Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be able to take part in this adjournment debate, which will give us an opportunity to shed light on a situation I condemned last week in this House.
More and more, immigration lawyers in Quebec are reporting that they are having difficulty proceeding in French before the Immigration and Refugee Board. This situation has been dragging on for several months and reached a head recently when a lawyer was denied the right to proceed in French.
He was denied that right even though he had complied with procedure by giving five days' notice as required by law, even though the board member was francophone, even though the hearing was taking place in Quebec and even though the lawyer was proceeding in French at his client's request.
In this House, I asked the minister whether he intended to take action. He consulted his officials and spoke to us again in committee this week. Today, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration unanimously condemned this situation, which is completely unacceptable.
It was a unanimous decision. There is not agreement, however, as to whether the government can and must act. The minister told us in committee that he could not intervene directly in a board member's ruling, since it is a quasi judicial proceeding. The board member therefore plays the same role as a judge. I am not kidding.
However, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration act as interested parties in such cases. The government can therefore do something by instructing government representatives to encourage the use of French and accept French as the language of work.
In the case before us, Mr. Handfield from Montreal asked, on behalf of his client, to proceed in French. The documentation produced by the agency was in English, and it is the agency that approaches the board. The agency therefore could easily say that it has no objection to proceeding in French, that it will translate all the documents and that it will also ask to proceed in French.
That is my question for the parliamentary secretary today. Are those the instructions that the government gives its officials? I am not talking about the board members, who, I realize, are independent.
Are officials instructed to give their consent to proceed in French when counsel so requests?