Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
My first question is for Mr. Bastarache. It's an honour to have the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
The appointment of bilingual judges to the Supreme Court has been debated at length since 1988, when parliamentarians were already trying to determine whether they should give the legal community a chance to learn a second language. That argument was advanced at the time to avoid requiring Supreme Court judges to be bilingual.
Now we're discussing section 16 of the Official Languages Act. A few years ago, the debate was about whether Parliament had the authority to legislate on the composition and nature of the Supreme Court.
Do you think it's constitutionally correct to apply section 16 to the Supreme Court?