Mr. Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice for his question.
Unfortunately, it seems that the parliamentary secretary thinks that he will be in power forever. However, the Liberal government will not be in office forever and policies change. We want something more lasting, and a bill provides an additional safeguard.
When the NDP introduced the bill on bilingual officers of the House through my colleague Alexandrine Latendresse, we were all happy to support it. We passed that bill to ensure that officers of the House would be bilingual.
Since the Supreme Court is a last recourse for Canadians, we need to ensure that its judges are bilingual. The Quebec minister responsible for Canadian relations, Jean-Marc Fournier, is calling for the appointment of bilingual judges to be enshrined in law, as is the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the Barreau du Québec, and lawyers from New Brunswick and other parts of Atlantic Canada.
Yes, we need to put this in a bill because the Liberals will not always be in power. People need to properly understand both official languages, and the Liberals' definition of bilingualism is not quite adequate.