingual? That is my question. What strategies are available?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

A number of strategies exist, but what is key is the manner in which they are implemented through the action plan. That is what currently underlies our strategy.

It means encouraging education. It means working with our provincial and territorial partners. It means working with the various role players within the judicial appointments process, such as the judicial advisory committees and the commissioner for judicial affairs.

Working together collaboratively, we are adhering to the principles we have spoken about, which are to ensure access to justice and ensure that every Canadian can access their courts in the language of their choice. In adhering to these principles, I believe we're seeing more people who are willing to step forward to play a meaningful role—certainly in the context of the superior courts—as judges. That is encouraging, because the more that Canadians can have that choice and that value protected in the courts, the more we are living up to the ideals of the charter.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Are more judges and lawyers applying for bilingual positions?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I would say so, yes. The figures bear that out. As I said, we had somewhere around 300 qualified applicants, and of those, 27 judges were appointed.

That's progress.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Mr. Mendicino.

The last three minutes with our panel will go to Mr. Choquette. Please go ahead.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

I have three questions and two and a half minutes.

In 10 seconds or less, I'd like you to tell me whether you are going to refer the question of the bilingual capacity of judges to the Supreme Court in 2018. Yes or no?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

The minister obviously will be responsible for taking that decision, in consultation with members of cabinet and the government, but certainly she would not rule out of hand at any point in time referencing a question that is of national importance. There are tests and thresholds involved when it comes to putting a question before the Supreme Court, but as I said before, we will evaluate the private members' bills on a very case-by-case basis.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

I'm almost out of time.

First, I would have liked you to say yes. I hope you're going to tell the Minister that she needs to do so. You're already lagging behind. I have been calling for this for two years now. This is nothing new. It didn't come out of the blue.

Second, as Mr. Samson stated in his letter, you are currently working on a bill to fix the problem around the bilingual capacity of Supreme Court judges. Does it involve the Official Languages Act, and, if so, which sections? Since I don't have enough time to hear your response, would you kindly send the information to the committee?

Lastly, “implementing a process to systematically, independently and objectively evaluate the language skills” was one of the recommendations of the former official languages commissioner, Graham Fraser. You went from one question to four, but it is still a self-evaluation. Is that in line with a systematic, independent, and objective evaluation of language skills? Yes or no?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm going to ask my colleague Mr. Zaluski to answer that.

[Stephen Zaluski, General Counsel and Director, Judicial Affairs, Courts and Tribunal Policy, Public Law and Legislative Services Sector, Department of Justice]

The commissioner for federal judicial affairs has been asked by the minister to develop recommendations for an assessment tool, which would be objective and independent, as is his office. Implementation will require money and other resources. It's for the commissioner for federal judicial affairs to make a recommendation as to how best to move forward on that recommendation.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

It turns out I have time for one last question.

This little document I have here is a policy. As my fellow member pointed out, it is not a bill. It could be eliminated or amended at any time. It could change on a dime.

Is this policy going to be set out in a bill, yes or no?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Many important principles in that action plan are being implemented and are translating into positive and concrete progress. I've spoken about that when it comes to the great strides we've made in bilingual appointments, and when we've spoken about new ways in which we can continue to assess through spot checks and enhanced training. All of these things, I think, we will continue to debate so that we can preserve these principles for quite a long time—

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

I didn't get an answer, unfortunately.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

—and I certainly hope that the government will be here for some time to advance all of them so that Canadians can have access to the justice system in the official language of their choice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much to the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Mendicino.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much for being here today, Mr. Baharmand and Mr. Zaluski.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have.

We will take a short break before hearing from the president of the Quebec bar association and the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec.

I encourage you to stay, if you can, since we will be discussing another important topic with them. It may be worthwhile for you to hear their comments.

We will now suspend the meeting for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We will now resume the meeting.

We are pleased to have joining us, by videoconference, the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec and the president of the Quebec bar association.

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Official Languages, gentlemen.

Before you, we heard from Marco Mendicino, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. I asked him to stay on for a few minutes in order to hear your views on the subject we have all discussed.

I'm not sure which one of you would like to go first. Mr. Fournier, would you care to start?