Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 4 is on the French language. You may think that this is a little different, but I did not think either that I would one day make a speech on the French language in this House. However, that was my only reason for putting forward this motion, as you will see.
The motion deals with the French version of Section 717.2(1), which, in my opinion, is not drafted in everyday, understandable French. Understandable it may be, but certainly not for the average person.
Since it is a very short paragraph, I will read it for you:
717.2(1) Le dossier relatif à une infraction imputée à une personne et comportant, notamment, l'original ou une reproduction des empreintes digitales ou de toute photographie de la personne peut être tenu par le corps de police qui a mené l'enquête à ce sujet ou qui a participé à cette enquête.
The French "qui a tenu" is obviously a literal translation of "hold". In French, "obtenu une photographie" means holding it in one's hands, although in this context it means keeping or holding it. That is why I moved my amendment aimed at substituting the word "conservé" for the word "tenu". A photograph or document may be kept but, as I understand it, it is held in one's hands. It is in that sense that, as I said, I was very surprised to realize that I now had to put forward a motion on the French language.
I should tell you that a number of my other motions are also related to the French language, as you will see a little later. I will not list them all at this time, but the French used here is often peculiar, as the Bar Association noted. In several appearances before the justice committee, the Barreau du Québec observed that the French used in the Criminal Code did not match reality.
I will now quote an excerpt from the Barreau's brief on another bill, but it could also apply to this one. The Barreau du Québec says that no one is deemed ignorant of the law. That, as we know, is true. They go on to say, "The law must, however, be intelligible. The genius of the language, although it has its own rules, does not rule out the Cartesian, concise approach that is essential to the proper understanding of statutory law".
As for Michel Sparer and Wallace Schwab, they recognize the fact that the implementation of these principles requires strong intellectual skills, for the writer must be able to move away from specifics and sometimes partisan views to take a broader, more global approach while at the same time being extremely succinct.
They add that the simpler subject-verb-complement structure which is preferred in French shows that this language emphasizes what English usually relegates to a position of secondary importance, hence the need to be careful not to translate literally and to rearrange in a logical sequence, as required, sentences that sound English.
Understandably, in view of how complex regulatory activity is, legal instruments cannot always be drafted in accordance with these guidelines nowadays. According to the Barreau du Québec, clarity must nevertheless remain one of the primary goals of the legislator, hence the value of drafting the French and English texts separately, a rule that the Barreau suspects was broken in this case.
That is a common complaint from the association. That is why I moved several amendments to Bill C-41 designed to make the French version truly consistent with what we call the genius of the French language. I hope that our linguists are listening in this evening, so that someday we can have French instruments that are understandable and intelligible.