On Monday, March 23rd, the House of Commons debated Bill C-232, an NDP impetus to require that Supreme Court justices have knowledge of English and French. The bill, tabled by New Democrat Official Languages Critic Yvon Godin, proposes that section 5 of the Supreme Court Act ( R.S., 1985, c. S-26 ) be amended to […]
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") released their decision in DesRochers v Canada (Industry), 2009 SCC 8 [DesRochers]. In it, the top court opines on the nature and scope of the obligations placed on federal government institutions by the Official Languages Act, RSC 1985, c 31 (4th Supp) [OLA]. Facts Industry Canada has economic development […]
What is justice if you cannot make yourself heard properly? What is justice when an ill-informed person determines your fate? We can all attest to it: even people who share a language occasionally have difficulty understanding each other. Languages are alive. They are characterized by nuances and subtleties which vary, namely, according to cultural references […]
MP Dennis Coderre's recent bill tabled in the House of Commons, Bill C-548, "An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (understanding the official languages - judges of the Supreme Court of Canada)," proposes to amend s.16 of the Act so that Supreme Court justices are required to be bilingual (similar to the requirement for […]
In a bilingual country such as Canada, effective statutory interpretation demands a command of both official languages. Indeed, it is commonplace for judges and lawyers alike to either substantiate or problematize a particular line of statutory interpretation in one official language by looking to the text of the statute in the other. The prevalence of […]
In Quebec, the most closely watched Supreme Court of Canada case of 2008 may well be that of Ministre de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport, et al. v. Hong Ha Nguyen, et al. (“Quebec v. Nguyen”, Supreme Court of Canada docket number 32229, [2007] S.C.C.A. No. 431). A constitutional question should be stated within […]
In October of 2007, Matthew Shogilev and Jakki Warkentin of TheCourt.ca engaged in a compelling debate over the Federal Court of Appeal’s ["FCA"] holding in Societe des acadiens et acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick Inc v Canada, 2006 FCA 196. The case arose as a result of the April 26, 2000 issuance of a speeding ticket to Marie-Claire […]
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") dismissed the leave application in Knopf v Canada (Speaker of the House of Commons), 2007 FCA 308. This leaves the Federal Court of Appeal’s ("FCA") decision as the final word on the matter of whether the right to address committee members in either official language guaranteed by the […]