First of all, what does substantive equality mean? According to the past 20 years of jurisprudence, even relating to the Official Languages Act, substantive equality means working to overcome obstacles to equality, what we call contextual obstacles, in order to bring about the advancement of the use and status of French and English in Canada, and so on. We have to come up with a methodology based on that. The other important part of that methodology is concrete measures, as I just explained to Mr. Godin.
If the notion of substantive equality is the starting point, it might have been useful, in the course of consultations and dialogues, to find out how communities define substantive equality. In fact, regulations stating that a record of the consultations will be kept is another way of saying they'll be shelved, isn't it? There should be a requirement to publish the results of those consultations, because when you work with minorities, you have to explain why their ideas were rejected. That's even in the Lund recommendations in Europe. Accountability to minorities is not some far-fetched notion.
Regarding concrete measures, part of the methodology could include considering whether something like “by and for” is an example of a positive measure that could promote substantive equality, or if the policy on francophone immigration is a positive measure.
I don't know if I'm answering your question, but those are a few avenues to explore.