Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue No. 32 - Evidence - Meeting of November 5, 2018
OTTAWA, Monday, November 5, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 5 p.m. to continue to its study of Canadians’ views about modernizing the Official Languages Act.
Senator René Cormier (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Hello. My name is René Cormier. I am a senator from New Brunswick and I have the pleasure of chairing the meeting today.
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages is continuing its study today of the modernization of the Official Languages Act, specifically the fourth part of its study, which pertains to the justice sector.
[English]
We are pleased to welcome by video conference the Honourable Marlene Jennings, Co-Chair of the Access to Justice Committee of QCGN. As most of you know, Ms. Jennings was MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine from 1997 to 2011. Welcome, Ms. Jennings.
We also have the pleasure of welcoming the other Co-Chair of the Access to Justice Committee, Mr. Bruce McNiven. Welcome, Mr. McNiven.
Before I give the floor to our witnesses, I invite the senators to introduce themselves. I want to inform you that at 5:30, Senator Poirier will be chairing because unfortunately I have to leave for another meeting. Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Poirier: Good evening. Rose-Mary Poirier from New Brunswick.
Senator Smith: Good evening. Larry Smith from Quebec.
Senator Mégie: Good evening. Marie-Françoise Mégie from Quebec.
Senator Maltais: Good evening. Ghislain Maltais from Quebec. Welcome.
Senator Moncion: Good evening. Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator Gagné: Good evening. Raymonde Gagné from Manitoba.
Senator McIntyre: Good evening. Paul McIntyre from New Brunswick.
The Chair: Thank you, honourable colleagues.
Ms. Jennings, thank you for being with us today.
[English]
You have the floor.
Hon. Marlene Jennings, P.C., Co-Chair, Access to Justice Committee, Quebec Community Groups Network: Thank you so much. Good afternoon senators —
The Chair: Excuse me, Ms. Jennings. Just a second, please.
[Translation]
I’m sorry to interrupt, but Senator Maltais has something to say.
Senator Maltais: Dear colleagues, this will not take long. As a francophone and Quebecer, it is important for me to dissociate myself completely from the remarks made by Ms. Denise Bombardier on Radio-Canada, in which she denied the existence of 2.7 million Canadian francophones outside Quebec.
Dear francophone colleagues outside Quebec, let me assure you that Quebecers do not share Ms. Bombardier’s opinion. She worked as a journalist for Radio-Canada, and her job was to disseminate the French language and culture in Canada. She failed badly in her duty. So I would like my colleagues to join me in dissociating ourselves from Ms. Bombardier’s remarks on Radio-Canada.
The Chair: Is that a motion, Senator Maltais?
Senator Maltais: Yes, it is a motion.
The Chair: Senator Maltais therefore moves a motion calling on us to dissociate ourselves from Ms. Bombardier’s remarks on the program Tout le monde en parle, which called into question the existence of francophones outside Quebec.
Are there any comments?
Senator Gagné: Thank you, Senator Maltais, for moving this motion. I have to admit that a lot of people in my province of Manitoba are talking about this. In fact, in a few interviews I gave last week, this is how I described it. I said we were hurt by her remarks because what she said was not necessarily accurate. She made those remarks in reaction to certain comments, for reasons I am unaware of and that I will not speculate on. I do think it is important though to set the record straight, and I am certainly in favour of this motion.
Senator McIntyre: Individually and collectively, we support Senator Maltais’ motion.
Senator Maltais: Thank you.
The Chair: Are there any other comments or suggestions?
Senator Mégie: I would simply say that I support this motion...
The Chair: Okay.
Senator Maltais, thank you very much, on behalf of all francophones in Canada. We have to remind all Canadians that, wherever they are in the country, there are francophone communities in Canada, in Quebec and in the rest of country.
We can then conclude that the motion is adopted. Thank you very much, Senator Maltais.
Ms. Jennings, you have the floor.
[English]
Ms. Jennings: Thank you so much. Good afternoon Senator Cormier, Senator Poirier and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to testify before you during this stage of your study on modernizing the Official Languages Act. As Senator Cormier mentioned, my name is Marlene Jennings and it is my privilege to co-chair the Quebec Community Groups Network’s Access to Justice Committee along with Mr. Bruce McNiven.
Bruce McNiven, Co-Chair, Access to Justice Committee, Quebec Community Groups Network: Good afternoon, senators. I’m Bruce McNiven. I’m counsel at DS Lawyers, which is a national firm with a base in Europe. My practice is primarily focused on business law and includes negotiating and drafting technology licensing. I also work in the international health sector with joint venture and distribution agreements and other contracts both in Canada and abroad.
[Translation]
For a number of years, in addition to my volunteer work, I have been involved in political issues in Quebec and Canada, issues related to minority languages.
[English]
Ms. Jennings: Thank you.
I would like to open up a little parenthesis before I go to our remarks here on behalf of the Access to Justice in English Committee. On a personal note, I would like to thank Senator Maltais for the proposal that he made and to thank all of the members of the Senate committee for supporting that proposal or motion. My mother was Franco-Manitoban. I have francophone family in Manitoba, so I’m very aware of the existence of the official language French-speaking communities outside of Quebec, and, as I am a member of the English-speaking minority here in Quebec, of our existence in Quebec. So thank you very much for that.
Now I will resume with my official remarks.
The Quebec Community Groups Network’s senior leadership team appeared before your committee in May and delivered our community’s brief on modernizing the act. That brief was produced following extensive consultations with English-speaking Quebec, most recently in preparation for the Commissioner of Official Languages modernization consultation, which was held in early 2018. We should also point out that many of the issues raised through the modernization discussion have been matters discussed and coordinated between principal official languages stakeholders, including this committee, for several years. As a result, we are pleased to note that although there are some variations in detail, this committee is hearing a very coherent and consistent set of principles that will positively reform the Official Languages Act.
Mr. McNiven: A clear message you’ve heard is the need for a Supreme Court capable of serving Canadians in the official language of their choice. This means justices able to adjudicate cases in both languages without the assistance of an interpreter. We believe this could be achieved by removing the Supreme Court exception under subsection 16(1) of the act.
Our English-speaking community understands that access to justice in the official language of one’s choice is of fundamental importance to linguistic minors. The act should support access to the administration of justice in the minority official language. The administration of justice includes not only access to a judge who understands the official language, but access to services in the minority official language through the entire justice system.
The emphasis that others in the official languages discussion place on bilingual judges is understandable. However, we mustn’t lose sight of the need to ensure that the entire judicial system is capable of operating in both official languages. A bilingual judge is of little use if his or her clerk, or the systems around them, cannot function in the minority language.
Ms. Jennings: We understand that when it comes to the administration of justice, provinces play a major role. While the administration of justice in the federal courts and tribunals fall under federal jurisdiction, you know, as well as we do, that the administration of justice at provincial and superior courts fall under provincial jurisdiction. Nonetheless, we are of the view that the act can play an important role in supporting both the federal government and the provinces to provide access to the administration of justice in the minority official language.
The act should, in our view, create an obligation for the federal government to support bilingualism in the provincially administered courts and tribunal. This should be done by creating a federal obligation under Part V of the act to encourage and to assist provincial governments to ensure that access to the entire justice system is available in both official languages. Arguably, this is already part of the Department of Justice’s obligation under subsection 41(2) of the act. However, this specific obligation regarding access to justice, which falls on both the Department of Justice and the Department of Canadian Heritage, should be better spelled out in the act.
The Chair: Excuse me, Ms. Jennings, could I ask you to speak a bit slower, please?
Ms. Jennings: Should I start over again?
The Chair: Not from the beginning, no, just to be sure that the interpreters are able to translate. Thank you very much.
Mr. McNiven: Well, I think that concludes our introduction. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon. We would invite any questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much to both of you.
Senator Poirier: Thank you both for being here. I have a couple of questions.
On the QCGN’s website, I read a short article on the consultation of No Justice Without Access: Working Together to Ensure Access to Justice in English. Could you share with the committee more details about the program and what you hope to accomplish in the short, medium and long term? Could you also elaborate more on the approach of building dialogue and cooperative relationships between the community and the justice system?
Ms. Jennings: Thank you for your question. The QCGN has undertaken a vast consultation with its member groups, 58 of them, but also with a number of other community organizations whose main objective is to provide services and programs directly to English-speaking minority communities within the province of Quebec. The consultations were to determine what level of access exists within the justice system and where there were gaps.
One of the things that came out of the consultation was the fact that the English-speaking minority communities of Quebec are not, or are no longer, what has traditionally been deemed to be the English-speaking minority communities, i.e., people who are of Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English origins. We have an increasingly diverse community of communities whereby we have visible minority communities for whom English is their first language. Therefore, they’re grappling with obstacles based on the colour of their skin but also with obstacles in the justice system based on the fact that they are English-speaking.
Part of the consultation was to identify those gaps across the diversity of the English-speaking minority communities in Quebec and then to attempt to begin to develop what needs to be put into place to address that. We’re not there yet. We’re still in the process of working on what has come out of the consultation process.
Mr. McNiven: We had a significant consultation forum, as I think we probably reported to you. I believe we reported to you following that. It was a full day which was sort of an Estates-General, if you will, of people in the English-speaking community who were working in many capacities across the board, many agencies across the province.
One of the things that came out of that — apart from Ms. Jennings’ point about the diversity of the population and the fact that it’s not the classic view of the Canadian duality anymore — was that in terms of the density and critical mass of populations across the communities, it may be that, for example, people in Montreal can in one way or another find access to justice within the system in their language relatively more easily than elsewhere in the province. As the population becomes scarcer in relation to those who express themselves principally in English in the regions, it becomes much more difficult and challenging to be able to offer the multiplicity of support into access to justice issues for the English-speaking population.
It, in effect, means that it’s not a one-size-fits-all model anymore. The act and the systems that give rise to the administration of the act have to prove to be much more flexible and capable of adapting to the circumstances as it evolves.
Senator Poirier: On the subject of access to justice, we have heard from different francophone groups on tools developed and used to translate their various decisions. For example, we heardlast week a certain tool could translate a decision with approximately 70 per cent accuracy.
For decisions made in French in Quebec, do you have access to tools or programs that can help improve the translation of decisions to English?
Ms. Jennings: No, we do not.
If I may add, I believe that you have heard from witnesses about how one of the issues of access to justice in English is the fact that the overwhelming majority of decisions that take place in our courts do so in the provincially administered courts, and therefore the overwhelming majority of judgments are in French. And because we live under the Civil Code and not common law, the fact that these decisions are not being translated into English is a real barrier for access to justice for our English-speaking minority communities.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: It says in the footnotes of the documents we received that Section 530 of the Criminal Code guarantees any accused person the right to a criminal trial in the official language of their choice, anywhere in the country. Most criminal cases are heard by courts that are administered by the provinces
On that basis, can an anglophone in Quebec therefore demand a criminal trial in English?
[English]
Ms. Jennings: Certainly, and that is a reality. However, that same person who requests that his or her criminal trial take place in English is confronted with the fact that the Crown prosecutor may present all of his case in French. A translator may be provided to the defendant, the accused, to provide translation of what is happening in French. The judge may in fact run the entire trial in French, but the accused is afforded or allowed to have a translator. The decisions will be rendered in French.
The court clerks and the administrative support staff of that criminal court are all French-speaking and only provide the service in French. The documents are largely all in French, so it’s almost a joke to say that an English-speaking person in Quebec is in fact afforded equal access to justice because they have a translator for the verbal part of the trial. But all of the documents will be in French, and there’s no translation of those documents. Any documentary evidence that’s presented before the judge or judge and jury will be in French.
[Translation]
Mr. McNiven: Apart from these practical aspects, the other problem is delays. In order to grant a person’s request to a trial in English, it is very difficult to find the necessary resources to uphold that right. So there are delays. As the saying goes, “justice delayed is justice denied“. So there is always a question. Are the rights of the accused always upheld, even if those rights are in principle set out in legislation?
[English]
Ms. Jennings: It would be interesting to see a criminally accused individual use the Jordan judgment for the delay of their trial because of lack of resources to actually conduct that individual’s trial in English, which created the delay, and see how the courts would deal with that.
[Translation]
Mr. McNiven: Without wanting to sound like a lawyer, that is an argument.
[English]
Ms. Jennings: It is.
Senator McIntyre: Ms. Jennings, my question is a follow-up to an issue you raised earlier regarding Quebec court decisions.
What solutions could the federal government implement to ensure Quebec court decisions are read, understood and cited in the decisions handed down in the other provinces? Conversely, how could it ensure that decisions from other provinces are read, understood and cited in judgments by courts in Quebec?
Ms. Jennings: I think that the federal government has a responsibility to ensure that access to justice in English in Quebec actually exists. The fact that the majority of the administration of justice falls under provincial administration I do not think should be a barrier. Our committee, the QCGN and its member committees are all of the view that the federal government, given its responsibility, should actually provide funding to the provinces so that they can actually meet their constitutional duty and responsibilities. Because it’s federal tax monies — meaning it’s coming from taxpayers from across the country — the federal government should ensure that the provincial governments are actually using that money as it should be used.
We’re all too familiar with how there are transfers of monies from the federal government in other areas — for instance, health and social services — to provincial governments, and we don’t really know where the money has gone and how it’s being used because there’s no transparency and accountability.
One of the things with the modernization of the Official Languages Act is to, one, require that the federal government actually actualize its responsibility on bilingualism; two, provide monies to provinces, and here we’re talking about Quebec but clearly to the other provinces for the French-speaking communities outside of Quebec to ensure that judgments, for instance, are in fact translated and done so in an efficient and quick manner; and that there is actual accountability so that we know how the monies being transferred are used and if they are being used effectively.
Senator McIntyre: I would like to hear from you on the mechanisms needed to ensure that the Official Languages Act is fully enforced. For example, should there be a review of the powers granted to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, powers granted to Treasury Board, and powers of the Official Languages Commissioner? Finally, should powers be given to a central agency responsible for enforcing the act in its entirety?
Briefly, what are your thoughts on the mechanisms for implementing the Official Languages Act and court remedies?
Ms. Jennings: We all understand and are in agreement that central accountability is, in fact, needed to ensure proper implementation of the entire act. That means someone has to be responsible under the current act. This responsibility is decentralized, and that has shown itself to be ineffective.
First, there should be a centralized accountability. We know that our francophone counterparts outside of Quebec have recommended that possibly the Treasury Board should be the responsible government body for overseeing and being accountable for the implementation of the act. We have no problem with that. We do feel that there should be a central body and it could be Treasury Board. But whichever central body has that responsibility, it must be spelled out clearly in the act that the duty and the authority to ensure the implementation of the act across government resides within that one central body.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Thank you for being here. Your experience as a parliamentarian is very valuable to us.
I would like to know the following: Are Superior Court judgments that come under federal jurisdiction automatically translated into English in Quebec?
[English]
Ms. Jennings: Superior Court, no, they are not.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Yet that court is under federal jurisdiction and the Charter should apply.
Mr. McNiven: It applies in the sense that everyone has the right to speak and make arguments in English, and vice versa. The judges are federally appointed, but the administration of justice is under provincial jurisdiction. So the decision can be drafted in French or in English, but it does not have to be translated.
Senator Maltais: What percentage of Superior Court judges in Quebec are anglophones as opposed to francophones?
Mr. McNiven: I don’t know. It is hard to answer that question these days because everyone is bilingual, except for a minority that I don’t know about. Superior Court justices are able to communicate in French and English, but they write their judgments in French or English...
Senator Maltais: Let me give you a specific example. No doubt you are familiar with the activist who is creating disorder at every demonstration in Montreal or Quebec City. He is suing the City of Quebec, which is a municipal court. He used the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to reject the first judge, who was not bilingual. Then a bilingual judge was chosen, who was in fact more of an anglophone, and he refused for the simple reason that he could not receive the Sûreté du Québec recordings in English. This is not a typical example, but it is one we must use.
I am a French-Canadian Quebecer who has experienced all the language laws in Quebec, but I believed and still firmly believe that it is possible for an anglophone to receive all legal services in their language, and in particular the judgment notes. I have discussed this at length with my former colleagues, Clifford Lincoln, whom you certainly know, Ms. Jennings. Perhaps not in every part of Quebec, I admit. To be sure, an anglophone in Blanc-Sablon — the closest court is in 500 kilometers away, in Sept-Îles — will not get services in English unless the judge is an anglophone. In Montreal and Quebec City, however, it is surprising that judgments are not translated into English. That is news to me. Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Jennings: Thank you very much, Senator Maltais. I would add that when we talk about access to justice in English, we are not limiting it to criminal court. We are also talking about administrative tribunals. Someone who has a work accident and that accident is contested by their employer, that individual wishes to have the decisions of the CNESST in English, it’s virtually impossible. If there is a hearing, that hearing is in French. That individual, in most cases, is not even offered the services of a translator.
I know what I speak of because before being in politics, I was first a member of the Quebec Police Commission and then Deputy Commissioner for Police Ethics. We conducted public inquiries into allegations of police misconduct. Notwithstanding the fact that I spoke and wrote English very well, the overwhelming number of cases that were being heard where the complainant was an English-speaking person, they were not afforded a translator. The decisions were written in French. If the complainant wished to have that decision in English, sometimes they waited months if not more than a year to receive the official translation.
I would actually write my decisions in English and then write the same decision in French so that the complainant received both copies at the same time.
[Translation]
Senator Rose-May Poirier (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
The Deputy Chair: Unfortunately, your time is up. If we have time, you may say something in the second round.
[English]
Senator Smith: We have heard a lot of witnesses. From your perspective, what’s going to come out of the modernization if you had to make a guess, an informed decision or a suggestion at this time? What do you see coming out of this work that has been done over the past number of months?
Ms. Jennings: The guiding principle of the modernization of the Official Languages Act has to be the equality of the status of English and French. There can be no separate status or approach for each language. That’s the first thing.
Second, the act must guarantee this equality of status in all institutions subject to the act across Canada.
An additional feature has to be the substantive equality. In its implementation, the act must enable adaptation to the specific context and needs of the different official language minority communities. There has to be clarity in the act. For Part VII of the act talks about positive measures and about enhancing the vitality of the official language minority communities. It speaks of assisting in the development of official language minority communities. There are no definitions of those terms. So under the modernization of the act, clear definitions should be given.
The act should become enforceable, but we do not agree that the Commissioner of Official Languages should have the power to order compliance or enforce sanctions. We believe that there should be a separate independent agency, tribunal — whatever you want to call it — that has the sole mandate, power and authority to order compliance or enforce sanctions.
Senator Smith: Is it a realistic expectation that this is going to roll out all at once, or is this going to be stepped or timed? Are there going to be test cases? I know that would irritate many provinces that would not be selected to be the test cases. What’s the realistic expectation?
I’m not trying to say your expectations aren’t realistic, but do you see it all happening at once, or is it going to be stepped or staged? Going back to the senator’s question about the implementation, how is it going to roll out?
Mr. McNiven: I’m not going to jump in here necessarily with a complete answer, but it seems to me that Parliament can, at once, legislate its intent and spend the time that it will take to address the resources necessary in the particular environments, regions, provinces and linguistic communities to create enforceability, which is underlying what we are talking about. Resources are not just human resources but translation facilities and access to minority language resources that both we and the French-speaking minority language groups are promoting.
The answer would be yes, immediately, to express this objective. Then you are going to have to take the time that it takes, in a careful and modulated way, to apply all the resources that are necessary to give effect to it.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: You touched on something that interests me. You identified a number of key aspects that are conducive to equal access to justice in both official languages. You just mentioned the whole human resources issue. I would like to hear your thoughts precisely on access to qualified workers and qualified professionals, whether they are bilingual lawyers, translators, jurilinguists or interpreters. Can you outline the specific challenges in Quebec?
[English]
Ms. Jennings: In Quebec, if you are working in the administration of justice, you are either a public servant or a para-public servant, if we are not talking about community organizations, which means that when recruitment is happening, they are only looking at one’s ability to work, write, read and speak French. There are virtually no positions designated as bilingual. That poses a challenge in and of itself.
It means, therefore, that members of the English-speaking minority communities, who are in fact bilingual, have less of a chance of being hired into the provincial public service. If we look at the statistics over the last, I’d say, 30 decades of the federal public service, and we look at Quebec, francophones are overrepresented within the federal public service in Quebec. That means right there that there is a real challenge.
The federal government spends a lot of money on English-language training for its staff. If you look here in Quebec, the last stenographer for the English courts was —
Mr. McNiven: The last stenographer course.
Ms. Jennings: Yes. The last stenographer course for English in the courts ran two years ago. No course is being given right now to be an official English stenographer for the courts.
That is simply a drop in the bucket about how access to justice in English is virtually non-existent within the province of Quebec.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: I would like to pick up on something you said with regard to accountability. As I understand it, Justice Canada has to transfer funds to the Quebec ministry of justice, but we do not know how that money is invested.
How can this situation be corrected in order to better understand the responsibilities of Justice Canada and those of the Quebec ministry of justice to invest in the appropriate areas?
[English]
Ms. Jennings: That’s an excellent question, senator. We might want look at the model that exists for access to health and social services in English, where the federal government provides and transfers significant monies over to the provincial government in order to ensure access to those health and social services in English. A whole mechanism exists which allows for the English-speaking minority communities of Quebec to have a say in where those monies go, so there is a certain accountability as a result.
One of the things we would be asking, proposing and recommending is that if the federal government does indeed take up its responsibility and transfers money to the Government of Quebec, and it would be the same for other governments, ensure that services in the official minority language of that province are available to members in the area of justice, as large as that is, not just criminal justice; and that there is community involvement in determining where that money should be best spent and the kind of research that needs to take place to determine where the capacity exists, where the capacity doesn’t exist, where there are gaps and how best to fill those gaps.
I think that there needs to be a shift in the paradigm. It can no longer be just the federal government and their official spokespeople and the individual provincial government making that decision. I think the communities have to be involved in determining the process, the decision making and the criteria. That, in fact, is what we heard through our consultations in terms of no justice if there is no access in English.
Senator Moncion: I’m smiling at some of the comments that you’re making because we have heard the exact same thing coming from the French communities across Canada. So the problem that you live with in Quebec for English in communities and where the money is going and the services is the exact same thing across Canada.
I have two questions for you. What kind of support do you receive from English Canada regarding the situation with the courts in Quebec?
Ms. Jennings: Nothing, zero, nada, zip.
Senator Moncion: I think I got it. Thank you. I thought there would be a community outside of Quebec that would be helping in some way, but I got it.
You touched on the administrative tribunal, and I wrote it down actually. You were talking about having an independent body doing this work. How useful for you is the Office of the Official Languages Commissioner?
Ms. Jennings: The Official Languages Commissioner and the office have been very helpful and supportive. The primary role is now the promotion and advancement of official languages and the investigation of potential breaches of the act. We believe that the role of the commissioner should be that of an ombudsperson, ombudsman, and we believe that the power to order compliance and to enforce sanctions should be devolved to an independent tribunal or agency. It has a certain diplomatic power of persuasion. But we definitely do not believe that the Office of the Official Languages Commissioner should have the power of ordering compliance or enforcing, imposing sanctions.
Senator Moncion: Thank you.
The first comment that you made about the office of the commissioner is promotion and advancement. How much promotion does the commissioner do for your group in Quebec?
Ms. Jennings: I think silence says it all.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. It’s just that I always find it —
Ms. Jennings: If I may, senator, you have to understand that up until very recently, the attitudes of our federal government, and to a certain extent the Official Languages Commissioner and the Quebec government, was that the English-speaking minority communities of Quebec were the best-treated minority and that we really didn’t need anything because the overwhelming majority population of Canada was English-speaking. It’s only in recent times, I would say the last decade, that there has been a prise de conscience that in fact the vitality of our communities is diminishing rapidly and a large part of that has been because there hasn’t been concentrated efforts to actually support us. Therefore, we have not been able to develop, beyond the Greater Montreal area, a real capacity that our francophone counterparts outside of Quebec have been able to develop. One only has to look at the number of witnesses that are heard sometimes on the question of the official languages. You will have 70, 75 witnesses representing the French-speaking minority communities outside of Quebec and maybe three, four or, if we are lucky, five within Quebec. That’s not because we don’t exist. It’s not because we don’t face exactly the same issues as many francophone communities outside of Quebec. It’s because we have been so neglected for decades that we have been unable to develop the kind of capacity that exists with our francophone counterparts outside of Quebec to advocate, to do the research and to get the actual hard evidence.
It’s only in the last decade or so that we are starting to develop that capacity and that we are actually getting a bit of money from the federal government to do the research, to do the consultations. Even then, we have been sorely underfunded when we compare the funding that we receive to our francophone counterparts. Our francophone counterparts don’t get enough funding for their needs, and we get even less. So we don’t say cut the funding outside of Quebec; no. We say beef it up and beef it up even more inside Quebec so we can start to develop that capacity.
The Deputy Chair: Since we only have about five minutes left, I’m going to ask that you pose one short question each short. I would ask that the answers be shortened a bit to make sure we have time to get the questions in.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Ms. Jennings, what you are talking about is the inverted pyramid. The anglophone minority was a majority. Do you know how long it took for a francophone in Quebec to get the right to a trial in French?
Ms. Jennings: If you are asking me, I know that in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, until the federal government passed the Official Languages Act and Canada was recognized as a bilingual country, francophones in Quebec, even though they were the majority, and francophones outside Quebec suffered and faced obstacles at every turn.
Mr. McNiven: We can always look back to analyze what happened in the past, but to answer the question, if I may say so, my understanding is that the committee is here to consider...
Senator Maltais: It was just a question for Ms. Jennings. As a former politician, she is used to question period.
The Deputy Chair: Your speaking time is up.
Senator Maltais: With regard to accountability, would you agree that your proposal regarding justice services should apply right across Canada, just as education services are provided to English-speaking provinces? In other words, so the federal government would be sure that the money is going to the right place, for both justice and education?
Ms. Jennings: Certainly.
Mr. McNiven: Absolutely.
Senator Gagné: Thank you very much for your remarks. I had another question, but I think this one is more interesting. I was wondering whether, the preamble to the Official Languages Act should explicitly state that French is the minority language in Canada. I would like to hear your thoughts on that. If so, why? If not, why not?
[English]
Ms. Jennings: We believe that the guiding principle of the Official Languages Act must be equality of the status of English and French, and there should not be a separate status or approach for each language. Therefore, the act in our view must categorically guarantee this equality of status in all institutions subject to the act across Canada. If the government and your Senate committee were to make the recommendation that you just put on the table, what would happen is that the English-speaking minority communities of Quebec would literally disappear. This is because the provincial government and the federal government would no longer have any obligation to ensure the ongoing vitality of the English-speaking minority communities of Quebec — no legal constitutional obligation.
That is why I personally could not support the proposal you just made or suggested. I believe that our Access to Justice Committee, had they had an opportunity to hear that, would be of like mind with me, I know that QCGN is of like mind.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much for your explanations, Ms. Jennings and Mr. McNiven. You have helped us better understand the issues involved.
The committee will now continue its work on the fourth part of its study, which pertains to justice. We are pleased to welcome Mr. Stéphane Beaulac, professor in the faculty of law and director of the National Observatory on Language Rights, Université de Montréal.
Please go ahead, Mr. Beaulac. Thank you for being here this evening.
Stéphane Beaulac, Professor, Faculty of Law and Director, National Observatory on Language Rights, Université de Montréal, as an individual: Honourable senators, I am delighted to address you this evening. I have already been briefly introduced. I would simply add that I specialize in public law. I have been interested in language rights for some time. We now have this language rights resource that is nearly three years old. Accordingly, I have a great interest in the modernization of the Official Languages Act. My interest is primarily from a public law perspective, and more specifically as regards interpretation.
I am not an administrative expert. The act pertains to many aspects of administrative law, which I will not discuss today. In the time allotted to me, I will discuss three themes that may give rise to discussion. First, I will discuss the bilingualism of Supreme Court of Canada justices and the decision in Nadon. Second, I will talk about legislative bilingualism, more specifically the rule of equal authority in the interpretation of laws. Finally, I will talk about bilingualism of the judicial system and the rule of the equal authority of the versions of a judgment.
On the first matter, I will briefly outline my position, which I have already articulated in doctrine, according to which the Supreme Court of Canada is at the top of the hierarchy of Canada’s unitary system of justice. It has jurisdiction to ensure that justice is administered considering one of the country’s key characteristics, namely, bilingualism. Canada’s judicial reality includes not only bilingualism, but also bijuralism.
With regard to bilingualism, I agree with colleagues who have stressed the need for judges who can work in both official languages in the highest authority in the land. It is a matter of the true interpretation and application of Canadian law, which is supposed to be bilingual.
Why have we seen opposition recently to making it a statutory requirement for the Supreme Court of Canada be bilingual? The current government has invoked the decision in Nadon, which, if memory serves me, pertained to the eligibility of a judge from the federal court system in order to determine essentially whether his appointment met the requirement of having three judges from Quebec. This decision pertained very specifically to the three seats allocated to the province of Quebec so as to uphold Canada’s legal duality, that is, common law in English Canada and civil law in Quebec. In my humble opinion, it is interpreted too broadly to include all aspects of the makeup of the court. This term derives from section 41 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which requires a constitutional amendment in order to address matters of the makeup of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The decision in Nadon, however, refers to a combination of two things. It refers to a fundamental characteristic of the highest authority in the land, the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as protection of Quebec’s three seats, which led the Supreme Court to conclude that it was not possible to appoint Justice Nadon in this case, but more generally that someone was not meeting the requirements of sections 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Act. To summarize, I think essentially that a sound interpretation of the decision in Nadon would not stand in the way of making it a statutory requirement for appointees to the Supreme Court of Canada to be bilingual.
I will now move on right away to the second point, bilingual legislation and the rule of equal authority in legislative interpretation. This rule of equal authority is rooted in a number of instruments: section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1967, as well as section 18 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and a law that is of primary interest to us. Section 13 of the Official Languages Act emphasizes in broad terms and in the same spirit that both versions of statutes are official, in French and in English, and have the same status and authority.
In the reality of legal practice in this country, however, it’s quite clear that these ideals of legislative bilingualism come up against the unilingualism of the practitioners in several parts of the country. As Ms. Jennings pointed out, and I’m sure that this has been said by other witnesses in other hearings, the reality is that the practice of law in Montreal is very bilingual. Elsewhere in the country, the situation is not at all the same.
The applicable rules in legislative interpretation to encourage legislative bilingualism insist, first, on that rule of the equal authority of the versions, which means essentially that bilingual laws should be interpreted in a bilingual way. That may seem simplistic on the face of it, but that idea takes us much further than the simple rules set out in jurisprudence: the first deals with the common meaning of both versions, and the other essentially supports the common meaning in cases of ambiguity resulting from some contradiction between the two versions.
I submit to you, Madam Deputy Chair, that in order to reach the general objective of the Official Languages Act better, and to truly and substantively promote legislative bilingualism, it would be advisable to include an interpretation provision in the OLA. It would urge the country’s lawyers in Quebec, but also in the other nine provinces and three territories, to get into the habit — without making it too demanding a rule, but an interpretation rule — of systematically taking into account both linguistic versions in the interpretation of bilingual laws in our country.
As to interpretation, one of the first things I point out in my first or second session with my students is that even in jurisdictions where there is legislative bilingualism, where there is more than one official language in the laws, there is a single legislative standard. It stands as a whole. Its communication support is what is dual. So, in order to attain the ideals and the general objective of giving access to bilingual legislation throughout the country in both official languages, what could be better than to invite people to interpret not only downstream, if there is a contradiction between both official versions, but also upstream, and encourage jurists who are preparing their cases — and also judges, of course — to take both versions into consideration right from the outset.
My third point, and I will be brief, concerns judicial bilingualism and the rule of the equal authority of the versions of a ruling. If you present it in that way, it is false. In our country, de facto, on the ground, the decisions that are official in both languages of the country, French and English, most of the time include the word “translation” above one or the other of the two versions. The Supreme Court of Canada rulings, the decisions of the federal court, the decisions that are listed — we are told in doctrine that this does not go beyond 10 per cent — few judgments in the courts come from federal court, courts of appeal and trial courts, and when they are translated, they are identified as “translations” in one or the other version. That practiceunfortunately means that in the facts, one of the two versions of decisions has more authority than the other.
I will conclude with an anecdote. About 20 years ago, I worked with Ms. Claire L’Heureux-Dubé at the Supreme Court of Canada. One of the tasks she gave us was to revise the translations of the decisions, systematically, since the vast majority of the rulings were handed down and drafted in English. We were the Quebec clerks, and in a three-person group, it was regularly part of my responsibility to check the translations of the English into French. When we were done, after a first revision, Ms. L’Heureux-Dubé would do a second one, and she would cross out the word “translation”, because in her opinion, we had worked enough on the translated version, and it was no less official by then than the other. If I were to make a suggestion, it would be the following: keeping in mind that the main legal sources in Canada are mostly legislative, but also jurisprudential — that is even truer in English Canada, of course, in the nine common law provinces — it would probably be good to encourage people, in the bilingual interpretation and drafting of the reasons for the decisions that will be in both official languages, to bolster equality of authenticity by setting aside this practice of mentioning that one of the two versions is a translated version. This could be done, as I said, by mentioning it in the preamble or in an interpretation provision. I will conclude on that. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Beaulac. Before we begin our questions, I’d like to remind all of our members to not go beyond their allotted five minutes per senator for the questions and answers. If time permits, if there are more questions, we can do a second round.
Senator Moncion: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for giving me the first question, since I will have to leave you. As for equality of authenticity, we met with people who translate, jurilinguists who spoke about the quality of bilingual versions. They said that because jurilinguists are not always called upon to translate, there are sometimes lapses in the meaning of the translated versions. Could you speak to us about that problem?
Mr. Beaulac: Yes. I have not done any empirical studies to compare the quality of two linguistic versions. The idea behind my proposal is to instil the habit among those who make the decisions to verify and make sure that the translated version is consistent with the original version.
I am fully aware of the high quality of translations, and I also experienced this at the Supreme Court — although it was a number of years ago — but we were quite proud of our work, and with good reason. However, to my knowledge, at the time and since then, although I have not done any checking, I do not think that other judges have gotten into the habit of systematically revising, so as to be able to essentially endorse the original version and the translated version on the same footing.
Obviously, it’s a matter of resources; they are needed if the decision-maker is to arrive at a final product which will make him or her as completely comfortable as the original version. As for the translated version, you will probably have to find a way to do that. It can be done at the level of the court administration with a specialized group. Ultimately, it becomes — and I will remind you of this as I conclude — one of the formal sources of law in our country. If we believe in bilingualism in the federal jurisdiction, and in several provinces, we must make sure that one of the main legislative sources, jurisprudence, is truly officially bilingual, and has the same authority in both official languages. That would be a big plus.
Senator Moncion: What problem do you see with keeping the “original version” and “translation” indications?
Mr. Beaulac: Once again, this is more intuitive than empirical. I have not done the exercise. My former professor, Teresa Scassa, from Dalhousie University, who is now in Ottawa, conducted a study in the mid 1990s on the translations of court judgments, among other things. My intuition is based on information. If we keep those words, one version will always be more official than the other. There will be a tendency — especially in those jurisdictions where jurists are perfectly bilingual — to go and consult the original version. Once again, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that is better than the situations described by Ms. Jennings and other witnesses, where there is no translation of legal decisions in other courts of the land.
I propose that we emulate courts that have already firmly established the tradition of having quality translations that reflect the will of the judges, and where the word “translation” can be removed, and people are comfortable with both the original version and the translation.
Senator Moncion: Thank you.
Senator McIntyre: Mr. Beaulac, thank you for enlightening us on this whole matter of legislative bilingualism and judicial bilingualism. I understand perfectly why you are an expert language rights researcher.
That said, clearly the current provisions of the Official Languages Act on legislative and judicial bilingualism are not consistent. We need to make changes to the law to ensure more consistency in those two objectives. If I understood correctly,we should also extend the obligations related to judicial bilingualism to provincial courts?
Mr. Beaulac: No.
Senator McIntyre: No?
Mr. Beaulac: I will let you finish.
Senator McIntyre: Should judicial bilingualism obligations be extended to provincially administered courts?
Mr. Beaulac: On this matter, I will wear my constitutionalist’s hat. Obviously, we need to be careful. Given all the success the Official Languages Act has had throughout country, we must also respect the Canadian constitutional framework by pursuing its ideals and objectives, which are at the heart of the law in question. The administration of justice, under section 92 of the Constitutional Act, 1867, is a provincial matter.
There can be co-operation, but this would not be well received politically. I will not insist, because I am very aware of the fact that I am here as a constitutional and public law jurist. Perhaps there could be a preamble highlighting the benefits of better co-operation in the administration of justice to ensure better access to justice — to reiterate what Ms. Jennings said — and more generally, to be able to work in French and in English in the legal field. I will not recommend measures that would interfere any more than that in matters of provincial jurisdiction.
Senator McIntyre: Very well. I understand that you are the co-director of the National Observatory on Language Rights of the University of Montreal. That said, what role does the University of Montreal play in training jurists and jurilinguists in the provision of French- and English-language legal services?
Also, is there co-operation with other universities or colleges in Canada to ensure the provision of such services?
Mr. Beaulac: Very modestly, I would summarize the mission of the National Observatory on Language Rights as that of a research centre where, for more than two years now, students have been taking seminars and doing work. Our platform ensures dissemination, but that is as far as our mission goes for the moment. Before learning to run, we want to learn to walk, and build our foundation. Our role is one of scientific and intellectual leadership on language rights issues. In Quebec, there was a blatant gap with regard to this type of resource. We are interested in minority language community realities throughoutthe country, both for francophones outside Quebec, and anglophones within Quebec.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you.
Senator Gagné: Welcome, Mr. Beaulac. I have asked myself this question: Is the francophone population of Quebec attached to the Official Languages Act?
Mr. Beaulac: If that is your question, I cannot speak as an expert witness on public law. I am not a political scientist, nor have I as a lawyer examined the impact or the symbolic role of the Official Languages Act in the province of Quebec. I am sorry, but I cannot express an opinion on this.
Senator Gagné: I ask because official language minority communities are clearly very attached to the Official Languages Act. How could we enhance the value of the OLA in the eyes of Canada’s anglophone majority, and Quebec’s francophone majority?
Mr. Beaulac: The question is related to the legislative process. Of course, the current process and the efforts deployed to modernize the Official Languages Act are well-received by Quebec’s anglophone minority language communities.
How could you promote its benefits? Your question is giving me a chance to include a fundamental concept in the area of language rights in my remarks tonight, which is that of asymmetry. The reality of English language communities in Quebec is very different because of certain things I do not necessarily agree with, and which were expressed by Ms. Jennings, who testified before me.
You have to be careful. In English Canada — the other nine provinces and three territories — the reality of francophone minority communities is different, notably with regard to the right to access education in the language of the minority. In its jurisprudence, the Supreme Court of Canada has several times insisted on the concept of asymmetry in language issues in Canada. Politically speaking, it would be beneficial if that were better understood and used.
Unfortunately, Quebec’s position is not necessarily favourable to minority francophones outside Quebec. They always think that any gains for them will be to the detriment of the French language in Quebec, and will lead to similar legal protections for Quebec anglophones. However, that is the reality of both languages in a North American environment, and that is what I understand from the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, which has accepted this idea of asymmetry for the purpose of conferring legal protection on linguistic minorities.
Senator Gagné: Some cases have discussed this issue; we must take into account the specificity of communities when we implement government programs.
Earlier, I asked Ms. Jennings if in the preamble of the Official Languages Act we should include an explicit statement that French is the minority language in Canada. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Beaulac: Firstly, while insisting on the importance of the rules and principles of legislative interpretation, people may automatically think that such an addition to the preamble would not be that important, and that it would be purely symbolic. However, preambles have proven very useful, not only in Canadian constitutional texts, but also in several other ordinary laws.
Before adding anything, you have to consider the potential impact, which may go beyond the symbolic one. Whether symbolic or real, the effect would not serve the purposes of the Official Languages Act. Earlier I referred to the asymmetry that is needed to provide legal protection to linguistic communities. In my humble opinion, we would be sending the wrong message, which would be that the French language is the only one that is under threat. This could lead us to the position of protecting linguistic minorities only. However, to my mind, the general objectives of the Official Languages Act are much broader than that, either in its current version or the modernized version, which will I hope be even broader. They are about protection, but also about the vitality of the country’s official languages.
Senator Mégie: We have heard witnesses speak about the Jurisource platform, which is helpful in the translation of common law texts, and is exclusively in English for the francophone minorities in other provinces.
As someone who is responsible for teaching, and since you also do research, have you ever been involved in the development of legal and jurilinguistic tools in one or the other official language?
Mr. Beaulac: The short answer is no, not yet. Once again, we will be developing, expanding and instituting other related elements which the expertise of a university platform can contribute.
Earlier, I forgot to answer the question on co-operation. There are in fact other research centres across the country, such as the one in Moncton, that specialize in language rights. As for what you were referring to, French-language common law, for obvious reasons, that is more central to the concerns of our colleagues in Moncton, since they are in a common law jurisdiction, as opposed to ourselves in Quebec.
There is, however, something else that is of particular interest to us. I have made representations in Quebec on the place English occupies in the legislative process. The Quebec constitution requires the adoption of bilingual laws. That issue is closer to home, and concerns the minority English language in the adoption of legislation in Quebec.
The Deputy Chair: I’ll take this opportunity to ask a few questions.
Recently, the government announced its 2018-2023 Action Plan for Official Languages. It includes provisions that aim to facilitate access to justice. The action plan contains a $2-million investment over two years to increase the bilingual capability of the superior court judiciary. Do you believe that that will be enough to meet the needs? If not, what measures should the government take to improve the situation?
Mr. Beaulac: Thank you for the question. A previous comment touched on this aspect concerning the interaction of federal and provincial jurisdictions in the administration of justice. I would be tempted, at first, to say that any addition is a good thing. The ultimate goal is to promote judicial bilingualism across the country by having more English in Quebec and more French in the other provinces and territories. I gather that you’re asking what more can be done. I see the possibility of adding money transfers to these programs under certain conditions. I just want to say that I have an issue with this point. We must be careful. As I mentioned earlier, in our constitutional framework, if we believe in the principle of federalism, we come back to it and we can’t escape it. Aside from judicial appointments and compensation, the superior courts operate within a constitutional framework that makes the provinces responsible for the administration of justice.
Ultimately, if we’re planning to go this far and to impose conditions, we’re reverting to an approach that has been criticized, condemned and greatly reduced in scope. When it was brought up, this approach was the fiscal imbalance or the spending power. To a large extent, we could certainly turn to this type of program, such as the federal government’s participation in the form of cash transfers, with the overall objectives of improving access to justice in both official languages in the country. When we go as far as adding conditions, we start violating the federalist principle at the heart of Canada’s constitutional order.
The Deputy Chair: Would the amendment of the Official Languages Act be part of the solution? If so, how should the act be amended?
Mr. Beaulac: Certainly. The flagship legislative framework for official languages in the country, more specifically with regard to access to justice, is the Official Languages Act. If the first component is whether the act is the right tool, I would say yes, without a shadow of a doubt. What can we do? When drafting the provisions to establish this type of program, we must ensure that — and I’m venturing into administrative law, which I’m much less familiar with, so I’m being careful — we stick to an approach that doesn’t impose conditions or interfere with the provincial jurisdictions. In my humble opinion, the administration would certainly be the best strategy.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Mégie: Earlier, I understood, and I’ll explain using clear terms, that in order to maintain legislative judicial bilingualism, we must be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to the translation. Is that correct? If we were to focus on co-drafting legislation, would that help us with the equal authority rule? Rather than waiting for the translation to be completed and revised and being unsure whether the translation is of equal value to the legislation written in the other language, could this help?
Mr. Beaulac: Senator Mégie, I gather that you want to know whether anything can be gained from having a co-drafting practice that already exists at the federal level. Would the idea be to determine whether there are ways to ask other jurisdictions, such as the Quebec jurisdiction, to adopt a bilingual system of passing legislation that more closely resembles the federal system, and in your words, to promote real bilingualism proactively rather than reactively through translation? Probably. I think that you also addressed the judicial bilingualism aspect, meaning the equal authority of decisions rendered in both official languages. In this regard, the alternative would be to consider a system where judges, such as Supreme Court judges, would co-draft their reasons in English and French. I doubt that this would be a short-term solution. In reality, and I’m sure that this hasn’t changed in the past 20 years, the cases — even the cases that reach the highest court in the country, the Supreme Court of Canada — are presented in one language. When the case is in English, even the French-speaking judges work in English. Unfortunately, this is another asymmetrical situation, because the reverse isn’t always applicable. When a case comes from Quebec and the judge is a unilingual English-speaker, everything is translated for the judge.
To get back to our topic, perhaps ultimately, but with all due respect, it may be unrealistic to think that we can really reason in both languages when drafting decisions. At the very least, and this approach would be less proactive and more reactive, when both language versions are published, if a substantive verification is carried out, which is the subject of my proposal, the “translation” notation can finally be set aside. This will ensure that later, when the case law is used as a legal source in Canadian law, no language version will be more official than the other version.
Senator Mégie: In our current modernization phase, we wouldn’t need to add anything to the Official Languages Act to ensure this. We could still wait.
Mr. Beaulac: Yes. It would even be tricky, since it may interfere with the function of the judiciary. In other words, it’s one thing to say that what comes out of the pipeline, meaning decisions in English and French, could be of greater quality to ensure that both versions are equally official. However, by interfering in the decision-making process and the way in which reasons are given, we would be saying how judges can offload their constitutional responsibility to deliver justice. This would likely conflict with the basic principles of the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers.
Senator Mégie: Perfect. Thank you.
Senator Gagné: You did set out some principles that should be codified in the legislation. Given the case law, since the last time amendments were made to the Official Languages Act, have there been any principles that could be codified in the legislation regarding the remedial nature of language rights or substantive equality, or this type of case law? Would you be able to answer these questions?
Mr. Beaulac: That would be a good thing. Would there really be added value because, since the last overhaul, some case law has made a significant difference, particularly with regard to statements on the quasi-constitutional nature of the Official Languages Act? This is the principle of a broad and liberal remedial interpretation. The constitutional provisions were also used as a basis. To draw a parallel, there has been a debate in Quebec for the past 10 years on the following subject. Would it be a good idea to codify the rules for the reasonable accommodation plan? Many people think so, since the subject is already developed in the case law, and taking the subject and codifying it would clarify matters and would probably make the criteria more accessible to people appearing before the courts. Other people, including me, don’t necessarily see this subject in a positive light. Sometimes, adding legislative straps to the case law belt may raise potential contradictions between the legislative and case law source, which could lead to disputes, and so on.
I’ll finish drawing my parallel by going back to the Official Languages Act. I don’t necessarily see added value in taking and codifying things that are already very clear and that are agreed upon in case law. This is the view of someone who has both a civil law and common law background. This may be just be leaving the door open to a possible challenge regarding inconsistency in codified principles and in well-established case law. That said, and this is in line with my comment on the reasonable accommodation criteria, it would have the major benefit of making everything more easily accessible to individuals appearing before the courts across the country, since the legislative form is more easily understood by the average person.
Senator Gagné: Okay. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: I have one last question. The idea in the evidence is to incorporate the co-drafting principle into the legislation, even if this is already the practice. What do you think?
Mr. Beaulac: Unlike what I said about codifying a rule or rules and principles developed in the case law, when it comes to codifying a practice, there’s clearly added value. I can complete the circle. Despite your questions, I didn’t need to address my first topic, which was formalizing the bilingual requirement for Supreme Court of Canada appointments. The current government’s practice is to require functional bilingualism. This type of practice, which can also be called a directive, would benefit greatly from being codified and implemented in a legislative framework that would ensure its continued existence. Governments come and go, practices can be changed, and legislation as well, but they’re usually more likely to remain the applicable rule.
Your question is the following. Is the current co-drafting practice, even though it goes back some 30 years, in the legislation section of Justice Canada—
The Deputy Chair: To 1974.
Mr. Beaulac: It even goes back 45 years. The success of this well-established practice would be confirmed if the practice were codified in the Official Languages Act. I would certainly see this as added value.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. If the senators have no further questions, the only thing left for me to do is to thank you, Mr. Beaulac, for your explanations. You certainly managed to properly explain the issues and problems.
(The committee adjourned.)