Justice committee  Thank you. It's not a program that I'm familiar with or that we've dealt with at all as an organization. Thank you for that clarification.

Justice committee  It's certainly something that we'd be willing to explore. Let me refer it to Maître Tremblay, since it's not something that we've examined or are bringing forward as a proposal, and I'm always a little uneasy about spontaneously making policy before a committee. Maître Tremblay.

Justice committee  Often those are discussions that take place behind closed doors. I wouldn't want to disclose those discussions. Part of my role as an agent of Parliament is to warn governments of the possibility that there might be a court challenge in the wings. I myself have been upset when

Justice committee  Yes, and I think just to add to what the previous panel was saying about the introduction of the Court Challenges Program, the Court Challenges Program was introduced at the time of the Blaikie case. I suspect that it was involved in funding the Blaikie case. It was a consequence

Justice committee  Well, I was struck by the comments made by both QCGN and the FCFA in terms of the creation of a foundation which would establish a kind of arm's-length distance between the governments. I wasn't familiar with the program that Mr. Rankin referred to inside of the Department of J

Justice committee  Most of those cases are under section 23 of the charter, which covers access to minority language education rights. That's the major area where the issue goes before the courts. The Montfort case, in terms of access to health services, was one in which my predecessor was activel

Justice committee  I'm afraid I don't, but it was a community group in Windsor that launched the case. They reached the point of no return in terms of their ability to finance the case. We became co-appellants. The Federal Court ruled in our favour. The Federal Court of Appeal reversed that decisio

Justice committee  Mr. Chair, we can refer you some information related to the case.

Justice committee  In our experience the courts are usually fairly rigorous in deciding who can intervene and who can't. The courts have been very generous in accepting our requests to intervene before cases, but not every group that wants to intervene has their application to intervene accepted by

Justice committee  Thank you. I am very glad to be accompanied by Madam Tremblay because, as a non-lawyer before all of you, I have fully authorized her to say, “What the Commissioner meant to say....” Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good morning. I am pleased to appear before your committee

Official Languages committee  I'm sorry, yes, we also have an office in Montreal. In Moncton and Montreal, all staff are located in those offices. In western Canada, there is the Winnipeg office, but we also have a satellite office in Regina. There is the Toronto office and a satellite office in Sudbury. Sim

Official Languages committee  Is it sufficient? We make decisions regarding legal action on a case-by-case basis. It has never occurred that we weren't able to pursue legal action because we didn't have enough resources. There are other elements and other aspects about which we need to make difficult decisio

Official Languages committee  There is quite a bit of pressure in terms of the budget, which I will explain briefly. You mentioned $24 million. Some of those additional funds were used to pay for the move to our new location at 30 Victoria Street in Gatineau. The Treasury Board gave us that money. It is an a

Official Languages committee  We have a network of regional offices. We have an office in Moncton, for the Maritimes, an office in Toronto, an office in Sudbury, an office in Winnipeg, an office in Regina, an office in Edmonton and an office in Vancouver.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely. I strongly believe that Expo '67 in Montreal was one of the factors that contributed to the adoption of the Official Languages Act in 1969. That was exactly the same feeling of pride. That event gave us an opportunity to recognize that it was possible to hold an amaz