Mr. Speaker, as I have said, I will meet with the chairs of all advisory committees to encourage them to look at ways to encourage French-speaking lawyers to apply. This is also what I am trying to do when I meet with the French-speaking lawyers associations. I try to encourage them to apply for a judge position.
Diversity is an issue, but ultimately, all evaluations are based on merit.
In the pool of candidates we want to encourage more bilingual candidates, candidates that reflect the diversity of our country in order to promote gender equity, the inclusion of visible minorities and more bilingual judges, all of which speak to the issue of diversity, and this is important, within the framework of prescribed merit based criteria as I cited in my comments.