Last week, Minister Joly took part in Question Period. I asked her some questions about the bilingualism of all the judges appointed by the federal government, as this is first and foremost a matter of access to justice.

The minister said that the issue of access to justice was certainly a priority that had been set for this year following a meeting between the federal and provincial governments on the francophonie and official languages. She also talked about an inventory of bilingual judges that is currently being taken. Earlier in your response to Senator Carignan, you made reference to that inventory.

My questions are as follows: When will this inventory be ready? Will it be shared? Are you going to consider a minimum threshold of bilingual judges per province to ensure that defendants truly have access to justice in the official language of their choice?

Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, P.C., M.P., Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada: I thank the honourable senator for the question. I certainly appreciate working with Minister Joly in and around languages and bilingualism.

In terms of judges and appointments to the judiciary, I will highlight a couple of things we have done. I was very pleased to support the Prime Minister in announcing the new process for the appointment of Supreme Court justices. I'm incredibly proud to have participated in the appointment of the Honourable Justice Malcolm Rowe who was just sworn in last Friday. He is a bilingual judge from Newfoundland and Labrador, the first in our country's history. I was tremendously honoured to assist the Prime Minister in that regard.

Part of the process that led to ensuring we had a judge who was functionally bilingual was to include in the criteria that an individual had to meet that requirement of functional bilingualism. We were fortunate that Justice Rowe is bilingual, as evidenced from many of his discussions and engagements with individuals.

That's one aspect of ensuring that we promote both of our official languages as much as we can, because I agree with you, senator, that individuals do have the right to be heard in their official language of choice.

How can we translate what the Prime Minister has committed to in the Supreme Court of Canada process to, within my domain, the appointment of Superior Court justices? Again, we have renovated the application processes. In many regards, in terms of diversity and in terms of supporting and acknowledging the importance of being able to speak in both languages, whether your first language is French or English, we have placed on the application specific boxes that recognize where an individual can tick the box that they either speak both languages or are functionally bilingual.

While the list of judges, recognizing that we need to protect the privacy of judges that put their names forward — like we did with the Supreme Court, this is something that we can — and I'm thinking about this right now when I'm talking to all of you: How can we ensure that we report out or increase the number of judges, not just where people speak French more prominently, but right across the country, so there is that access to justice in your language of choice?

We've put it into the application process. It certainly is a benefit for a judge to put their names forward and identify themselves as bilingual or functionally bilingual. Like a diversity requirement, that is also a benefit.

I'll continue to work with Minister Joly. We will ensure we provide some data that show we are making improvements in diversity and functional bilingualism. Again, as I move forward with the new judicial advisory committees, I have instructed those committees to turn their minds to individuals who speak both languages. It is a priority in making their recommendations of highly recommended individuals to me for consideration for appointment.