Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my colleague on the birth of his grandson. In 2020, little snatches of light and life like this are good for the soul. We will take them.
With regard to his speech, I can tell that he is sincere about the French language. I have no doubt about that. I thank him for his speech.
However, here is my question for him. When he was a member of Stephen Harper's government, Mr. Harper was not shy about appointing unilingual anglophones to all sorts of key positions. Take, for example, Michael Ferguson's appointment as Auditor General or the judges who were appointed to the Supreme Court. The Conservative government at the time said that the positions had been posted but that no qualified bilingual candidates had applied and so it had no choice.
Does the member not agree that, in order to be appointed to the highest court in the country, candidates must be bilingual and able to hear cases in both French and English? In his opinion should that not be a prerequisite for being appointed to the Supreme Court?