Justice committee  I just finished a two-week long trial in Edmonton, Alberta, before Madam Justice Eidsvik from Calgary, with an anglophone crown prosecutor also from Edmonton. Everything was done in French for two weeks. The Caron case was a very technical trial and there was no problem. Things worked out very well.

Justice committee  I would not want to judge Justice Rothstein in any way, but I believe that he is still using translation. I do not know whether he has learned French. Learning French for use in a social setting is one thing, but learning French so as to be able to hear court cases is something else.

Justice committee  The Supreme Court of Canada, in the case of the Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick, had decided that a party could use the language of its choice, but that the judge was not obliged to hear it in that language. This decision has never been overturned. The interpretation principles underlying this decision were overturned in the Beaulac affair, but the issue of bilingualism for justices never came back before a court since then, and this was for a very simple reason: the Official Languages Act at the federal level and the Official Languages Act in New Brunswick were amended to recognize the right to be heard directly by a judge who understands without help from interpretation.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to start by thanking you for having invited me to testify before your committee. I've had an opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Official Languages on a number of occasions. In fact, I attended approximately one year ago, when the issue of bilingualism for Supreme Court justices was addressed and when Mr.

Official Languages committee  First of all, it's a French law school; but second, it's impossible to study the common law if you're not bilingual. So all of our students at the law faculty, once they graduate, francophones and anglophones—because we don't only accept francophones, as there are also a lot of anglophones from every province in Canada, who are perfectly bilingual.

Official Languages committee  It's not an entrance requirement, but—

Official Languages committee  It's not a graduation requirement; it's a practical requirement.

Official Languages committee  It's not the same at UNB, for example.

Official Languages committee  Very briefly, Justice Bastarache, before he became a judge, presided over a committee in New Brunswick--the Barry-Bastarache committee--in 1980, and they suggested then that the provincial government make sure that any lawyer who graduates in New Brunswick from the two law schools be bilingual.

Official Languages committee  Can I respond to that also? I suggest that it might be interesting for you to try to listen to a translation in English when somebody is pleading in French to see what you would get out of it. Or, if someone is pleading in English, listen to the French version if you're bilingual, and you'll see what you can get out of it.

Official Languages committee  I'm the lawyer for the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne.

Official Languages committee  I would simply like to add that there is always the psychological aspect for the litigant in that kind of situation. Mr. Tremblay said that there weren't any complaints. I know very well that, last week, I could have filed a complaint concerning a federal court. However, the client too stands before an imposing, large structure, and he doesn't want to file a complaint.

Official Languages committee  What I simply meant was that there was a time when there were many more unilingual judges on the Supreme Court of Canada, a time when virtually the majority of justices in the court could be unilingual. Not so long ago as well, barely four or five years ago, there were three or four judges who could not function in French.

Official Languages committee  I've always found it somewhat odd that these obligations are imposed on all the federal courts and that this exception is made for the Supreme Court of Canada, the highest court in the land. That's why I too am in favour of an amendment to this provision to ensure the appointment of bilingual judges to the Supreme Court.

Official Languages committee  I wasn't talking about a recent case. I cited an example that occurred at the start of my career. I would like to say that the beginnings of my career are quite recent, but that goes back a number of years now. So it was a case that occurred at the start of my legal career. We had started a trial in French, but in the middle of the first hearing day, the judge himself admitted that he understood, but perhaps not enough.