October 22nd 2018 - Study on Canadians’ views about modernizing the Official Languages Act - Various Witnesses

Senator Poirier: My question has to do with the implementation of the act. We have heard from a number of witnesses who want the implementation to be effective and for the Privy Council, the Treasury Board or Canadian Heritage to be in charge of it. This summer, the Cabinet was shuffled and Minister Joly changed positions, but kept the official languages portfolio. Can you comment on the current situation whereby the Minister of Official Languages is now separate from Canadian Heritage? In your opinion what would be the best approach to make sure that the act is implemented effectively?

Ms. Effendi: Thank you very much, senator. That is an excellent question. In our view, dividing the department does not help the implementation of the act. We support the proposal that has been made by a number of others who have testified before you and who suggest that there should be a central agency responsible for the entire implementation of the act. We need one entity with the responsibility and the powers in the act. Unfortunately, at the moment, the heritage department does not have the powers it needs to convince its counterparts to comply with the act. It only has the power to urge and encourage.

In our view, the current situation does not change the implementation at all. The problem still exists. In our opinion, we need an entity with much greater powers, like the Treasury Board, an entity that would have tentacles everywhere in the government apparatus, and that would be able to convince people around the table to comply with the obligations in the act.

Mr. Bisson: I have nothing to add. Later, I could give you some thoughts on other aspects of coordination in the area of justice.

Senator Poirier: The government has recently announced its Action Plan for Official Languages, 2018-2023. The plan has a component designed to improve access to justice with an investment of $2 million over two years to increase capacity, as well as an action plan within the action plan designed to improve bilingualism on superior court benches.

Is that enough to meet the needs, in your opinion? If not, what steps should the government be taking to improve the situation?

Mr. Bisson: I can answer that. First of all, I want to thank the federal government for the funding it has given the network and our members. We are an interface between civil society and the justice system. I acknowledge that, in a number of countries, this type of interface is not funded. So I am happy about that.

As for your second question, is the funding for equal access to justice sufficient? That’s a delicate question that needs a delicate and measured answer. So I will tell you in a measured way: the answer is no. To improve equal access to justice, the funding is clearly inadequate.

I can give you a few examples, if I may, Mr. Chair. In the action plan that we have recommended to the federal government — that may seem strange but it is what we did — we recommended that more money should be invested in the Justice Canada bureaucracy. We recommended that the Department of Justice should become a horizontal centre of expertise for the whole field of justice, so that the issue of the RCMP and all the FPT justice committees could be coordinated. We saw earlier that most criminal cases are heard by provincial courts, so we must be able to coordinate with the provinces. As a community group, when that coordination does not happen, our job becomes very complicated. I still do not know whether that recommendation was accepted.

I will give you some other examples. I was in Edmonton this weekend and I listened to officials from the heritage department saying that community groups had been given a 20 per cent increase. I can assure you that no one had a 20 per cent increase when the action plan was announced. We had cuts, and so did other groups. The biggest increases would have been in the order of 1 or 2 per cent. Other things are more serious.

Once more with your permission, I will talk about the training of provincial and municipal police. You come from different provinces where there are municipal and provincial police forces. Outside Quebec, not a single police academy can train police officers in French, even in the Atlantic region. We had therefore proposed that money be invested to train police in the academies — I am not talking about the RCMP — but that did not happen either.

Finally, in the government response to the House committee, there was a recommendation, recommendation 6, that talked about family justice. The recommendation announced with great fanfare that there had been huge improvements in the budgets for family justice and that the priorities included official language minority communities. That was in March. In June, the minister told us that all the money had run out and that there was no more money for us. In November, they told us that we could submit projects because we could access funds that the provinces had not spent. I have to tell you that we find it unpleasant to hear things like that.

I think that answers your question. Thank you for indulging me, Mr. Chair.

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Senator Poirier: Welcome to the committee, sir. We very much appreciate your being here. Last week, the committee heard very good comments about the translation services for Supreme Court decisions. Could you tell us how long it takes to publish judgments and who is responsible for them?

Mr. Bilodeau: Yes, we do have a well-established team at the Supreme Court. We are also very fortunate to have dedicated, competent and very skilled staff that allows the court to produce its judgments in both official languages each year. As for the usual timeframe for the publication of judgments, when the court hears a case, we can expect the judgment to be produced and published within about six months. The average is about six months from the date of the appeal hearing to the publication of the judgment. When judges prepare their draft judgment, and when the draft is relatively ready, it is sent for translation. The initial translation is done externally by the Translation Bureau. We receive the translated text and our staff gets busy revising, editing and fine-tuning the translated text to end up with the finished product.

As I said earlier, we are fortunate to have a team of lawyers, a team of jurilinguists and a team of technical revisers on site to ensure the quality, production, revision, editing and final publication of each judgment. Year in and year out, the court issues about 65 to 85 judgments per year, which is not a large number compared to other courts, and it allows us to look more closely at each judgment to achieve a quality product. Of course, since it is the Supreme Court of Canada and each judgment has a potential impact on some aspect of society or the law, each judgment must be accurate. We cannot afford to make mistakes in terminology, vocabulary or legal concepts. This means that we pay a lot of attention to the quality of the legal vocabulary used in both languages, in English and French, in both versions of the judgment. Therefore, the timeframe is approximately six months for the production, the publication of the judgment. As I explained, members of our internal team do the work with an initial translation by people from the federal government’s Translation Bureau. Does that answer your question?

Senator Poirier: Yes. On another note, the committee also heard about the very poor quality of decisions rendered in other courts. In your opinion, how can the Official Languages Act be amended to provide the same level of quality in the translation of decisions?

Mr. Bilodeau: In the other courts?

Senator Poirier: Yes.

Mr. Bilodeau: I will be a little circumspect, because I do not want to interfere too much in the work of the other courts, out of respect for their independence and status. However, as I suggested earlier, the other courts have a much higher volume of judgments per year. Depending on the number of judgments they have to produce, translate and publish, staff, resources and experience are required. We must also recognize that expertise in the production of judgments or in legal bilingualism in general is limited. We won’t find on every street corner in Canada, jurilinguists, lawyers and revisers who have the talent, skills, training and experience to produce high quality judgments in all Canadian courts. I am not saying that it is impossible, but it will take some time to get to a point where we have enough resources to be able to properly equip all Canadian courts that want or need to produce judgments in both languages. It is basically a matter of resources, training and experience.

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Senator Poirier: I have additional questions in relation to some of the comments made earlier. Two or three times this evening, you mentioned the six‑month delay for translation. Later, you added that a revision can be done five, 10, 15 or 20 times. Do these revisions take place within six months?

Mr. Bilodeau: When I say five, 10 or 15 times, it varies from case to case. It is rereading, checks. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the entire text needs to be reviewed from beginning to end, but several checks are done within six months.

Senator Poirier: When we talk about translation at the Supreme Court, how many are from English to French, and how many are from French to English?

Mr. Bilodeau: I don’t have any statistics, but we receive more cases in English, and judgments are rendered in the language of the case. If the parties plead in English, the judgment is rendered in English. Actually, the judgment is rendered in both languages, but the work is done first in English and a translation is produced.

Senator Poirier: All decisions are published in both languages?

Mr. Bilodeau: Yes. The judges prepare a draft of an initial judgment. This draft is sent for translation. The translation comes back, and that’s when the hard work of the judges, editors and jurilinguists begins. They take the translation, and they work on both texts at the same time to reach with a final version in both languages after six months.

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