Health committee  Mr. Chair, Vice-Chairs, and distinguished members of the committee, good morning. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Paul-Matthieu Grondin and I am president of the Quebec bar. On my right is Pascal Levesque, president of our criminal law committee, and, on my left, is Lu

Health committee  I'll just make a clarification on behalf of the Barreau du Québec. We don't do politics, but once a decision is made to move forward, we try to help as much as possible. That's a precision, maybe.

Health committee  Let me quickly answer that precise question. The number of grams is still a political question. You are talking about simplifying things, but, as you said, prevention is extremely important. In the Quebec bar’s view, one thing is clear: young people should not be punished more se

Official Languages committee  Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Paradis, you were once the President of the Quebec Bar too. So was Mr. Fournier, who is now the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec. So all three of us have the role of president in common. Thank you for having me. I have be

Official Languages committee  Not all cases have constitutional questions that go right to the top. So there actually can be repercussions for the rest of Canada. Moreover, a lot of people all over the country interpret the Constitution one way or another. We do a lot of interpretations here in Quebec. Chief

Official Languages committee  Can I answer that question? The budgets we have previously requested for SOQUIJ could help us a lot. Then a committee made up of chief justices, or of judges of a certain court, and others involved, could determine which judgments are of interest and should be translated. The r

Official Languages committee  I can make a clarification. If I'm not mistaken, there was some funding until 2012, which was then terminated. The funding must definitely increase because it was not enough. As soon as we receive it, we will be able to translate more decisions. Of course, the more funding we h

Official Languages committee  SOQUIJ's mission is really to disseminate legal information. The organization is therefore perfectly equipped to make those decisions.

Official Languages committee  Yes. We use acronyms a lot. SOQUIJ is the Société québécoise d'information juridique. It is a Quebec crown corporation.

Official Languages committee  I will take the liberty of answering that question. Trust me, the reality is that all the lawyers in Canada are looking for any creative solution they can understand. For the time being, the creative solutions you hear about most often in the rest of Canada are from other provin

Official Languages committee  There are challenges in Quebec other than the translation of rulings. Even in the legislative process, it isn't clear. In Quebec, legislation isn't co-drafted, like it is at the federal level and in other provinces. It's already a challenge to ensure that our laws are adopted in

Official Languages committee  Mr. Clarke, these decisions already exist. People made them a while ago. All existing rulings are available in at least one of the two official languages. That's translation. Of course, if you say you want to translate all of them, we will be happy to, but we're trying to make r

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I'll be doing this in French, if anyone needs the earpiece. Members of the committee, I am joined today by Francis Walsh, a member of our committee on the law and indigenous peoples, as well as Julien Pelletier-David, our special adviser on access to justice. We ar

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As we said in our statement, the road that lies ahead is very long indeed. The Barreau du Québec has called on the provinces to adopt the declaration. That's a first step. I think we are still just waking up to this issue. The Barreau wants to be part of the solution. Internally

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's an issue that needs to be dealt with. We'll have to see how that takes shape on a practical level. It is necessary, but I think we're really only at the beginning of this awakening. Our committees are very busy looking at the issue right now. You're definitely askin