Official Languages committee  Ontario and New Brunswick have expressed marked interest. The chief justices have shown great interest in our proposal. However, as I said during my presentation, Mr. MacKay in the end decided that the judicial appointment process was satisfactory and as a result did not accept o

Official Languages committee  First, it is very important that the needs be assessed. We have not really determined to what extent the various regions of the country need bilingual judges. Nor have the language competencies of those who put forward their candidacy to become judges been assessed. The candidate

Official Languages committee  I discussed this with the new Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. He is very well aware of the issues. In the context of the arrival of the Syrian refugees, he raised this issue with his New Brunswick counterpart. So the government is aware of the situation. It is

Official Languages committee  Thank you very much.

Official Languages committee  I apologize, I should have done that in the beginning.

Official Languages committee  I am accompanied by the following people: Ghislaine Saikaley, assistant commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch; Ms. Pascale Giguère, acting director and general counsel, Legal Affairs Branch; Mr. Mario Séguin, acting assistant commissioner, Corporate Management Branch; and Ms.

Official Languages committee  That is a very good question. I will begin with the last part. We already launched legal proceedings in the CBEF Windsor case. This occurred nine and a half years ago, between the time my name was announced as candidate for this position and the moment when I took up my duties.

Official Languages committee  There was a delay downstairs. Apparently there is a problem at the security checkpoint downstairs. They will be here...

Official Languages committee  Quite so.

Official Languages committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon. I'm pleased to appear today before this committee for the first time since the beginning of this Parliament. Although I'm not sure how many more discussions we will have before my term as comm

Justice committee  I have not been aware of bias. Certainly, some of the people who are challenging the idea of creating a new Court Challenges Program are people who challenge the rights discourse. The charter itself was not without controversy when it was introduced. There were distinguished pu

Justice committee  I do have the power to launch cases on my own initiative. There have been other cases where we have, in effect, taken over the case, and in which we have become co-appellants. For all intents and purposes, we assumed the responsibility for providing documentation before the court

Justice committee  I think we've been able to do that. There are a number of cases where individuals have taken the case themselves. It was clear that without representation they would be at sea before the court process. We have intervened as, in effect, their partners and supporters through that p

Justice committee  The other side of the coin of independence is responsibility. You have to ensure if there is a foundation, that foundation is appropriately managed, that its use of funding is appropriate, and there is some kind of auditing mechanism or financial reporting mechanism. I am not an

Justice committee  One of the things that has struck me, looking at the growth of agents of Parliament over the last 150 years, is that they have been created because of the perception of a crisis that needed to be dealt with by a body independent from the Parliament of the day. I see the instituti