Language Before Quality Professional Expertise

The New Democratic Party comes up with as many fundamentally flawed and divisive and un-useful initiatives to tie us all into knots as does the Liberal Party of Canada. But this one, a private member's bill introduced and passed in the House of commons by a narrow margin looks to be one that will spell real trouble for this country. The three opposition parties think it's a grand scheme, the ruling Conservative party does not.

This was a bilingual country, and it has become a multilingual country, but it remains primarily a functioning unilingual country, with English, the most-favoured language in the world, leading. The bill set to pass in Parliament if the Senate approves it would see all future Supreme Court justices required to be fully bilingual prior to being considered for approval to the court.

That certainly narrows the prospects for a whole lot of future candidates.

Candidates whose expertise is the law, Canadian jurisprudence, and who in a foolhardy belief that their professional expertise would be complete in and of itself - to act before the bar, to sit in judgement, to be actively engaged in academia - in the sole language used throughout the country as a majority position. And which language could take them virtually anywhere in the world.

Retired Supreme Court justice John Major emphasizes the short-sightedness of such legislation becoming mandatory for all future Supreme Court of Canada judges. The impact of enacting such a law would be enormous. "It's the same as surgery. I want the best doctor. I don't want the linguist", emphasizes unilingual Calgarian, retired John Major.

According to the Supreme Court, eight of its nine sitting judges are said to be bilingual; capable of proceeding without the use of interpreters. In fact, says Judge Major, three of the nine are fluently bilingual, capable of functioning at ease in both languages. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, opposing the bill, claims merit to be the deciding factor, not language skills.

Predictably the shrillest proponents of the initiative are groups representing francophones, Quebecers, former Supreme court justice Claire l'Heureux-Dube and Official Languages commissioner Graham Fraser. All individuals with an ax to grind. Canada doesn't need to be ground down any further by that rough-edged bilingual ax.

Nor do we need future Supreme Court justices to be selected exclusively from the Province of Quebec. Where else in Canada is to be found that exquisitely important blend of language proficiency and skill in the law? That candidates exist elsewhere within Canada with experience and expertise, but without language capabilities would doom us to an unjust and frail distemper.

Official bilingualism has not been found to be in the best interests of Canada and Canadians; it is divisive, unfair, expensive and completely extraneous to our needs as a nation.