Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to this bill this evening. I believe that my colleagues from Drummond and Rimouski have already laid out a positive case for this legislation. I would like to use my speech to respond to some of what we have heard in opposition to the bill from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, as well as from the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun.

The first argument we heard was that the Supreme Court is already bilingual, so there is no problem to solve here. In a similar vein, the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun pointed out that the Prime Minister has already promised to appoint bilingual judges to the Supreme Court. I fail to see these as arguments against the bill. In fact, I think they show that the bill is entirely realistic and achievable, and if the Prime Minister is promising to do this anyway, why not codify it in law? That is the question that I would put back.

It is currently the case that eight of the nine Supreme Court judges are functionally bilingual. New appointments are going to be bilingual. Why not put that into law? The member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun said that, rather than a requirement, it should be left as a primordial criterion. Maybe one needs to be a lawyer to understand the difference between a requirement and a primordial criterion. However, it sounds to me as if we all agree that this is something pretty essential for Supreme Court judges.

The second argument we heard from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton is that there is not a single case that was definitively decided incorrectly, based on a problem with language. I think this is a very strange standard. For a case to get to the Supreme Court, it has to go through a couple of other courts first. The Supreme Court is not adjudicating cases based on the evidence. It is not as though a Supreme Court judge is going to miss a piece of evidence based on not understanding the language. Cases are appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada based on issues of legal interpretation.

It would be difficult to establish that any case before the Supreme Court was definitively decided incorrectly. At that level, it comes down to interpretation, and at that level of nuance, language can be quite important. Again, this notion of proving that a case was decided incorrectly because of language is the wrong standard for this debate.

The third argument we heard from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton was the notion that this bill would reduce the pool of qualified candidates. I think the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun was trying to make the same point when he talked about how specialized certain Supreme Court justices need to be in particular areas of law.

Beyond stating the obvious point that we in the NDP view functionality in both official languages as a very important qualification, I also note that the bill proposes to hold appointees to a very reasonable standard of bilingualism. We are not saying that people appointed to the Supreme Court need to be able to translate Molière or need to be able to speak perfectly in French or in English. What we are saying is that they need to have a basic understanding of both official languages without interpretation. I believe that this is the standard that otherwise qualified candidates for Supreme Court appointments can achieve. I believe that this is a realistic thing to expect of people, and that it is not going to unduly reduce the number of qualified candidates.

The fourth argument we heard from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton was that this bill would result in more errors because Supreme Court judges would be relying on their own imperfect understanding of the other official language, rather than relying on the excellent interpretation services already available at the Supreme Court. However, this bill is not talking about taking interpretation out of the Supreme Court. This bill is talking about adding to that excellent interpretation service a base level of knowledge of both official languages on the part of the judges themselves.

That leads to a more robust system. If someone with a base level understanding of the language is also listening to interpretation, they are going to understand it better and will be able to better detect possible problems with interpretation or translation. We have a better system when we have people with their own understanding of the language who also have access to excellent interpretation and translation services.

The fifth point we heard from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton was about how we are going to test people, if we are going to administer some sort of language exam to people who are going to be appointed to the Supreme Court. I answer this question in two ways. First of all, yes, we do this all the time in the Government of Canada. Every year, we have thousands of public servants who take language exams to establish their proficiency in both official languages. There are certainly tests available that we already administer to determine whether someone can understand both official languages.

The other point I make is that this is a very technical question about what kind of testing we are going to use. If this is really the concern of the Conservatives with this bill, then the solution is to vote to send it to committee so that the committee can look at the different types of tests that might be available. That is not a reason to vote against the bill at this stage of deliberation.

The last argument we heard from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton was that, of course, command of both official languages would be an important consideration, but that we should not make it an official requirement. That was also the fundamental argument we heard from the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun this evening, that it is a consideration, that it is part of the mix, that it is really important but should not be an ultimate requirement. In fact, I think the member went so far as to suggest that it is so important that de facto it is almost already a requirement, that it would be very difficult for a government to justify appointing a Supreme Court judge who is not bilingual.

I make the case that if it is already a kind of de facto requirement, that if as a practical matter one does need to be able to understand both official languages to become a Supreme Court justice, it would actually be better to make it an official requirement because that would send a clear signal to everyone in Canada's legal community that it is a requirement they need to meet to qualify for appointment to the Supreme Court. The worst case scenario would be for someone who is otherwise qualified to go forward in the appointment process thinking that it is not a requirement, only to not be appointed for all the reasons the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun articulated. It is better to just put the requirement out there explicitly in law so that people who aspire to serve on the Supreme Court know this is something they will need to learn, a skill they will need to develop. If as a practical matter it basically already is a requirement, it is better just to have it be an explicit requirement for people, rather than allow for possible confusion about whether candidates for the Supreme Court actually need to be able to function in both official languages.

To sum up, bilingualism is clearly a fundamental cornerstone of our country. We expect federal institutions to be bilingual. That does not necessarily mean that every single person who works in those institutions needs to be bilingual, but we certainly would expect the top people, such as Supreme Court judges, to have a basic understanding of both official languages.

The court already is bilingual. The Prime Minister has already promised to appoint bilingual judges. That shows the feasibility of this bill. It shows that it realistic and achievable. We have heard the argument that we cannot prove that cases have been decided wrongly on linguistic grounds, but again, Supreme Court cases are decided on interpretation so we cannot really prove anything is wrong. All we can do is to say that the adjudication would be better if justices had an understanding of both languages, in addition to having access to the translation and interpretation services that already exist.

Having debunked the arguments against this bill, I invite all members of the House to vote in favour of it.

Erin Weir

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