Justice committee  The only answer I have is that so far we've still been able to get eight bilingual judges on the Supreme Court of Canada. It shows that despite what is called this limitation, it's quite something that we still have eight bilingual judges. I think it's possible. I think the res

Justice committee  Mr. Petit, do you not believe that in Quebec, non-bilingual judges have been excluded from the selection of judges for the Supreme Court of Canada for years? The judges chosen from Quebec are always bilingual to a certain degree. I do not believe this changes anything. It was not

Justice committee  No, I'm not aware. However, I would like to remind you that I read the proceedings of this committee when Michel Doucet from New Brunswick appeared, and he mentioned to you that in one of his appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada, he had lost five to four. After he presented

Justice committee  On what we discussed, it's always, as was pointed out by your colleague, the fact that we don't want to do arguments through interpretation, that's for sure. For me as a lawyer, that would be the worst. That's why I mentioned that in New Brunswick my unilingual colleagues are v

Justice committee  I'm sorry, but could you speak up a bit?

Justice committee  As you pointed out, it's a young country. The values have changed in the last 20 years. When we were talking about bilingualism many years ago, it was kind of cute. Now it's becoming known that it's a plus to be bilingual. It is known that if you come here as a politician, it's a

Justice committee  Now, I wouldn't say that. Once again, the thing you don't have with the bill is any testing of linguistic capacity. That's for sure, and I don't think that would be part of any regulation. Still, you're talking about someone who recognizes that the person can, first of all, rea

Justice committee  I agree with Justice Major that there are not a lot of people who are perfectly bilingual, who can reach that level.

Justice committee  It could be forever, because coming back to what I pointed out earlier, when you select a judge, the fact that you say you're bilingual is just a check mark by the person. What I'm saying is that if you have these two dispositions, the one saying judges at the Supreme Court of Ca

Justice committee  This is why I started by saying that the Law Society of New Brunswick supports the bill. I think both the bill and what we recommend could go along together in the sense that what we suggest will immediately provide at least some relief to the problem, I would say, because at lea

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  First of all, when I was at the faculty of law at the University of Moncton, I remember there were a couple of students who came from Alberta. The program was in French, so they had to be able to communicate and write in French. It's possible. I know it's not easy. You mention N

Justice committee  Competency in law involves more than the pure legal principles. If you want to be a good jurist, you have to know the law; you have to know the application of the law, but also have some sense of equity and justice. Principles of law are very general. They become tangible in thei

Justice committee  I would be greatly tempted to answer yes. We are talking about the language ability of judges. At the time of selection, they are not subjected to the language ability test. Lawyers fill out a form and it is up to that same person to say, yes or no, if they consider themselves t

Justice committee  There are no interviews for Supreme Court justices, unless it is an exception. To my knowledge, only two or three people have had interviews with the committee. For the others, a form was filled out by the candidates, who checked the appropriate boxes.