Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak once again about an issue concerning our official languages.
On December 1, 2017, I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada an important question about an internal Department of Justice report that the government had been hiding since March 2017. We had been waiting for that report, which had not been publicly released. What was hidden in that internal report and why did the government want to keep it under wraps?
The report reveals that between 2008 and 2018, consecutive Conservative and Liberal governments diverted over $40 million from the Contraventions Act fund that was supposed to be spent on the roadmap for official languages. As a result, that money, which should have been invested to improve access to justice through the roadmap for official languages, was spent elsewhere. It is extremely disappointing that that money was not invested in our official language minority communities. Many people were surprised and wanted answers.
With that in mind, we asked for some clarification on this situation and called on the new Minister of Canadian Heritage to come up with a plan to make sure that this shortfall is reinvested in the next action plan for official languages, specifically the 2018-23 plan.
The Fédération des associations des juristes d'expression française wrote to the Minister of Justice to ask her to explain this situation, to take action, and to do something to address the situation. She did not respond. In 2016, the Réseau national de formation en justice asked Canadian Heritage questions about what was happening with the Contraventions Act fund. This organization wanted to know whether monies from this fund had been spent on official languages. There was no response. Access to justice in both of Canada's official languages is already difficult and this only compounds the problem. There are still many challenges to overcome.
For example, we still do not have a law to ensure that Supreme Court justices are bilingual and that they can properly understand, speak, and read both official languages.
I tabled a bill to address that. Unfortunately, the Liberals voted against it because they said they already had a policy to that effect. A policy, however, can be changed with the snap of a finger or it can just be ignored. We have seen other files where policy has not been followed. That is why we need legislation. The December 2017 report of the Standing Committee on Official Languages called for justice to be done in both official languages. It rightly called for the Supreme Court to be bilingual and that this be enshrined in law. It also called on the government to stop diverting the $40 million that was to be used to improve access to justice. I really want to get some answers about this matter.