Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Fournier and Mr. Grondin.
We have heard from a lot of witnesses. We have also had people from your organization before us, Mr. Grondin. As you said, the money that SOQUIJ would like to receive in order to be able to translate more documents is a major factor. From what I understand from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, 40% of the allocation will go to training and information. As the total budget is about $8 million per year over five years, it is not a budget in which we are going to find the money we need to achieve that objective.
Mr. Fournier, this is the third time in a number of years that you have testified before the Standing Committee on Official Languages. You feel that you are repeating yourself. Given the current government's action plan, is it your impression that you would still be repeating yourself if you were still in this position in 20 years?
In its desire to have an open and transparent process, the government's objective is to have as many bilingual judges as possible in Canada. I understand from your comments that, because judges in Quebec are bilingual, they are able to read and understand all the judgments written in English, but the opposite is clearly not the case, given that most of the jurisprudence in Quebec is in French only, and the English-speaking judges elsewhere in Canada cannot understand it.
In an ideal world, all judges in superior courts, and in the Supreme Court of Canada, would be bilingual and everyone would be able to understand documents in both languages. According to what you are saying, the reality is that it will be a very long time before that happens.