Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois welcomes Senator Mobina Jaffer's Bill S-214, entitled an act to establish international mother language day. In November 1999, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization proclaimed International Mother Language Day. The United Nations General Assembly called on its member states to encourage the preservation and pr…
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Mr. Speaker, the commissioner also courageously denounced the slippery slope that the federal government is on. He feels that French is seen as “an impediment to embracing diversity and advancing true reconciliation with Indigenous peoples”. He also said: “I believe that official languages and diversity are complementary, because they are both ways to be more inclusive.” When will the federal gove…
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Mr. Speaker, a record number of complaints were filed with the Commissioner of Official Languages this year. He received 5,409 complaints, which is triple the number filed last year. The main reason for this barrage of complaints is the Prime Minister's decision to appoint people who do not speak French, particularly the Governor General. The Prime Minister is personally responsible for one-quarte…
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Mr. Speaker, English is not threatened in Quebec or anywhere in North America, and yet that is what the English Montreal School Board believes. It has announced plans to challenge Bill 96, and it is calling on all like-minded groups to provide financial support for its challenge. I have a simple question for the minister: Does she agree with us that the English Montreal School Board should not get…
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec's Bill 96 makes federally regulated businesses subject to the Charter of the French Language, but the Liberals' Bill C‑13 contradicts Bill 96 and gives businesses the choice to make French optional. For the Quebec Community Groups Network, offering this choice already goes too far. Yesterday they demanded that only the federal legislation apply, so that its businesses can conti…
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Madam Speaker, on the one hand, we see that the Conservatives tend to question all health measures and cozy up to anti-vaxxers. On the other hand, we see that the Liberals do the opposite and tend to provoke anti-vaxxers. I would like to know whether my colleague would be open to an amendment to the proposal: Rather than having the measures be lifted “immediately”, they could be lifted “gradually”…
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Mr. Speaker, we recently saw a number of Liberal MPs protesting against Quebec's language laws and calling them discriminatory. However, the real discrimination is at the federal level, and francophones are the victims. Francophones are systematically under-represented in the federal public service, where anglophones hold 81% of the positions. At the very highest levels, everything is done in Engl…
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Mr. Speaker, this government appointed a unilingual anglophone as Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, the only bilingual province in Canada. A New Brunswick court has ruled that this appointment is unconstitutional, but—surprise, surprise—the federal government has announced that it will be appealing the decision. The Liberals want to spend public money to preserve their right to make unilingual…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether my colleague agrees with me on the following. Quebec's political weight will drop if we keep the same number of members in Quebec and increase the number of members everywhere else. Can we count on his support to change that?
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Let us talk about it, Mr. Speaker. The Liberals claim to be staunch supporters of minorities. However, they appointed a unilingual English lieutenant governor in New Brunswick. The courts found that choice to be unconstitutional. Imagine. The Liberals announced that they are going to appeal. They want to maintain the right to make unilingual English appointments in New Brunswick, Canada's only off…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to know if my colleague agrees that by keeping the number of Quebec MPs the same and increasing the number of MPs elsewhere, Quebec's political weight will not be maintained. Does he agree that Quebec should maintain its political weight?
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is not happy because Bill C-14 does not maintain Quebec's political weight. We would like Quebec to have a proportion of the seats, for example 25%. Instead, Quebec will keep the same number of MPs, whereas other areas will get more, which is equivalent to reducing Quebec's political weight. Does my colleague acknowledge that Quebec forms a nation? Does he believe…
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my friend for his excellent French. In Yukon, if I am not mistaken, francophones represent about 2% of the population. There is something mind-boggling in the Official Languages Act, namely the “where the numbers warrant” principle, which is even found in section 23 of the Constitution. It was improved somewhat with the concept of “linguistic vitality”. Under this pri…
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Mr. Speaker, I am rather pleasantly surprised by my colleague's speech. I am addressing my comments to him as a Quebecker because the Official Languages Act is likely the biggest impediment to the application of Bill 101 and to French as a common language in Quebec. I will give an example. The Official Languages Act is based on the concept of an anglophone minority, when anglophones in Quebec are …
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Madam Speaker, I find it rather unfortunate to see the minister being partisan by criticizing the Conservatives for not having done better. I believe that we must move forward and propose amendments. I would like to ask my colleague a question about francophone immigration. Francophone immigration is a good thing for francophone and Acadian communities. It is essential for Quebec as well. The fede…
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Madam Speaker, I always appreciate my colleague's passionate speeches. I know that in Acadia, people were forced to defend French, sometimes even with fists. It is one of the biggest pockets of resistance outside Quebec. I do not think that the bill is going to reverse the decline among francophones outside Quebec or in Quebec. This trend is accelerating. We in Quebec support francophone and Acadi…
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Madam Speaker, Bill C‑13 seems to recognize that French is in a minority and that French Quebec is part of the francophone minority. At the same time, it continues to use the concept of anglophones as a minority community. With respect to positive measures, will all the money keep going to the anglophone side? How are things going to be balanced out? What does this mean to the minister? Does she t…
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Madam Speaker, ultimately, there are two main approaches to language planning around the world. One is based on territoriality, and it is seen as the only effective approach for protecting minority languages. The other is based on the personality principle, which is Canada's model to some extent. Bill 101 is based more on the territoriality approach. I believe that the only way to ensure the subst…
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Madam Speaker, the Official Languages Act is founded on the principle that Quebec anglophones are a minority. However, they are part of the anglophone majority in Canada. Based on their supposed minority status, 100% of federal funding provided under the Official Languages Act serves to strengthen the anglophone community in Quebec, which had already received more than its share of funding from th…
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Madam Speaker, I want to come back to francophone immigration and temporary permits for African students, who face an incredibly high rejection rate when we have missed our francophone immigration targets for the last 20 years or so. Does the member not think that it would be a good idea to amend Bill C-13 to include binding targets and an obligation to produce results?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague said that the bill does not go far enough. I agree. I think that it needs to undergo a major reform, particularly based on the requests of the Government of Quebec, which asked that Quebec be given sole authority over linguistic development and management within its borders. I know that my colleague agrees that Bill 101 should apply to federally regulated businesses. Th…
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Madam Speaker, for 52 years, all federal subsidies under the Official Languages Act have gone almost exclusively toward strengthening the anglophone community in Quebec. The reason given was that this community is a minority, even though it is part of the English Canadian majority. In the throne speech and in the preamble of Bill C‑13, the government appears to recognize that francophones in Quebe…
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Madam Speaker, anywhere in the world, it is normal for newcomers to want to join the majority. If we simply allow free choice, there is no question that newcomers, even in Quebec, will tend to go towards English. Why does Bill C‑13 stubbornly continue to impose free choice of languages in Quebec?
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Mr. Speaker, the unilingual English appointments at CN are the result of the federal Official Languages Act. The federal government created this situation by allowing CN to circumvent Bill 101 for three decades in favour of the Official Languages Act. The application of the federal Official Languages Act in Quebec creates corporate cultures like the one at CN, where French is not important. Why is…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government says it is shocked that CN appointed a unilingual English-speaking board of directors, but it is avoiding the most obvious solution. If the Charter of the French Language applied to CN, this never would have happened. CN, a Montreal-based company, never would have developed a corporate culture that is so out of touch that it would appoint a 100% unilingual anglo…
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Mr. Speaker, if they want to work with us, then they need to listen to us a little. With their new Bill C-13, the Liberals are denying French's uniqueness in a sea of hundreds of millions of anglophones. They are preventing Quebec from applying the Charter of the French Language to all federally regulated businesses. They are not protecting French. They are protecting bilingualism, which is not at…
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Madam Speaker, Bill C-238, which was introduced by a member of the Bloc Québécois, includes two proposals on which there is broad consensus in Quebec. The first part of the bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act to ensure that permanent residents who reside in Quebec have an adequate knowledge of French in order to obtain citizenship. Under the current legislation, Canada requires knowledge of En…
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Mr. Speaker, the situation of French is unique, but not according to federal language law. Here again I would like to quote what Robert Laplante told the committee. He said, “It is...indefensible to suggest that the situation of French in Quebec is perfectly symmetrical with that of English in Canada and, likewise, with the situation of anglophone and francophone minorities”. Even the Prime Minist…
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Mr. Speaker, Robert Laplante testified before the Standing Committee on Official Languages and said, “There are not two majorities in Canada; there is only one, and it is an anglophone majority, a representative group of which lives in Quebec.” The government said the same thing in its 2020 throne speech. It said, and I quote, “the situation of French is unique. There are almost 8 million Francoph…
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Madam Speaker, there is something illogical about my colleague's argument. He is being asked why the Liberals included in this motion the possibility for the minister to adjourn for the summer without agreement from the other parties. He is telling us that this is done routinely at the end of every season and that is why they included this measure in the motion. If this measure is preventing peopl…
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Mr. Speaker, the appointment of a unilingual anglophone board of directors at CN has drawn a lot of criticism, but it is hard to believe that there will be a real culture change at CN. Why is that? It is because the Prime Minister, who is responsible for holding CN to account, is spending his own time offering positions to people who do not speak a word of French. He did it with the Lieutenant Gov…
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Mr. Speaker, as members know, the whole issue of health transfers was discussed earlier in the debate on a motion. As we know, in the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government funded 50% of health care spending. That funding was cut repeatedly, and now the feds fund only about 22% through health transfers. The Quebec government and all Canadian provinces are calling for an increase in these health t…
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Mr. Speaker, in 1962, CN claimed that there were no francophones qualified to serve as vice-president. Sixty years later, CN still cannot find francophones qualified to sit on its board of directors. That is how federally regulated companies operate, which is why Quebec wants to make these companies subject to the Charter of the French Language. The Liberal government's bill prevents Quebec from d…
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Mr. Speaker, last week, CN appointed a unilingual English-speaking board of directors. This reminds us of Air Canada, whose CEO boasted that he was a unilingual anglophone and had managed to live in Quebec his whole life without speaking French. It also reminds us that CN and Air Canada have something else in common besides having garnered the contempt of francophones: Both of these companies are …
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal government avoided making any decisions on the F-35s for seven years. In the meantime, it spent hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain the old CF-18s and purchased old FA-18s from Australia. It spent money bringing these jets up to standards and maintaining them. After this seven-year boondoggle, it has finally decided to buy the F‑35, the jet that the government sw…
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Madam Speaker, Bill C-8 marks the first time we see the federal government interfering in the area of property taxes. We moved just one amendment and tried to find a compromise to ensure that property taxes do not apply in a province without its consent. The Liberal chair of the committee ruled that the amendment was out of order. I would like to know what my colleague thinks of that.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the demands of francophone and Acadian communities, in particular those calling for the Treasury Board to be made the true central agency for overseeing the enforcement of the Official Languages Act. The Bloc Québécois supports all demands, as long as they do not interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions.
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Mr. Speaker, I would say no because, number one, that responsibility will still be shared between Canadian Heritage and the Treasury Board, and number two, as Charles Castonguay said, it is clear that the Official Languages Act is a real fiasco. It has been reported that 40% of francophones at federal institutions say they are not comfortable working in French. The Standing Committee on Official L…
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Yes, of course, Mr. Speaker, as long as it does not involve any interference in Quebec's jurisdictions. However, I do not think that is the case. We have had many interesting discussion with representatives from the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, who also seem to agree that we need a differentiated approach. In fact, the Bloc Québécois believes that the Official Languages Ac…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question. In fact, the opposite is true. Until recently, the Quebec government had not applied Bill 101 to federally regulated businesses because the case law went against it. There have been new rulings recently, so the situation has been reversed. One of the things the Quebec government wanted to see in the amendments to the Official Languages Act w…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his question. I see this as a very important issue. Things are relatively quiet now, but I do not think that Quebeckers will let their language disappear. Sooner or later a movement will form. The Official Languages Act is currently one of the main factors behind the anglicization of Quebec. As my colleague pointed out, Quebec is inund…
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑32 would have made the application of Bill 101 to federal institutions optional, but Bill C‑13 is even worse because it creates a whole new act to that effect. I see the government's attempt to prevent Bill 101 from being enforced as a middle finger to Quebec. In response, the Quebec minister responsible for Canadian relations told the federal government to stay out of it and l…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague on her speech. She said she agreed with the principle that French is a minority language in Canada. What does she think of the fact that all of the Quebec government's requests have been refused or else accepted but in a very ambiguous way? Does she understand that Quebec should be allowed to implement its own territoriality policies? I see that as a c…
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 seeks to amend the Official Languages Act, which was enacted by Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberal government in 1969 and then amended once by Brian Mulroney's Conservatives in 1998 based on the same principles. Before that, for almost a century, the so-called equality of languages established by the Constitution of 1867 never really existed, except in theory. It was nothing n…
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Madam Speaker, for me, this debate is about equity. Right now, traditional broadcasters are regulated. They have to contribute to Quebec and Canadian culture. All this bill does is extend regulatory enforcement to foreign and online platforms. I do not understand what my colleague wants. Is she saying we should deregulate traditional broadcasters? What does she see as the solution?
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Madam Speaker, I feel my Conservative friends' motion is primarily about supporting the oil companies. There are a whole host of measures that could be taken to combat inflation. The current climate emergency must also be a priority. We therefore need to find ways to move toward energies of the future and fight inflation in all sorts of other ways. I would love to hear my colleague's thoughts on t…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to know why the people of Ontario and the sponsor of this bill would place more trust in the federal government than in their own provincial government when it comes to this initiative.
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Mr. Speaker, we were eager to read the new bill to modernize the Official Languages Act. Quebec's one request was that it wanted to be solely responsible for linguistic planning in its territory. The Liberals have said no. Ottawa is interfering again. It is ensuring that its legislation will override the application of the Charter of the French Language. It will be optional for federally regulated…
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec National Assembly is calling for this, as are the Government of Quebec and all living former premiers of Quebec, namely, Pierre Marc Johnson, Daniel Johnson, Lucien Bouchard, Pauline Marois, Philippe Couillard, and even the very Liberal Jean Charest. Even the House of Commons voted in favour of it at second reading. Only the Liberal government is opposed. Will the minister …
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Madam Speaker, under the new proposed redistribution, the House would have 342 members, with four new seats, of which 77 would go to Quebec, who would lose one seat. This would cause Quebec's political weight in the House of Commons to go from 23.1% to 22.5%. It is not the Chief Electoral Officer's fault. He is mechanically applying the formula set out in section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867. …
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