MFA’s activities report — Legal Community Engagement Committee

Minister’s message

The Legal Community Engagement Committee was established following the release of the 2012 Rouleau-LeVay report as well as in the 2015 report, which identified difficulties faced by the public in accessing justice in French.

Through their efforts, the Committee members rose to the challenge of bringing together experts committed to enhancing services in French in the justice sector.

The Committee was also successful in mobilizing the Francophone community in the Ottawa region to help strengthen French-language services in general and specifically as part of the Seamless Access to Justice in French Pilot Project at the Ottawa Courthouse.

I would like to thank and congratulate all members of the Legal Community Engagement Committee for their work since its inception in fall 2014.

This report supports on many levels the government’s commitment to enhancing justice services in French. It also helps identify the needs, as well as the levers, such as awareness and training, that will ensure better access to legal services in French.

I would like to thank the different representatives of the Francophone community for playing a unifying role during public consultations led by the Committee.

Members of the Committee were able to count on the expertise and talents of people and institutions committed to the Francophonie, both within and outside Ontario, in order to effectively support the government’s efforts to improve access to justice in French.

These partnerships, and the concrete outcomes from the Committee’s work, constitute a solid foundation on which we can all build to enhance legal services in French. More broadly, we can apply this model to strengthening French-language services in general.

In this context, I call upon all stakeholders within the justice sector to continue to support community engagement, to promote active offer, and to stimulate demand for services in French.

The Honourable Marie-France Lalonde

Message from the Chair of the Committee

In recent years, language rights and French-language services in the justice sector have been the subject of many discussions and have been identified in several far-reaching reports.

The work of the Legal Community Engagement Committee is part of a concerted effort to respond to the recommendations made by the French Language Services Bench and Bar Advisory Committee in its 2012 report (Rouleau-LeVay report). In pursuit of this objective, the Engagement Committee has helped implement initiatives that give the pilot project maximum exposure in the community.

In its first two years, the Engagement Committee has relied on the dedication of its seasoned justice-system representatives and that of the French-speaking community. All parties have demonstrated their determination to improve access to justice in French in Ontario.

The work carried out by the Engagement Committee represents an important step in improving access to justice in French. I commend the members of the Engagement Committee for their participation and for the effort they have put forth.

The Committee has made headway on engaging the French-speaking and legal communities and on issues related to professional training. It has established partnerships and identified opportunities for improvement. These advances have been added to the list of best practices for the Ottawa pilot project. They provide a solid basis for further reflection and for greater awareness of language rights among Ontarians in view of enhancing access to legal services in French.

I call upon all parties to encourage Ontario’s Francophone community to request legal services in French and to proceed in French before the courts.

Chair of the Engagement Committee

Kelly Burke

Introduction

This document provides an overview of the activities carried out by the Legal Community Engagement Committee created for the pilot project for seamless access to justice in French at the Ottawa Courthouse.

It presents the initiatives carried out within the community in conjunction with practices adopted at the Ottawa Courthouse. The Ministry of the Attorney General released a separate report outlining the work that has been done at the Ottawa Courthouse as part of the pilot project.^[1]

This activity report also presents the topics that the Engagement Committee has tabled, the partnerships established, the actions taken and the solutions sought.

Note: Any use of masculine pronouns in this document is solely for the purpose of simplifying the text.

Presentation of the Engagement Committee

Context in which the Engagement Committee was created

The Legal Community Engagement Committee was established in fall 2014 under the Seamless Access to Justice in French Pilot Project at the Ottawa Courthouse. It was presided over by the Ministry of Francophone Affairs.

The Engagement Committee’s mandate was to engage the legal community, to encourage Francophones to request legal services in French and exercise their language rights, and to support the pilot project.

Members

The Engagement Committee was composed of representatives from the Government of Ontario, the federal government, and the justice system, including:

• Ministry of Francophone Affairs
• Ministry of the Attorney General
• The Ontario Judiciary
• Law Society of Upper Canada
• Ontario Jurists
• Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO)
• Public Prosecution Service of Canada
• Department of Justice Canada

The members of the Engagement Committee attended two in-person meetings and joined monthly conference calls to coordinate the implementation of initiatives identified in Part III of this report.

Accomplishments

Established partnerships

To support its activities, the Engagement Committee established strategic partnerships with several organizations.

Specifically, through the organization of consultations and awareness-raising activities for the Francophone community, partnerships were established with:

• The Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO)
• Organizations representing the Francophone community in the Ottawa area : specifically, the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO), the Association des communautés francophones d’Ottawa (ACFO), the Fédération des aînés et des retraités francophones de l’Ontario (FARFO), and the Vanier Community Service Centre (CSC).

The Committee worked in cooperation with the following partners to identify existing legal training programs:

• The Réseau national de formation en justice (RNFJ)
• The French-language training program for judges in New Brunswick
• The French-language common law program at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law.

Lastly, the County of Carlton Law Association (CCLA) was of great service to the Committee in its efforts to raise awareness among English-speaking jurists in the Ottawa area.

Topics covered

When the Engagement Committee was established in the fall of 2014, the members quickly identified challenges they deemed priorities for improving access to justice in French. These priorities were:

• Improving the bilingual proficiency of jurists and court-support staff.
• Increasing awareness of language rights among Franco-Ontarians as well as the general legal community.
• Encouraging Francophones to request legal services in French and to exercise their language rights.

Some of the main themes addressed by the Engagement Committee were:

• Networks for disseminating information about the pilot project and language rights.
• The “active offer” of services in French at the Ottawa Courthouse.
• Involvement of French- and English-speaking communities in the pilot project.
• The need for legal training and the existing training offered in French.
• Promoting French-language (or bilingual) jobs in the legal profession.

Key activities

Between November 2014 and early 2017, the Engagement Committee carried out a number of activities that have increased the visibility of the Ottawa pilot project and have raised public awareness about language rights. The main achievements of the Engagement Committee include the public consultations that took place in 2015 and 2016, the joint work with judges to publish articles in the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association newsletter, and the identification of existing legal training offered in French.

Consultations

On April14, 2015, the Engagement Committee teamed up with AJEFO, ACFO, AFO and the CSC to hold the first consultation in Ottawa. The Franco-Ontarian community was invited, as were several local media outlets.

During the consultation, the Engagement Committee and its partners took comments and suggestions from the Franco-Ontarian community about ways the Committee could encourage Francophones to request legal services in French and proceed in French before the courts.

On April 22, 2016, a second consultation was held in Ottawa. The Engagement Committee used this opportunity to update the community on actions taken since the pilot project was launched at the Ottawa Courthouse. The Committee and the Francophone community again discussed what measures could be taken to encourage Francophones to choose legal services in French and to exercise their language rights in the courts.

The following topics were discussed during the second consultation:

• Promotion of language rights.
• Identification of obstacles the Franco-Ontarian community faces in exercising its legal rights, and ways to respond to said obstacles.
• Identification by the participants of the most effective ways to encourage actors in the Francophone community to get members to exercise their language rights and to continue doing so after the pilot project ended.

These consultations mobilized over 50 participants in 2015 and approximately 80 in 2016, and allowed the Committee to:

• Bring together the legal community and Francophone organizations;
• Keep the public focused on the Ottawa pilot project;
• Participate in the coordinated effort to improve access to justice; and
• Meaningfully engage the parties in discussions about how to effectively build upon the potential gains of the pilot project.

Publication of articles in the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association newsletter

In collaboration with the Engagement Committee, judges of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice published articles in the newsletter produced by the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association. The articles raised the profile of the pilot project as well as the issue of language rights within the English-speaking legal community.

The articles covered a range of topics:

• October 2014: implementation of the Response to the Access to Justice in French Report
• May 2015: launch of the Access to Justice Pilot Project in Ottawa
• October 2015: highlights from the Enhancing Access to Justice in French report
• May 2016: promotion of tools and resources that support access to justice in French.

The articles helped raise awareness among the judiciary to ensure the success of the initiative.

Training

In fall 2015, the Engagement Committee began the process of identifying – in collaboration with the Réseau national de formation en justice (RNFJ) and the AJEFO – existing training programs in French. The goal was to identify the training currently offered and the areas in which needs exist, based on the information shared by the RNFJ and the AJEFO regarding existing programs available both inside and outside of Ontario.

The research revealed that existing training programs at the vocational and postsecondary levels:

• Focus primarily on substantive law in French and professionalism;
• Are aimed – at a postsecondary level - at professions like the police services, services in the criminal justice and rehabilitation sectors, programs for paralegals and paralegal courses in French.
• Are mainly offered, with respect to professional-development training, by professional organizations like the AJEFO, the Canadian Bar Association, the Ontario Bar Association, the Barreau du Québec (Quebec Bar Association), the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUP), Collège Boréal and La Cité.

Several training programs that focus on substantive law are also accessible online. However, the offer is very limited when it comes to training programs targeting professionals in Ontario.

In fact, a major challenge identified by the legal community is to maintain a high level of proficiency in legal vocabulary and written French.

The Engagement Committee also noted a need for professional training programs on legal terminology, and French-speaking jurists’ ability to provide oral and written arguments before the courts. During the public consultations, the inability to maintain adequate verbal skills in French was identified as an obstacle to access justice. Verbal skills are necessary to interact with litigants and to plead or hear cases in French. The lack of training on those particular skills is therefore a priority challenge that must be addressed in order to optimize the delivery of and access to justice in French for the province’s Francophone community.

This finding is in line with the one originally set out in the report of the French Language Services Bench and Bar Advisory Committee (Access to Justice in French - 2012). The report highlights the significant impact of the lack of French-language training on the ability of professionals to provide legal services in French.

There is an immediate and dire need to support the professional training of all French-speaking jurists and to provide them with tools to serve their clients in French. By way of example, the findings also show that a fair number of lawyers in private practice would appreciate having access to French-language advocacy training. To meet this need, a training project should be developed to cover not only legal terminology, written capacity and oral-argument skills in French for legal professionals (lawyers, judges, support staff, police officers, etc.) but also substantive law in French.

Development of a training program in French

The need to provide professionals with the training they need to strengthen their language skills is a matter of course for the Committee. On the basis of this finding, the Engagement Committee has given more thought to the idea of training in legal terminology, written and verbal skills, and advocacy in French.

The implementation of a training program on those topics is a key factor for improving access to justice in French. This kind of program is one of the courses of action laid out in section IV of this report, dealing with opportunities beyond the pilot project.

Summary of the Engagement Committee’s accomplishments

Overview of the actions undertaken by the Engagement Committee and its partners

The Engagement Committee partnered with the Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario (AJEFO), the Association des communautés francophones (ACFO) d’Ottawa, the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO) and the Vanier Community Service Centre (CSC) to organize a consultation session in Ottawa on April 14, 2015. The Franco-Ontarian community and various local French media outlets were present.The consultation generated positive media coverage which helped raise awareness of the pilot project in the Francophone community.

• Monthly regular conference calls by the Committee
  The members of the Engagement Committee took part in conference calls during which they discussed the initiatives and engagement strategies of the legal community to support the implementation of the pilot project.
• March and November 2015: Committee meetings in person
  The Engagement Committee held two in-person meetings in the Ottawa Courthouse, on March 9 and November 16, 2015.
• March 2015: Identification of potential challenges
  The Engagement Committee identified some potential challenges regarding the engagement of the legal community and came up with strategies to reduce or eliminate the impact of such challenges.
• April 2015: First consultation and outreach session with the Francophone community
  The Engagement Committee partnered with the Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario (AJEFO), the Association des communautés francophones (ACFO) d’Ottawa, the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO) and the Vanier Community Service Centre (CSC) to organize a consultation session in Ottawa on April 14, 2015. The Franco-Ontarian community and various local French media outlets were present. The consultation generated positive media coverage which helped raise awareness of the pilot project in the Francophone community.
• May 2015: Presence of the Committee at the launch of the pilot project
  On May 29, 2015, the Attorney General of Ontario and the Chief Justices of Ontario officially launched the pilot project at the Ottawa Courthouse. Several Engagement Committee members attended the launch to support the Ministry of the Attorney General.
• May and October 2015: Visibility in the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association newsletter
  Justices Thorburn and Lafrance-Cardinal, both members of the Engagement Committee, published a bilingual article on the pilot project in the May 2015 edition of the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association newsletter. A second article, about the French Language Services Bench and Bar Response Steering Committee’s report, was published in October 2015. That article highlighted some aspects of the pilot project. In both articles the justices emphasized how important it was for the Francophone community to be able to exercise its language rights within the legal system.
• May 2015: Identification of broadcast networks that can be used to promote the pilot project
  The Engagement Committee identified over twenty organizations or “distribution networks” as well as tools available for communicating potential messages about litigants’ language rights or the pilot project.
• June 2015: CCLA endorsement of the pilot project
  The Engagement Committee received the endorsement of the County of Carleton Law Association (CCLA) to implement the pilot project. The CCLA publicly expressed its support for the project in a message from the Association’s president to its members published in the CCLA newsletter of June 10, 2015, and on the association’s website. In his message, the President encouraged all association members and partners within the legal community to also lend their support to the project.
• September 2015: Promotion of the pilot project as part of Franco-Ontarian Day
  During a celebration of Franco-Ontarian Day at the Law Society of Upper Canada on September 21, 2015, Justice Thorburn, a member of the Legal Community Engagement Committee, made a presentation about the French Language Services Bench and Bar Response Steering Committee’s report; she highlighted some aspects in relation to implementation of the pilot project. The Chair of the Engagement Committee, Ms. Kelly Burke, also spoke at the event about the promotion of the pilot project and the active offer of services, as well as the importance for Ontario’s Francophones to exercise their language rights.
• November 2015: Update for participants who took part in the April 2015 consultation
  The Engagement Committee worked in collaboration with AJEFO and its community partners to coordinate the sending of an email to the participants who took part in the April 14, 2015 consultation. The purpose of the email was to thank participants for taking part, to share an update about the pilot project, and to inform them about a possible second meeting. AJEFO sent this email on November 6, 2015.
• November 2015: Inventory of the French programs and training initiatives in the justice sector
  The Engagement Committee consulted several providers of French-language training in the justice sector in Ontario and Canada. The goal was to draw up an inventory of existing training courses and tools supporting the practice of law in French. These key players include the Réseau national de formation en justice (RNFJ), the AJEFO, the University of Ottawa and the Law Society of Upper Canada.
• March 2016: Promotion of www.cliquezjustice.ca
  In cooperation with the Engagement Committee, AJEFO presented CliquezJustice.ca (in French), a simplified Canadian legal information portal that helps people understand their rights and obligations so that they can better manage their daily legal matters.
• March and April 2016: Collaboration with AJEFO to raise awareness of language rights on the Internet
  In cooperation with the Engagement Committee and the AJEFO and as part of a possible restructuring of its website, the Ministry of Francophone Affairs (MFA) began exploring the possibility of supporting the promotion of tools and resources developed by AJEFO, particularly the CliquezJustice.ca portal. The purpose would be to raise people’s awareness of language rights and to make resources available to the community that could help it exercise these rights
• April 2016: Distributing information to the community
  The Engagement Committee worked with the Law Society of Upper Canada and AJEFO to coordinate the distribution of flyers promoting language rights and providing information about resources available to help the Francophone community exercise its language rights.
• April 2016: Second consultation session with the Francophone community
  Working with key community partners such as AJEFO, AFO, ACFO and FARFO, the Engagement Committee organized a second consultation of the Francophone community in Ottawa on April 22, 2016. The meeting was an opportunity to inform participants and raise their awareness of litigants’ language rights in Ontario. Above all, the meeting was an opportunity to interact with participants. The inclusion of certain components led to constructive discussions on ways to make litigants even more aware of their language rights and how to exercise them, and to increase access to justice in French in Ontario.
• April 2016: Creating a new partnership
  While organizing the second consultation session, the MFA worked with the AJEFO to create a partnership with the Fédération des aînés et retraités francophones de l’Ontario (FARFO). The FARFO has a vast distribution network that can be used to communicate information about language rights and access to legal services in French on a wider scale. The partnership allowed us to raise the awareness of and mobilize even more members of the Francophone community with regard to access to justice in French issues.
• May 2016: Increased visibility in the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association newsletter - 3^rd article
  Following the first two articles published in the Ontario Superior Court Judges’ Association newsletter in 2015, Justices Thorburn and Lafrance-Cardinal, in collaboration with the MFA, have been working on the publication of a third article aimed at promoting tools and resources on language rights. This article emphasized the importance of language rights in the justice system and the tools available for representatives of the justice system and the Francophone community.
• June 2016: Presentation to the judges of the superior court for the east region – Promoting Francophone rights
  Justice Lafrance-Cardinal and Danielle Manton gave a presentation on language rights to all judges of the Ontario Superior Court for the east region. The presentation was very well received by the audience; moreover, several judges in attendance stressed the importance of the event considering the complexity of language rights in Ontario.
• March 2017: Establishment of a training program
  pratiquO – Professional Development Centre is established in collaboration with the University of Ottawa. See Section 4.1 of this report.
• June 2017: Launch of pratiquO.
  pratiquO is launched as a pilot project.

Opportunities beyond the pilot project

The primary mandate of the Engagement Committee was to support the Seamless Access to Justice in French Pilot Project. The pilot project ended in November 2016.

However, the Engagement Committee is aware that more work needs to be done to continue enhancing the access to justice in French.

In fact, both the achievements and the partnerships established by the Engagement Committee place it in a privileged position to continue its work of raising awareness on the exercise of language rights. Moreover, it already foresees opportunities to be seized in the near future.

Although no framework for action has yet been defined for continuing their work, the Engagement Committee identifies the following as possible opportunities.

In Ontario:

• Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the Francophone and legal communities, focusing on the importance of exercising language rights in Ontario.
• Further analysis of legal French training needs to strengthen the bilingual capacity of justice professionals, including jurists and paralegals.
• The need to establish and develop partnerships with the English-speaking legal community in order to raise awareness about language rights in Ontario and to make it a partner in the coordinated effort to expand access to justice in French.

At the national level, there is a growing interest in access to justice in French:

• Access to justice in French is on the priority list of subjects of the Ministerial Conference on the Canadian Francophonie (MCCF), which brings together the ministers responsible for Francophone affairs in the provinces and territories of Canada. Ontario is the leader in terms of access to justice in French in the MCCF. Through its experience with the Ottawa pilot project, Ontario is able to share its expertise with MCCF ministers and contribute actively to the MCCF’s discussions on access to justice in French.
• The federal government also supports access to justice in both official languages through its Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-18. In addition, it is committed with MCCF ministers to improve access to justice in French for Francophone minority communities.

pratiquO – University of Ottawa Continuing Professional Development Centre

In the fall of 2016, the Engagement Committee initiated discussions with prospective partners for a French-language legal training project. This approach was consistent with the Committee’s findings regarding the need for training courses to strengthen the bilingual capacity of players in the justice system. The key partners involved in this effort include:

• The Ministry of Francophone Affairs;
• The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development;
• Ontario Judiciary;
• The University of Ottawa;
• Justice Canada;
• Canadian Heritage;
• The Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario;
• The Law Society of Upper Canada;
• Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO).

The discussions on this project focused primarily on:

• Further analysis of legal French-language training needs to strengthen the bilingual capacity of law professionals.
• The question of access to legal French training courses, more precisely in the field of legal terminology, verbal and written capacity, and advocacy skills in French.

The exchanges between the Committee and key project players demonstrate the real need for continuous training that combines training in substantive law and training in relation to language skills. In Ontario, stakeholders agree that the development of programming that meets these needs will also have to take into account possible geographic constraints and, therefore, facilitate remote access to the resources developed.

In March 2017, thanks to the joint efforts of the University of Ottawa, the Government of Ontario, the federal government, the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) and the AJEFO, the University of Ottawa Continuing Professional Development Centre (pratiquO) was created. pratiquO was officially launched on June 16, 2017 at the University of Ottawa.

The main goal of the project is to ensure that Francophone and Francophile jurists and paralegals have access to permanent, continuing, and high-quality training, namely, to meet the LSUC’s requirements.

The pratiquO centre is a first for Francophone and Francophile jurists in Ontario and Canada.

The pilot phase of pratiquO will end in June 2018. A final report expected in the summer of 2018 will determine the next steps, including possibly opportunities to make pratiquO a permanent centre.

Training and instructional approach

Virtual centre

pratiquO offers online education to increase the number of French-language continuing professional development (CPD) courses in Ontario and reach a larger number of Francophone and Francophile jurists. The expertise that the French-language common law program in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law has in distance education will be harnessed to maximize the Centre’s effectiveness and outreach across the province. The virtual training provided by pratiquO will be a key component of the program.

Classroom instruction

In addition to the virtual component, classroom instruction will be provided by experts and instructors working with pratiquO. The courses will be available in various parts of the province. The lectures and workshops will also be recorded on video and will be continuously added to the inventory of virtual courses developed exclusively for pratiquO’s online portal, which will make them, first and foremost, accessible province-wide.

Legal writing

A major challenge for Francophone and Francophile lawyers and paralegals practising common law in French is to maintain a high level of proficiency both in legal vocabulary and written French in general. Legal writing will be a mainstay in the centre’s programming. In order to do this, pratiquO has formed partnerships with the Centre canadien de français juridique to offer legal writing workshops and with the Legal Writing Academy of University of Ottawa Faculty of Law to help jurists access existing resources and maximize their effectiveness.

Juriblogue

In partnership with AJEFO and its Jurisource.ca portal, pratiquO will host a unique platform for news and legal commentary in French: Juriblogue. This new platform will provide access to the latest news in the legal world and opportunities to take an active part in analyzing and discussing current topics, supporting and promoting the practice of law in French.

Appendix: Current members of the Engagement Committee