Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question.
As a New Brunswicker with an Acadian background, I am very proud to see a government finally officially stand up and say that the next appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada will go to a judge who is functionally bilingual. I agree with this requirement. I find it reassuring that the highest court in the country, the guardian of the rights of all Canadians, will be able to hear arguments in the defendants' mother tongue.
Now, this requirement does not in any way exclude the diversity of the Canadian population. As a lawyer myself, I can confirm to the House that there are judges of all cultural backgrounds serving in Atlantic Canada. There are more than just Quebeckers. There are Franco-Ontarians, Franco-Manitobans, Fransaskois, and Acadians.
Requiring a judge sitting on our country's highest court to be able to converse in, understand, and be proficient in both official languages does not undermine diversity, quite the opposite.