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The Federal Court is Canada's national trial court which hears and decides legal disputes arising in the federal domain. The Court is based in Ottawa, and its members travel throughout Canada to hear cases within its national jurisdiction, thereby providing convenient access to justice to all Canadians.

 
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File T-2936-24

Coat of Arms

Ottawa, June 2, 2026 – The Honourable Denise A. Leblanc, Deputy Judge at the Federal Court, issued a decision today in file T-2936-24:

IN THE MATTER OF
DROITS COLLECTIFS QUÉBEC and ETIENNE-ALEXIS BOUCHER
v.
THE OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

Summary: The applicants, Droits collectifs Québec and Etienne-Alexis Boucher, have applied for a remedy against the respondent, the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada [the Office], under section 77 of the Official Languages Act [OLA].

The applicants argue that the Office, a federal institution, breached its obligations under the OLA by transcribing and posting Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decisions online, only in English without French versions, decades after they were rendered.

According to the applicants, the subsequent transcription and posting of SCC decisions by the Office on its website constitute communication with or services to the public within the meaning of Part IV of the OLA (“Communications with and Services to the Public”).

These decisions were rendered between 1877 and 1969, when the SCC was not required to make them available in both official language

The Office submits that decisions of federal courts fall exclusively within the scope of Part III of the OLA (“Administration of Justice”), more specifically section 20, and that the accepted rules of statutory interpretation support its position. Alternatively, it argues that, even if posting decisions online constituted “communication with” or “services to” the public within the meaning of Part IV, any translation obligation would apply only to the bilingual interface of the SCC’s website, not to the text of the historical decisions as such.

The Court has concluded that: a) the SCC’s historical decisions constitute neither “services to” nor “communications with” the public subject to the translation obligations under the general provisions of Part IV of the OLA; and b) that judicial decisions fall exclusively within the scope of Part III of the OLA, which relates to the administration of justice. The applicants’ application for a remedy is dismissed.

The Court also concluded that SCC decisions may be retained in electronic format as long as the contents are not altered and that the transfer of a document to a technological medium does not constitute a [TRANSLATION] “reproduction”, “republication” or “retranscription.”

The decision is posted on the News Bulletins page of the Federal Court website.

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