Justice committee  I would agree. I think this is a case where, if this right is to be guaranteed, it should be at the beginning of the process rather than something that somebody has to keep on asking for at every step. I think it's unfortunate that the way it is.... I think that once you've said

Justice committee  No. Well, I will refer to my legal adviser on this. My understanding is that it's not an excessive amount.

Justice committee  We haven't made a proposal in this regard, but you know, it's a challenge in every aspect of administration, not simply the administration of justice. I was recently given a report that was done in British Columbia on the challenge of identifying jurors who could hear a trial and

Justice committee  Yes. Whether this is something that should be inscribed in the legislation, I'm not sure. I think this may be more of a regulatory or an administrative matter than something that is inscribed in the law, but I leave it to your discretion as legislators.

Justice committee  I will start with the question on bilingual trials. We found that bilingual trials would become automatic. That's based on the assumption that the co-accuseds know both languages equally well and are equally bilingual and thus understand the charges, the testimony and the evidenc

Justice committee  I don't think there would be any change, because there is no problem in that respect in Quebec, but I am going to refer that question to my legal counsel.

Justice committee  I believe that my predecessor, Dyane Adam, has already made a presentation on this topic to the committee. I agree that it should be an important selection criterion. The Supreme Court is currently exempt. Allow me to speak in more general terms. In my opinion, linguistic capabi

Justice committee  Since we have made no recommendation on that subject, I would prefer not to comment.

Justice committee  Right. I am neither a lawyer nor a former policeman, but I believe that in Quebec, it is much less of a problem than in the rest of Canada. As a journalist I found that when trials were held in Quebec, the rate of bilingualism among judges and lawyers was quite impressive.

Justice committee  We stress the importance of bilingual capacity within institutions, but institutions are the ones with the duty to have that capacity so that defendants can be tried in the official language of their choice. However, that doesn't mean that all judges and lawyers are required to b

Justice committee  It depends on the ability to have a fair trial. The same criterion applies when there has been a lot of media coverage of the accused. If it is decided that an accused cannot have a fair trial in one area because of that coverage, the venue will be changed to ensure that the juro

Justice committee  It depends. I don't have any statistics.

Justice committee  Obviously. I agree.

Justice committee  My understanding is that the courts have gone to considerable efforts, along with other institutions in Canadian society, to ensure that translation services are provided for languages other than the official languages. Basically, my mandate only covers our official languages.

Justice committee  Inuktitut is an official language in Nunavut. There are, I think, seven official languages in the Northwest Territories, but only English and French in Yukon; although there are eight aboriginal language groups, they are quite small. There are 23,000 to 25,000 Inuktitut speakers