Bill C-203 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Supreme Court Act (understanding the official languages)

This enactment amends the Supreme Court Act and introduces a new requirement for judges appointed to the Supreme Court to understand French and English without the assistance of an interpreter.

Official Languages

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand in the House to continue debate and to promote official languages across the country.

On March 28, I had the honour of asking the Prime Minister a question after the tabling of the Liberal government's action plan on official languages. From an investment point of view, this action plan does not meet the aspirations of the communities. The FCFA and QCGN had asked for a lot more money. Unfortunately the action plan does not make up, as the Liberals had promised, for the 10-year backlog created by the Conservative government.

However, the government promises more action for francophone immigration outside Quebec and for early childhood, two areas considered essential by our official language minority communities. We still have a long way to go in these areas, however, though they are critical for the survival of our communities. We expect many more initiatives on the part of the government. I would like to know what the government intends to do in these two areas.

I introduced another bill today, one that improves the Official Languages Act. The Liberals voted against Bill C-203 on bilingualism for Supreme Court justices, so I introduced a bill to amend the Official Languages Act. If it is passed, the government will have to commit to appointing bilingual justices to the Supreme Court. That would be a major step forward. Unfortunately, all we have is a policy that is not enshrined in law. That policy has no teeth and can be ignored at will. We need to do something about that fast.

I am vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. The committee submitted a unanimous report on community media serving official language minority communities. There again, the committee asked the Liberal government to act quickly.

In the past decade, advertising revenues for media serving OLMCs, official language minority communities, have dropped by 70%. That has made it hard for them to survive. Unfortunately, the Liberal government is investing more and more in Facebook, Google, and other such media, leaving our community media high and dry.

That is why we tabled the report entitled “Media in the Digital Age”. This report recommends that the government take funds previously allocated for national media advertising in the current budget and use them to immediately establish a special $2-million emergency fund, which will be disbursed promptly through national advertising contracts to media serving official language minority communities across the country. This is extremely important to community broadcasters that serve official language communities. For the sake of our radio stations and newspapers, it is vital to act now. I hope the government will respond to this request from the committee.

I would like to know what the government plans to do. Will it respond favourably to the very important request contained in this unanimous report?

The Liberals, the Conservatives, and the New Democrats all agree. Will the Liberals agree to award a contract post-haste—

Official Languages Act

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-411, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (understanding of official languages).

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to continue the long fight for access to justice in both official languages, a fight that was started by our former colleague, Yvon Godin.

After introducing Bill C-203 on the bilingualism of Supreme Court of Canada judges, which was sadly voted down by the Liberals, I am now introducing a bill to amend the Official Languages Act in relation to the understanding of official languages. To summarize, this bill would require the government to commit to ensuring that judges who sit on the Supreme Court understand both official languages.

In its report entitled “Ensuring Justice is Done in Both Official Languages”, the Standing Committee on Official Languages made a series of recommendations, the first being that the government table a bill during the 42nd Parliament guaranteeing that bilingual judges are appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is obvious that the government lacks both the will and the resolve to listen to the experts' testimony and to the committee members.

Everyone knows that a policy is not an effective way to ensure access to justice in both official languages. A policy is not a law. That is why I am introducing a bill that, admittedly, is not a panacea. However, it is a good step forward, and it will help improve the situation.

(Motion deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

moved for leave to introduce C-382, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (Supreme Court of Canada).

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat less pleased to introduce this bill because, last week, the Liberals defeated Bill C-203, the bill that would have required Supreme Court justices to understand both official languages, despite the fact that they had previously voted in favour of it three times. This time, unfortunately, they defeated the bill, so now we have to do something else.

Now, we can amend the Official Languages Act, which may help the situation but will not resolve everything. It would be a good step forward anyway, and that is why I am introducing Bill C-382, an act to amend the Official Languages Act (Supreme Court of Canada). This bill would amend section 16 of the Official Languages Act so that it also applies to the Supreme Court of Canada. If this bill passes, all federal courts will be responsible for ensuring that judges hearing a case understand the parties' official language of choice without the help of an interpreter. This is a good step forward, but it will not resolve everything. We will have to form government ourselves and introduce another bill like Bill C-203 to fix the problem, so that everyone can access the Supreme Court in the official language of their choice.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Official Languages

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I once again have the pleasure of speaking about official languages. As my colleagues know, I am a tireless supporter of official languages. I am therefore pleased to often be here to participate in the adjournment proceedings.

Today, I would like to come back to a question that I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage on November 27. That day, the minister appeared before the Standing Committee on Official Languages. I asked her a very simple question, but one that is very important for official language minority communities, a question regarding the principle of by and for.

That means that services must be offered by and for official language minority communities. This extremely important issue has been brought forward by many groups, the two main ones being the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada or FCFA and the Quebec Community Groups Network or QCGN. These are the two largest national groups that represent the two minorities, the anglophone minority in Quebec and the francophone minority in the rest of Canada. They put forward the important principle of by and for.

Unfortunately, submissions by certain federal departments, such as Citizenship and Immigration Canada, do not cover the importance of the principle of by and for. I am not talking about provincial organizations. The provinces are free to use their transfers as they see fit. We owe it to them to respect their jurisdiction.

The Official Languages Act mandates not only respect for linguistic duality but also the promotion of linguistic duality and official language minority communities. Offering some services is not good enough. A whole range of service must be made available to the community. For example, people who need immigration services should not be referred to other services available in French, such as cultural, health, or justice services.

I would like to remind the House that I introduced Bill C-203, which would amend the Supreme Court Act to make equality before the law a reality in the Supreme Court. In other words, it would make bilingualism a requirement for Supreme Court justices so that all Canadians can have access to justice in the Supreme Court. The NDP is alone in championing this. I hope that the Liberals will change their mind and support my bill to entrench the bilingualism of Supreme Court of Canada justices.

Why do government members not support the principle of by and for, which is meant to ensure that services are available in official language minority communities?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise again in the House this evening to discuss my bill, Bill C-203, an act to amend the Supreme Court Act (understanding the official languages).

I previously asked my hon. colleague a question about whether the Liberals plan to pass this bill, which calls for all Supreme Court justices to be bilingual. This summer, the Prime Minister of Canada announced a process for appointing justices to the Supreme Court. This process is to be open and transparent and will require justices to be bilingual, which is excellent news.

The NDP has been calling for this since 2008. It has really been a key issue for us. My colleague, the former member for Acadie—Bathurst, Yvon Godin, introduced two separate bills on this since 2008. Then in 2010, he introduced another bill regarding a bilingual requirement for justices, and the Liberals voted in favour of it.

Unfortunately, however, after that bill went to the Senate, the Conservatives let it die on the Order Paper. We were really disappointed, which is why we are introducing it again.

Now that the Liberals are in power, we expected that they would support and pass the bill introduced to ensure the bilingualism of judges.

Everyone supports this bill, including the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, the Barreau du Québec, and Jean-Marc Fournier, the Quebec minister responsible for Canadian relations, who said, “Enshrining bilingualism in law is necessary”.

Does everyone believe that the bilingualism of Supreme Court judges must be enshrined in law? No, the Liberals do not. That is really sad. We are asking the Liberals why they do not want to support a bill to ensure the bilingualism of Supreme Court justices in perpetuity.

Previous Conservative governments appointed unilingual English judges and this created serious problems with respect to the interpretation of certain rulings. However, under the Official Languages Act, the official languages have equality in fact. This equality in fact must exist in the highest court as well.

What are the Liberals talking about to avoid voting? They are talking about the Nadon case. Let us discuss this case, then. I asked jurists in this Parliament about it. I asked them whether the Nadon case prevented bilingualism from being one of the criterion for the appointment of judges. The answer was no, the Nadon case did not prevent it. In fact, to determine whether it is constitutional or not, we would have to ask the Supreme Court for an opinion.

For that reason I asked the Liberals why they are refusing to ask for a Supreme Court opinion. If they have opinions that run counter to those of the House of Commons jurists, they should provide them. To date, we have not seen any legal opinions to the effect that bilingualism as an appointment criterion for Supreme Court justices is unconstitutional.

If the Liberals have any such opinions, they should produce them.

Opposition motion—Appointments to the Supreme Court

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

I am pleased to rise in the House today to talk about the appointment of Supreme Court justices, an issue of such importance that I even introduced a bill calling for these justices to be bilingual. I will have the opportunity to talk about that in my speech.

The motion calls on the government to take into account regional differences when appointing judges to the Supreme Court and to respect the custom of regional representation. I think that everyone in the House of Commons agrees with that, myself included.

The announcement that the Prime Minister of Canada made this summer caused much disappointment. Of course, we are happy that a committee has been set up to analyze judges' legal expertise and to ensure that they are bilingual and that they fully understand both official languages. Everyone was very pleased and the Prime Minister's announcement was met with praise on all sides.

However, my leader, the leader of the NDP, went to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to ask the minister what it means to be a bilingual judge. Does it mean that the judge can speak both official languages? The Minister of Justice vaguely answered that she did not know exactly what it means and that it may mean being able to understand but not necessarily speak both languages. That is very disappointing, and it is not at all the bilingualism that we expect of a Supreme Court justice.

We are very concerned about the Minister of Justice's response. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice will address this situation, because it is unacceptable. We must consider what the Commissioner of Official Languages asked for. He asked that justices have the language skills required not only to understand French and English and to speak these languages, but also to understand the legal terminology every Supreme Court judge should master.

Like the Conservatives, we believe that customary regional representation must be maintained, and that is why we are talking about the Atlantic provinces now. We also believe that judges must be bilingual and that there should be legislation to that effect. I will talk about that shortly. Most importantly, this government must not make the same mistakes the Conservatives made.

Unfortunately, two unilingual anglophone justices were appointed. Other blunders included appointing a unilingual anglophone officer of Parliament. The Liberals made similar mistakes, such as appointing a unilingual anglophone House leader and a unilingual anglophone Speaker of the Senate. The Liberals have had their share of problems and have not always made the right choices.

That is why I want to talk about my bill, Bill C-203, which would amend the Supreme Court Act and introduce a new requirement for judges appointed to the Supreme Court to understand both official languages in accordance with the language skills criteria defined by the Commissioner of Official Languages.

This is extremely important because, when it comes to appointing Supreme Court justices, regional representation is certainly a factor, but we must not forget that, under the Official Languages Act, both languages have equal status. Neither is superior to the other; both are equal.

In our courts, particularly in the highest court in the land, it is to be expected that both official languages should be equal, but that cannot happen if the judges are not bilingual.

We have heard stories, and I am going to share one with you. This really happened, and it is disturbing.

A few years ago, a justice began making his argument in French before the other justices present. The presiding Supreme Court justice suddenly asked him if he could slow down because the interpreters could not keep up. I should point out that one has a limited amount of time to present one's argument. If justices cannot present their arguments at a normal, regular pace, or if they have to slow down, of course this can be problematic.

The interpreters do a wonderful job. I want to commend their work, because I know we also have interpreters working in the House of Commons. We also did a study on the Translation Bureau, and I want to emphasize that the bureau as a whole is doing an excellent job, much like our interpreters. However, as the name states, there can at times be some interpretation of what is said. They do the best they can to interpret the message properly, but it cannot be a word-for-word translation of every point in every sentence. In any case, that would not make sense. Interpretation is a magnificent art, but of course it is the art of interpreting the message.

When faced with something as important as any matter before the Supreme Court of Canada, that is, something of such gravity and critical importance to the entire country, there is no room for even the smallest mistake or tiniest difference between what is said and how it is understood. That is why it is extremely important that all justices understand both official languages.

I want to point out that I introduced Bill C-203 to amend the legislation on appointing judges in order to ensure that they are bilingual. Before that, the NDP did a lot of work on this. My dear colleague, Yvon Godin, is well known by those who have been in the House for many years. He fought for years to ensure that the judges appointed were bilingual. He introduced a bill in June 2008. He started again in November 2008, and in 2010, he introduced the very well-constructed Bill C-232. It was more or less the same bill that I introduced. This bill was agreed to by a majority of the members of the House of Commons because the Liberals voted in favour of it. It ended up in the Senate, but unfortunately, the Conservative senators dragged out the process until the House adjourned and elections were called. Unfortunately, the bill died on the Order Paper.

The House did pass the bill, however. The elected members passed the bill. The Liberals are now in power and they are looking for any possible excuse not to pass this bill because it may be unconstitutional.

Why do the Liberals and my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, not refer the bill to the Supreme Court for an opinion? Is this bill constitutional or not? Let us ask the Supreme Court for an opinion.

When we asked the experts whether the bill was unconstitutional, they all said they could not say. We have to ask the Supreme Court for an opinion.

We know that, in the past, the Conservatives unfortunately did not always appoint bilingual judges. Therefore, if we want to ensure that we continue to have bilingual Supreme Court justices, we definitely must pass a bill. That is why this bill must be passed. I hope that the Liberals will take this bill seriously and pass it to ensure that regional representation will finally be mandated, and also to ensure that both official languages are on an equal footing. They must be equal, and one cannot be held above the other. Canadians, regardless of whether they speak French or English in Canada, must be treated equally before the law, especially since the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. I am pleased to work with him on the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

He talked about what his government has done for official languages. What he forgot to mention, however, is that at this very moment, the Commissioner of Official Languages does not have enough money to fulfill his mission. This Liberal government has not invested in the commissioner's budget, nor has it invested in the road map for the next two years. That budget remains frozen, despite the demands of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada and the Quebec Community Groups Network, just to name a couple.

If the Liberal government really believes in official languages and really wants to work on that file, why will it not say whether it will support Bill C-203, my bill, which introduces a new requirement for all judges appointed to the Supreme Court to understand Canada's two official languages, so that everyone, whether English-speaking or French-speaking, is equal before the law?