New Brunswick NDP member Yvon Godin has sponsored a private member’s bill (C-232) which would require that all future judges appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada be able to understand both French and English “without the assistance of an interpreter.”

            At present, three of the nine justices must come from Quebec, even though Quebec only has 23% of the country’s population. If this private member’s bill passes the Senate (it already passed the House of Commons by 140 votes to 137, supported by the Bloc Québecois, NDP, and Liberals), it will mean that justices will be chosen more for their linguistic skills than for their legal reasoning. And it will weigh heavily in Quebec’s favour, since the majority of bilingual persons comes from Quebec. (Only 17.7% of the country is bilingual, of which 56% of them reside in Quebec.)

            But there are several other concerns about the Supreme Court being heavily weighed with Québecois judges. As John-Henry Westen of LifeSiteNews.com explains: “Take a look at opinions on the hottest topics—abortion, gay ‘marriage,’ daycare, gun control, easy divorce, religious freedom. Quebec stands far to the left of other Canadian provinces on all these issues… Quebec has been at the forefront in supporting controversial proposals that are rejected in the rest of the country” (LifeSiteNews.com, 23 April 2010).

            It is easy to see that justices from Quebec are being chosen from the most secular province in the country. Increasing their numbers in the Supreme Court could spell disaster for  any number of life and family issues. But one can understand why the NDP would have supported this bill; it fits right in with their far left-wing political agenda.

            What’s wrong with the status quo? Graham Fraser, Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages says that he cannot understand how one could boast of “a lifetime of legal scholarship” without being able to understand Canada’s jurisprudence in French” (Nat. Post, 23 April 2010). He dismisses the fact that there are interpreters for all cases, and all cases are discussed en masse before decisions are written. Fraser hammers the point that jurists who are not fully bilingual might not get the little nuances that could be missed by the translator. In refuting this point, former Supreme Court justice John Major said that “it’s rare that nuances lost in translation play any major role in the outcome of a case. Translators have always done a good job during Supreme Court hearings” (Globe and Mail, 20 April 2010).