Tasha Kheiriddin - Despite Michael Ignatieff’s dismissal of Frank Graves’ advice, the Liberal leader appears to have started a little culture war of his own, at least where Westerners are concerned. In an interview with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, he made these remarks:
SP: Your party has advocated for a requirement that Supreme Court justices be bilingual. Wouldn't that leave out a lot of great candidates from Saskatchewan and Alberta, places where bilingualism isn't that strong?
MI: First of all, there's a French fact in Saskatchewan, which is important. It's not the case that French isn't a part of the cultural heritage of the West, just look at the place names.
SP: But it's relatively minuscule . . .
MI: But I can't believe that these great law schools in the West can't produce great lawyers, men and women, who have the capacity to serve on a bilingual court. I don't think it's more of a challenge than it is for Ontario or the Maritimes. Let's not single out the West as some kind of problem. We've got some great western justices -- Justice Marshall Rothstein is a great guy. The West wants in . . . to these great national institutions, but we are a bilingual country. And this is not a minor matter because a quarter of the cases come from Quebec. This isn't me creating a new obstacle that the West has to overcome. This is our country and I want the West to participate and I want our law schools to be sending out the message: "You want to get on the Supreme Court? You might want to study a little French."
A little French? Hmm. As someone who studied and practiced law in both French and English, I can tell Mr. Ignatieff that “a little French” won’t cut it if the goal is to be able to listen to a complex legal argument, read a factum, and ask intelligent questions in the language of Molière.
But his other comments are even more bizarre. Just because place names are French doesn’t mean current residents are (ever been to Louisiana sir?). And invoking the old Reform slogan “The West wants in” is not only condescending, but so 1980’s, it belongs in one of those “Forever Young” Diet Pepsi ads. Sorry Mr. Ignatieff, but the West is in the Supreme Court – the Chief Justice hails from Alberta, in case you didn’t notice.
Requiring all Supreme Court justices to be fluently bilingual (because that it what they would have to be, to tackle French pleadings without interpreters) is a bad idea. It would greatly limit the talent pool for our highest court, while not helping to decide more Quebec cases, either. There is a reason Quebec already has one third of the places on the court – so it can ensure that cases which involve matters of civil law are properly decided. It’s not just a question of a second language, but a second legal system. A western judge who speaks French but has only a common-law background would be just as disadvantaged hearing a matter from Quebec as if he or she was unilingual.
So is Mr. Ignatieff next going to suggest that all Supreme Court justices must possess both civil and common law degrees? That talent pool is quickly shrinking into a puddle.
Considering how many lawyers fill the benches of both sides of the House of Commons, you would think a Liberal legalist would have briefed his or her non-lawyer leader on the facts of this case, before the OLO let him get west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. Oh well, maybe everyone was too busy attending the Rahimelena hearing.
Start your engines, mesdames et messieurs, and let the culture war begin!