Lawyer promotes Language Agenda On Client's Back

A couple of months ago, I was watching the local news and caught a story concerning a certain criminal trial. (For obvious reasons I won't mention which) A young lawyer (someone I know) was escorting his client out of the criminal court and as they made their way down the hall, they were pursued by reporters, asking for an on-air statement or interview. The lawyer waved them off and ushered his client into the safety of the elevator as quickly as he could. When I met him next, I asked him why he was so camera shy, after all, as a young lawyer embarking on a career, some face time on television would certainly have a salutary effect on his career.

"What about the client?" he replied. "Was it in the client's best interest? It's the policy of our law firm not to comment on the proceedings while the trial is unfolding, or in the sentencing phase."

Good answer.

I never thought of it that way and it's good to see that integrity still exists, especially among criminal lawyers who we generally hold in disdain.

With this in mind, watching Maitre Stephane Handfield use the press to attack the Immigration and Refugee Board over language issues, got me wondering whether Mr. Handfield is doing his client justice or is he just promoting himself and his language agenda on the back of someone trying desperately to land a spot in Canada.

Mr. Handfield is a lawyer who has been vociferous in his denunciation of the IRBC over the perceived language discrimination that he believes exists in the Montreal office. He is also a bit of a showboater, a lawyer who likes to argue his cases before the media. That being said, notwithstanding his efforts before the camera, his latest client Dany Villanueva lost the latest round in his deportation hearing.
Not to worry, Mr. Handfield has promised a final appeal, thus insuring his miscreant client many more moons in Canada and for Maitre Handfield, many more television interviews.

Mr. Handfield is also an avowed French language militant. In an opinion piece that he penned in La Presse last November, he made a litany of accusations against the board;

"...In recent years, it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain services in French before the IRB. Examples include: refusal to get a hearing in French, refusal to forward documentation in French, Commissioners (makers) unilingually English, communications in English, the inability to obtain interpreter services in French...

....Moreover, how can we explain that a person who arrives at the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport, who speaks neither French nor English and who is processed by a French-speaking immigration agent, has his immigration file completed in English! In these circumstances, it is not surprising that 50% of the decisions made by the IRB in Montréal in 2009 were in English." LINK{Fr}

Some of his complaints may be valid and worth investigating, but it is his math that has me questioning his integrity (among other things.)

Mr Handfield claims that 50% of the decisions in Montreal are handled in English, as a result of those speaking no English or French, having half their case treated in English, representing  prime face evidence that French is not being respected. 

But perhaps the 50% figure is attributed to the fact that of those who do speak English or French, the vast majority speak English as opposed to French and as such it is normal that more cases are heard in English. 

Perhaps the number of immigrants seeking status (who don't speak English or French) is very low and statistically less important, I don't know. Neither does he. He offers us no real insight other  than faulty conclusions based on selective data and coloured opinions.

It's like doing a survey in the Fairview Shopping Mall in the west island of Montreal (in the decidedly English suburb of Pointe-Claire) to gauge what percentage of clerks serve customers in English or French and then concluding that French is not being respected because over fifty percent of the conversations are in English. Anybody see the problem?

As a language militant, Mr. Handfield is prone to suffer from the same statistical disease that Pierre Curzi and other French militants employ to falsely sell the idea that the sky is falling on the French language. 

And so Mr. Handfield, with his newly-minted statistics, leaps to a self-serving conclusion, with the honesty and panache of a Three Card Monte card shark.

"No wonder several newcomers prefer sticking to Anglo-Saxon culture rather than to a French-speaking culture. They note from their arrival that it is in English that everything takes place in Quebec."

All this serves to underline Mr. Handfield's politics, an opinion which he has every right to militate for.

But is Maitre Handfield promoting his personal language agenda at the expense of a client?

Here's that story.

Mr. Handfield, not one to ever shy away from a camera, has been complaining that French rights are being denied to him and his client, a Cuban businessman seeking to remain in Canada, in a case before that very same Immigration and Refugee Board.

The Cuban businessman arrived in Canada and proceeded to ask for landed status. Speaking much more English than French, the case proceeded in English. For whatever reason, the claimant then changed lawyers midstream and hired  Mr. Handfield, who demanded that the whole process be changed to French and that all the previous documents related to the trial also be translated.

In an article in La Presse a reporter Vincent Larouche, erroneously reports that  when Mr. Hanfield took over the case, his request to have the hearing changed to French was refused.

"...But soon enough he (the client) changed lawyers to Maitre Stéphane Handfield, a specialist in immigration law who requested that the process be changed to French, which he was denied. Link{FR}

I don't know if the reporter failed to do his homework or tried to alter the facts to suit his slant on the story, but that is just not true. This false version is circulating in the French media, even in the main stream.

 Mr. Handfield readily admits that he was allowed to proceed in French, but the Commission balked at translating what documents had already been accumulated in English, reasoning that it would delay the affair unreasonably. 

That's the whole big deal. According to  Mr. Handfield;

"We managed to get the hearings to take place in French, but we were denied our request that the 57-page document be translated into French" LINK{FR} 

And so enter the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste and chief blowhard Mario Beaulieu who helped turn a translation issue into a federal case.
Maitre Handfield took part in a demonstration, organized by the SSJB, which protested the 'lamentable' and 'unacceptable' burden put upon Mr. Handfield and his client, all because the document wasn't translated.
Listening to Mario Beaulieu it was the injustice of the century!

Of course, as one could well expect, our ever-sympathetic Office of the Commissioner of the Official Languages sided with Mr. Handfield and ordered the document translated.

And so  Mr. Handfield and Mario Beaulieu landed a great language victory!

But was it a big win for the client?

Immigration hearings are highly subjective.
A good story presented by a sympathetic appellant is much more likely to succeed, given the wide latitude that adjudicators wield.

Let's hope that those ruling on the case are more generous than you or I, otherwise the client will be on the next flight to Cuba. After all, can any good come from attacking those who hold your client's future in their hands?
It's like insulting the bouncer at the door of a night club you're trying to get in.....not the best plan!

Using a client for one's own purpose is reprehensible, lawyers are sworn to put client's interests above all else, except the law.
The question remains. Was the client's best interest served by escalating the case from a simple immigration affair into a language confrontation?

Does the SSJB and Maitre Stephane Handfield really care about the client or are they promoting their own selfish agenda on his back?

By the way, the client's name is Leonardo Javier Bolanos Blanco, if anybody really cares.