Campus Saint-Jean: An indirect but crucial support for access to justice in Alberta

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Contributed by Jean-Pierre Desrocher on behalf of the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Alberta.
 
Filling the gaps in access to justice is a pressing concern in our province today.  Part of this task requires us to understand the direct needs of the public, and the barriers that exist preventing the public from accessing the system. For many francophones living in Alberta, language remains one of these barriers. Since its inception, the Campus Saint-Jean, the University of Alberta’s multidisciplinary French-language faculty, has been indirectly instrumental in helping francophone and French-speaking Albertans receive the legal services they need in their own language.  As the francophone and French-speaking population of Alberta continues to grow, Campus Saint-Jean’s role in helping to provide access to justice is becoming even more important.
 
Alberta has one of the fastest-growing francophone populations in Canada. In fact, according to the 2016 census, the number of Albertans reporting French as their mother tongue has increased by more than 30% since 2001. This places Alberta as the province with the third-largest French-speaking minority population in the country after Ontario and New Brunswick[1].

As the number of francophone and French-speaking people has increased in our province, so too has the demand for legal services provided in French.  For instance, take the work done by the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Alberta (AJEFA) and its Centre albertain d’information juridique. This non-profit organization, created to promote access to justice in French in Alberta, served just over a thousand members of the community in its first year of operations (between April 2015 and March 2016), more than 70% of which were in French.[2] During the 2019-2020 period, the number of people receiving legal services from the Centre in French has nearly doubled[3].
 
Despite this growing demand for legal services in French, the current justice system of our province has limited bilingual operational capacity. In a 2013 survey conducted by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to determine the bilingual capacity of the court systems across the country, respondents found the delays resulting from requests to be heard in French, the availability of bilingual court personnel and the availability of bilingual judges to be the most problematic[4]. Indeed, the study found that “[…] even in districts and cities where it is relatively easy to be heard in the minority language, it cannot be assumed that there is equal or equivalent access in both official languages.”[5] This is an untenable situation, given the obligation of the courts to be bilingual that exists by virtue of section 530 of the Criminal Code, as recently affirmed by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in R c Vaillancourt, 2019 ABQB 859, which relies on the Supreme Court decision of R v Beaulac.[6]
 
Campus Saint-Jean’s role in improving access to justice for francophones and French speakers of the province, while not direct nor easily measured, is essential.
 
As the only French language post-secondary institution west of Winnipeg, Campus Saint-Jean is where future lawyers can go to educate themselves in French and live and learn in a completely French environment. It is there where, in an Anglo-dominated province, French-speakers can go to reverse the tide of assimilation and become connected to the diverse francophone community and its issues. It is there where the foundations of an accessible justice system for Alberta’s French-speaking population are laid.
 
Today, due to chronic underfunding, the future of Campus Saint-Jean is at risk. It is for this reason that the Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta (ACFA) is taking the Province of Alberta and the University of Alberta to court.
 
Pursuant to the terms of the 1976 agreement between the Oblates, the University and the Province, Campus Saint-Jean officially was transferred to the University of Alberta. This Agreement explicitly recognized the Campus Saint-Jean’s role in the context of increased demand for French-language teachers and French-speaking people in other positions of government and industry. Furthermore, as part of this Agreement, the University also took on the responsibility to use best efforts to operate, maintain, improve and develop the Campus Saint-Jean.
 
Today, however, thanks in part to cuts in funding by the Alberta government and an inexplicable freeze on reserve funds, the Campus Saint-Jean is now in a position where it could see nearly half of its course offerings slashed. It is the position of the ACFA, the organism which represents franco-Albertan interests and to whom the Oblates transferred their rights in respect of the 1976 Agreement, that this underfunding (and recent cuts in particular) that have driven Campus Saint-Jean to a tipping point are violations of the 1976 Agreement, and may additionally be a breach of minority language educational rights as guaranteed by section 23 of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
 
At its core, this lawsuit is about preserving the French language and culture in Alberta. It’s about preserving one of the only places where people, francophone and anglophone alike, can go to truly immerse themselves in the language. As such, the outcome of this lawsuit will have immediate impacts on the level of access to justice available to Alberta’s francophone community. If the Campus Saint-Jean continues to be underfunded, this will undoubtedly negatively affect the quality and availability of legal services offered in French in the province.
 
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[1] Memo presented by Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta to University of Alberta Academic Restructuring Working Group (ARWG) and Service Excellence Transformation (SET) Steering Committee (July 29, 2020) (https://acfa.ab.ca/index-main/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/20200729-ACFA-Mémo-UA-restructuration-CSJ_EN.pdf)
[2] Annual report 2015-2016 of the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Alberta, page 2-3 (https://www.ajefa.ca/fichiers/documents/Rapport-annuel/AJEFA-rapport-annuel-2016.pdf)
[3] Annual report 2019-2020 of the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Alberta, page 1,6 https://www.ajefa.ca/images/rapports-annuels/pdfs/2020_Rapport_annuel_FR.pdf
[4] “Access to Justice in Both Official Languages: Improving the Bilingual Capacity of the Superior Court Judiciary” (2013), Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, page 19 (https://www.clo-ocol.gc.ca/sites/default/files/access-justice-bilingual-capacity.pdf)
[5] “Access to Justice in Both Official Languages: Improving the Bilingual Capacity of the Superior Court Judiciary” (2013), Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, page 19 (https://www.clo-ocol.gc.ca/sites/default/files/access-justice-bilingual-capacity.pdf)
[6] R c Vaillancourt, 2019 ABQB 859 (CanLII), Para 40 (http://canlii.ca/t/j39k3)