Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe for his question.
Studies have been done, and the Commissioner of Official Languages, whom all Canadians respect, also ordered his own office to conduct a study. The pool of bilingual judges is large. That is why I asked a question during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights during which the most senior Department of Justice officials confirmed that there were plenty. Anyone who wants to be a Federal Court judge has to fulfill the same criteria. There are criteria to be met. My Conservative colleague just talked about those criteria.
The pool of judges for the Supreme Court includes judges who are already in superior courts, which means they meet all of the criteria. It would never occur to me that the government, which appoints Supreme Court justices, does not abide by those criteria. Moreover, the Department of Justice says there are plenty. I asked the witness to repeat that two or three times because I could not believe my ears. This contradicts the Conservatives' argument. My colleague was at that meeting, so he knows the answers given by the Department of Justice.