Canada-wide Analysis of Official Language Training Needs in the Area of Justice
Technical Report: Analysis of Socio-Professional Data

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5.0 Preliminary findings

The preliminary analysis of the socio-professional data sheds some light on the current state of the justice services occupations. We have described the language profile of each occupation and provided some data on age and the sector of the industry in which they are active. The analysis yields certain findings:

• The number of individuals from various justice occupations with knowledge of the minority official language across Canada is significant: around 21,000 in Quebec and around 19,500 in the rest of Canada.
• All the occupations do not have the same ability to speak the minority language
  • Judges and lawyers and notaries are clearly the groups with the greatest ability: no less than one third of judges and a quarter of lawyers and notaries in Canada (excluding Quebec); more than 80% for the two categories in Quebec.
  • There are around 500 judges outside Quebec, nearly half of which are in Ontario, who speak French.
  • There are close to 14,000 bilingual lawyers outside Quebec, 9,000 of whom are in Ontario, 1,400 in Alberta and 1,800 in British Columbia.
  • In Quebec, more than half of the members of each occupation in court services (paralegals, sheriffs and bailiffs, parole and probation officers, justices of the peace and court officers, court clerks) are able to communicate with the minority.
  • Elsewhere in Canada, the percentage of bilingual members of that group varies between 9 and 16%.
• If knowledge of the minority official language is a good indication of the ability of the justice workers to provide services in the minority language, then it seems likely that there is a great potential for such services to be offered.
• The data by age group indicates that there is a wave of young justice workers with increased knowledge of both official languages, both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada.
• The group of justice workers with knowledge of both official languages is essentially composed of individuals from the majority: 96% have French as first official language spoken (FOLS) in Quebec; 79% have English as FOLS in the rest of Canada. This highlights the importance of second-language training.
• Moreover, except for the category of lawyers and notaries, which is now predominantly in the private sector, the majority of the work force is in the provincial, territorial or municipal governments. This indicates where support for training should be directed.

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