Official Languages committee  I don't see how it could be done without legislating the status quo.

Official Languages committee  Two things. First, if someone wants to convince you that mandatory bilingualism would affect an essential characteristic of the Supreme Court, turn the question around. Ask them if being unilingual is an essential feature of the Supreme Court.

Official Languages committee  Clearly, the answer is no. However, unilingualism is what people want to change.

Official Languages committee  There you go. So, basically, when you ask which situation would be changed, the answer is unilingualism. I will never be convinced that unilingualism is an essential feature of the Supreme Court of Canada. Believe you me, a Supreme Court judge will never be convinced of that eit

Official Languages committee  Thank you.

Official Languages committee  I would choose to amend the Official Languages Act. That seems to me to be easiest and clearest under the circumstances. The Supreme Court itself renders decisions recognizing that bilingualism is a fundamental value of Canadian society and supporting the idea of moving towards t

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  I think it has to be, because if one judge is not bilingual, then there will be a clear indication or signal sent to the lawyers that in order to be well understood by the judge, they have to speak English. Among the judges themselves, there will be one language used, and that wi

Official Languages committee  Yes. It is the one that would raise the fewest legal debates, because the Supreme Court Act would not be affected. Let me repeat: it could be done because no essential feature of the Supreme Court would be affected.

Official Languages committee  Yes, exactly.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  Yes, but I would not hesitate to irritate them, by suggesting an amendment to the Supreme Court Act directly. If you wanted to be very clear and say that judges must not only understand French but also be able to speak French, you might have to use other means than section 16, wh

Official Languages committee  Yes. At the end, I talk about an amendment to the Official Languages Act or some other act. When I talked about an amendment to the Official Languages Act, the section I had in mind was section 16, yes.

Official Languages committee  No, because that requires an appreciation of language abilities, which I do not have.