STATUS REPORT 2001-2002

As the unit in charge of the Policy on Legislative Bijuralism of the Department of Justice and responsible for the application of that policy, to ensure, in cooperation with the Civil Code Section, that this policy is implemented by producing bilingual and bijural legislation and regulations.

• Provide greater support for legislative and regulatory drafters by providing them with the necessary resources and by expanding and rationalizing the jurilinguistic services (unilingual jurilinguistic revision and comparative revision) made available to them.

• During fiscal 2001-2002, two new Francophone jurilinguists joined the team.

• As far as the official languages are concerned, the work of the jurilinguists is a key factor in the process of preparing acts and regulations from several points of view.

• Bilingualism: the jurilinguists ensure that the meaning and effect of the versions are the same.

• Support for the French version: through the support they give to drafters in terms of terminology, style and drafting generally, the jurilinguists play a key role in resolving problems;

• Access to the law: even before there is any talk of "readability" or "plain language", the jurilinguists have helped to simplify the draft legislation, first in the French version by developing turns of phrase and simple, concise and authentically French models that have subsequently inspired more than one innovation in the English version;

• Various pressures: the jurilinguists support the drafters in everything relating to the linguistic aspects - and they are important - of new trends, especially in the field of bijuralism because the harmonization of the acts and regulations often requires innovations in terminology or phraseology.

• The apparent discrepancy between the number of Francophone jurilinguists (8) and the number of Anglophones (3) in the Jurilinguistic Service results quite simply from the need for more substantial support for the French version, given the demographic situation in Canada and in the Public Service. This having been said, the number of Anglophone jurilinguists increased from 1 to 3 between 1998 and 2001 because the importance of linguistic support even for the English version was realized during that period.

• Work in close cooperation with the Civil Code Section on the program to harmonize federal legislation with Quebec civil law.

• In the spring of 2001, the Civil and Comparative Law Section joined the Legislative Services Directorate, a measure that was decisive in integrating bijuralism and the harmonization process into the development of federal legislation. It was for similar reasons that the team of the specialist in comparative law was integrated into the Civil and Comparative Law Section. Finally, as part of the reorganization of the LSD in the winter of 2002, the components of this Section and the Jurilinguistic Service and the Legislative Revision and Publishing Service were combined to create the Bijuralism and Drafting Support Services Group in order to rationalize all services available to drafters to help them prepare bills and regulations, the drafting of which is of the highest quality in both official languages and that respect the legal duality of Canada. Furthermore, this merger made possible more effective interaction between the different components of the new group. Thus, the jurilinguists are now involved at a much earlier stage in the process of developing proposals to harmonize the existing federal statutes with the private law of the provinces, which cuts down on unnecessary discussions and backtracking.

• As part of the review of the legislative and regulatory processes, to develop support for the French version of legislation and regulations.

• Develop a strategic approach that includes meetings with the departments, discussions with the Privy Council and presentations to the Committee of Deputy Ministers Responsible for Official Languages.

• Meetings were held with the legal services units in the different departments and presentations were made to the Committee of Deputy Ministers responsible for the official languages as well as to the whole of the Legal Activities Sector in order to make the participants more aware of the importance of support for the versions of the acts and regulations in both languages. On the basis of the Cabinet Directive on Legislative Activity, the Legislation Section now makes it a practice to require client departments to designate a team of project managers for each new piece of legislation that can give drafting instructions and comment on the successive versions in both official languages. The introduction of co-drafting, an approach that was applied initially to the bills but is now being gradually extended to the regulations, is one of the greatest achievements of the Legislative Services Directorate with respect to the official languages. Canada is the only country that systematically uses this method and is in this respect the envy of a number of states and organizations that are grappling with the challenge of developing bilingual or multilingual normative documents.

• Co-drafting is now so firmly entrenched that it continues to prove its value even in such difficult circumstances as those surrounding the preparation of the anti-terrorism legislation in the fall of 2001.

• Two tools were created to highlight the importance of providing strong support for the French version of legislation:

• a 2^nd edition of Lois et règlements: l'essentiel [acts and regulations; what you need to know] was published;
  
  
• a module of the legal information program was prepared on the subject of the federal legislative process.

• Both these works refer several times to the importance of providing drafters with bilingual support.

• Enhance the bilingual capacity of drafters.

• The language training program put in place by the LSD is continuing in order to enable all drafters in the Legislation Section to attain Level C in oral communication. All appointments to the Legislation Section during the period were made on the basis of a "CBC imperative" language profile.

• As an active member of the Canadian Uniform Law Conference, draft uniform laws in both official languages for use by the provinces and the federal government.

• The process is active and ongoing.

• In cooperation with the University of Ottawa, to develop an internal training and professional development program in legislative and regulatory drafting to provide the Branch with bilingual and bijural capacity.

• Assign a legislative drafter and regulatory drafter to develop the training and professional development program.

• The LSD has established a training program in legislative drafting for Anglophones and Francophones that includes a basis course and specialized courses relating to legislative drafting (e.g. coming into force of legislation, amending provisions, etc.) as well as a training program in bijuralism.

• The training program in legislative drafting was given in English and French to the staff of the Directorate.

• Several specialized training sessions were given in both languages during the fiscal year.

• Several sessions designed to increase awareness of questions of bijuralism were given in both languages during the fiscal year.

• Involve University of Ottawa professors in developing the program and in training and professional development activities.

• Cooperation with the University of Ottawa has involved exchanges as well as participation by professors in the training programs.

Persons responsible:

Katharine MacCormick, Chief Legislative Counsel, Legislative Services Branch

Marc Cuerrier, Senior General Counsel (Acting), Bijuralism and Drafting Support Services Group.