Hon. Pierre De Bané:

Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. The Federal Court of Canada overturned an Immigration and Refugee Board decision that came from its Montreal office, because a unilingual anglophone board member accepted into evidence a document written in French, a language that individual does not understand. Unilingual board members usually have access to translation services for documentation and for the hearings, when they take place in the other official language.

Does the government not find it strange that board members who cannot work in French are members of the Immigration and Refugee Board in Montreal, a francophone environment where much of the work is conducted in French, and all this without the benefit of translation services?

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