Mr. Speaker, indeed we did hear from a wide range of witnesses. The situation across the country, as we might expect, is not uniform. We live in a country where there is one officially bilingual province, and that is the province of New Brunswick. Indeed, the challenges would be significantly less in a place such as New Brunswick than in provinces where the linguistic minorities are much smaller, I would say, including the province of Prince Edward Island and probably the Yukon. The one that was specifically referenced was Saskatchewan.
I come back to the question I asked the member for Acadie—Bathurst. In spite of these challenges that come with the relative size of our minorities, the challenges that come with our geography, quite frankly, because that is a big part of it, all in all, there is what is practical as well.
Probably the most compelling testimony we heard at committee was from a defence lawyer who said that when he sees someone who is on remand down in the holding cell and he talks to that individual about his rights, his language rights, his charter rights and what to expect, the only thing that individual wants is out. It does not matter whether the individual can understand the proceedings on a scale of 10 to 10 or six to 10, if he can get a judge and a hearing quicker by electing one official language rather than the other, that is the one he wants.
That is the reality in this country. I think it is problematic. However, it is not perfect, and given the diversity we have and given the huge geography we have, we cannot allow perfection to be the enemy of the good.