Official Languages committee  May I have two hours to reply?

Official Languages committee  Regarding training for judges, there is a very good program in New Brunswick offered by the Shippagan campus, under the direction of Judge Finn. This program is offered to judges nationally. Anglophone judges go there to experience total immersion in French. It is a good program.

Official Languages committee  That's a problem. I could auto-evaluate myself in Spanish and probably I would be fluent, but I don't believe that a person who speaks Spanish would say that I am fluent. I believe there must be an outside.... If we do it for the public service, we should also do it for the jud

Official Languages committee  Yes, it should be a standard test.

Official Languages committee  The work is done on a volunteer basis. We relied a great deal on the Language Rights Support Program. Now we are going to rely on the Court Challenges Program. I know that currently a lot of groups are waiting for the Court Challenges Program to be up and running in order to fund

Official Languages committee  Occasionally.

Official Languages committee  It could be both. Not only am I talking about the judgment, but I'm also talking about the legislation. Even if you have legislation in both official languages it doesn't mean that both versions say exactly the same thing. It is the same thing with the translation of a decision.

Official Languages committee  Ms. Pellerin spoke earlier about the information service. I want to speak about the Association des juristes d'expression française, which is not an information service. Earlier you congratulated Mr. Bergman for his advocacy work. You said that we needed organizations like the AJ

Official Languages committee  The AJEFNB, and many other organizations as well, used to play that role. Those organizations ensured, for example, that a sufficient number of bilingual judges were appointed and that the governments took both linguistic communities into account in developing measures to provide

Official Languages committee  It isn't just that the funding needs to be increased, but we need to get that core funding back. Legal information is very important and funding for that purpose should be maintained. However, we also have to give the jurists' associations that want to do that work the opportunit

Official Languages committee  That would be ideal.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely; I see a problem. I also think that one of the issues currently is that a judge's linguistic competence is not really evaluated before his nomination. It is, rather, a self-assessment. I could talk to you about a situation that occurred recently in New Brunswick, but

Official Languages committee  This not something I have seen in New Brunswick. Candidates must have at least 10 years of experience as members of the Bar. Most of the lawyers who have that kind of experience have pleaded at least once or twice before superior courts. We are talking here about trial courts.

Official Languages committee  Oh, no!

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the committee for having me today and giving me the opportunity to address bilingualism in Canada's justice system. I had prepared a presentation, but after listening to the previous witnesses, I decided to take an a cappella approach.