Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank you for giving the Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law inc., or FAJEF, the opportunity to appear before this committee. I will start by explaining a little bit about who we are and what our prio

Justice committee  I will answer your question. One key problem that we experience on a daily basis is the active offer of service. That is in the current Criminal Code, section 530. Many of our members who are practising lawyers say that the active offer of service is not regularly provided. This

Justice committee  Let's say that the accused appears before a trial judge for the first appearance during his case. Under the Criminal Code, the judge must advise the accused of his right to choose the official language, French or English, in which he would like his trial to be held. Generally, t

Justice committee  Applying that would certainly pose some practical problems. In criminal law, if we want both official languages to one day have real equal status, we will have to continue working toward that goal on a practical level. I am aware that there are many obstacles. For example, what

Justice committee  I will let Mr. Rémillard answer your question.

Justice committee  I do not know.

Justice committee  Mr. Rémillard just mentioned some examples from British Columbia and Manitoba. I think that in Alberta, they tried to use the list of people whose children attend francophone schools. In fact, thousands of students are registered in francophone schools. We take for granted that t

Justice committee  In practice, the problem is more or less the same, be it for anglophones or francophones. Recently in Edmonton, a judge asked sheriffs to go out into the street to find anglophone jury members. It can be a problem regardless of the language of the proceedings.

Justice committee  I do not have information on that. Perhaps Mr. Rémillard can give you some.

Justice committee  I can answer that question. We can say that it is, in fact, a huge problem. I do not know if Mr. Rémillard already mentioned this, but in 2010, the Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law inc. created the Centre canadien de français juridiqu

Justice committee  Mr. Rémillard can probably answer that.

Justice committee  Mr. Rémillard, do you want to comment on that?

Justice committee  Obviously, I do not have the same experience in Saskatchewan, but according to some justice of the peace colleagues, Alberta sometimes uses video conferences, like the one we are doing now. That is perhaps a way of dealing with the shortage of staff, francophone or French-speakin

Justice committee  Sometimes, judges refuse to inform accused persons of their right. I reviewed letters sent to the committee by the provinces and I noticed that Alberta's justice minister seemed unaware of article 530(3) of the Criminal Code, which asks the judge to make an active offer. That's p

Justice committee  I think it would be a good idea to make such an amendment to the law. At the same time, it is important to provide good training for judges, because if they are not made aware that they must inform the accused of their rights, the law will not be properly enforced.