44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 12, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for this very important question and for the opportunity he has given me. It is indeed a very good question.
Yes, I recognize the importance of this legislation in Canada and why it is needed. No, we do not need to scrap the bill. We are not here to create obstacles. We just want to protect our people.
If the bill stated that the law would apply in Quebec as long as it did not interfere with the Charter of the French Language, that would solve the problem. It is easy. There would be no problem.
Let the Quebec government promote the French language within its territory. It is an area where the language is very dynamic. We can do it. This could even help revitalize French everywhere in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for his speech this evening.
We do agree on one thing: French is in decline in Canada, including in Québec. The federal government and all the provinces and territories have to help tackle this demographic decline. Bill C‑13 is how we are going to solve this problem. We are making sure we have the tools to support official language minority communities.
Does the member see that this bill will change a lot for francophones outside Quebec, francophones in Quebec and all official language minority communities?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for the question.
I acknowledged at the beginning of my speech that there had been some gains for francophones outside Quebec. However, for Quebec, I am sorry to disappoint the minister, but this bill is harmful for French. It is harmful because it will allow businesses to take the easy road. They can decide to follow the letter of the law without needing to worry about Bill 101. When there is no legislative uniformity in a jurisdiction, that has adverse effects. This bill gives people the right to work in French, but it does not make French the common, everyday language. It would take me more than 30 seconds to explain, but there is a big difference. French is not a secondary language that has to be translated to please a worker who complained. It has to be natural. It must be the natural way of communicating for everyone. It is our wealth.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
I know he wanted me to speak French for a bit.
I very much understand how language is so intertwined with identity. It happens in variations of English as well. My wife is an Australian citizen, and I know from living down there for a year that the ways they spoke English were very much not the same as I spoke English. There is the Australian identity and the Canadian identity in the way we fell in love with our own versions of English.
In my own riding, the indigenous people, the first nations, are revitalizing the way they are speaking Halkomelem. It is very much intertwined with the Coast Salish identity. There is also a huge demand among residents in my riding to get their children to learn French. There is more demand than there is availability.
I truly believe in the bottom of my heart that the way to bring Canada and Quebec together is to make sure the French-speaking minorities all across Canada are built up to show solidarity with the francophone population in Quebec. I am just wondering if my colleague has some ideas on how we can build that solidarity in the rest of Canada, so that francophones in Quebec have that partnership right across the land.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my valued colleague from the agriculture committee for his question and for his nice introduction in French. He put in a great effort.
I also recognize that British Columbia is an exception, in that there is more demand for French. He asked about how we can develop a partnership. It is simple and I mentioned this earlier. The feds need to stop acting as though they know all. We are not here to prevent Canada from enacting legislation. What we want is to protect Quebec's jurisdictions in the legislation and to protect the French language on Quebec land. If the government leaves us alone then we will leave it alone, and our interactions will be very interesting because our French will be stronger—
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- May/12/22 8:45:45 p.m.
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Order. Resuming debate.
The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this evening's debate. My French is a bit rusty so I will begin by summarizing what I want to say. After that I will give more details in English.
First, the French language is very important to me. In my family, my wife and I speak a little French, but my children do not speak it at all, so it is very important for us to be able to use French in certain situations. I will not get into the details, but I have the opportunity to practise my French at home from time to time.
There is a strong francophone community in my riding. There are also a lot of francophiles, people who love French, anglophones who put their children in French immersion.
This evening, we are debating Bill C‑13. In my opinion, this bill is a weak legislative response to the urgent problem of the decline in French. We needed a reform, not amendments. It took six years for the Liberals to introduce a bill that is not the reform they promised. The Liberals could have acted sooner to protect and promote French.
The bill will not do anything to stop the decline of French. It lacks teeth and contains no binding obligations. The lack of strong measures is particularly evident when it comes to immigration. I will talk about immigration measures in general and how they affect our place in the world.
I am speaking to Bill C-13, which, in the opinion of the Conservative Party, is a rather weak response to the urgent problem of the decline of the French language, and we want to see more.
We will be supporting this bill through to the second reading, but we will certainly be active at the committee stage and try to propose amendments that respond to the concerns that linguistic minorities in Canada have and that will further strengthen the legislation.
I wanted to speak specifically tonight on the immigration section of the bill. It is a short section. It is an important section, but I think it is also emblematic of some of the broader weaknesses within the legislation.
For context, on the immigration section and its implications, let me say that I think, in terms of our engagement with other countries and our positioning in the world, that Canada's status as a bilingual nation is an incredible strategic opportunity.
The fact that we have anglophones and francophones and they have the opportunity to learn the other official language, and that many Canadians have an opportunity to become bilingual, presents a significant strategic advantage for Canada's engagement in the world. It allows people to travel to more places easily and to converse in the local language. It facilitates people-to-people exchanges. It facilitates opportunities for trade. It also means we can play a greater role in geopolitics. We can be involved in negotiation and mediation, and it is simply easier to have conversations with people when one is able to actually speak directly to them without relying on the services of translation.
Canada's status as a bilingual nation really does give us an opportunity. English and French, if one thinks globally, are very common languages around the world, so the fact that these are the two predominant languages here in Canada provides us with that much more of an opportunity for engagement.
I will say, in particular, that the French language in Canada provides us with a great opportunity for engagement with Africa. I do not think we talk enough in the House about the values and the benefits that come from increased engagement with Africa. I think we need to do better at thinking strategically in Canada about the opportunities that can come from strengthening our ties with African nations.
Africa has recently established a free trade area. Many African nations have very young populations, so we are going to see significant demographic growth continuing in Africa. In the decades ahead, that demographic growth, and the significant economic growth we are seeing in many countries in Africa, will mean that decisions that are made in Africa are going to shape global affairs to a greater and greater extent in the decades to come. We can be ahead of the curve by recognizing how free trade, economic growth and demographic growth, as well as incredible innovation, are happening in Africa and various sectors right now. Canada can be ahead of the curve if we start to think more about the opportunities that come with engaging with Africa.
It has been a problem in the past that, when we talk about Africa, it has often been only in the context of international development. That is a part of the picture. However, there is so much opportunity for trade, for strategic engagement and for other kinds of opportunities to emerge through greater partnership in and with countries in Africa. We need to recognize that, and recognize the opportunities for partnership that Canada has as a result of being a bilingual nation and the opportunities, in particular, for more engagement with francophone nations in Africa. We need to recognize the existence of competition for that at present.
We spoke during the day, prior to getting to the debate on this bill, about some of the issues and challenges in the Canada-China relationship. We know that the Government of China has a very aggressive strategy for strategic engagement in Africa, getting access to natural resources and some of the opportunities that come with that. Much of the democratic world has not done enough to be present in Africa to engage there, and I believe there are problems with aspects of the Government of China's engagement in Africa in terms of it not always involving respect for the people of those countries. We can engage, as an English-French bilingual nation. We can build those ties and connections and we can strengthen our presence in the process. It will provide economic advantages for Canada. It will provide greater cultural richness, in terms of the exchanges and interactions that can take place. That is part of setting the stage of recognizing the opportunities, in terms of foreign affairs and engagement in trade, that come with a relationship with nations in Africa.
I had a real aha moment recently, when I was talking to some ambassadors from African nations about the connection between immigration measures and other aspects of our engagement with other countries. When we have an immigration system that is operating below its capacity, and when there are significant backlogs, high refusal rates and delays, it makes it very difficult to have other forms of engagement.
If people want to come to Canada on a trade mission but they have an impossible time getting access to a visa, they are significantly delayed, they do not feel that they are treated with respect or simply feel that logistically it is too complicated, then there is less opportunity to have the people-to-people interaction that comes through trade. If people are coming diplomatically to discuss potential partnerships in trade or academic partnerships, or they are coming simply for travel or to build relationships that might have economic and other opportunities flow out of that, but their ability to travel is constrained by an immigration system that is not working to grant visitor visas in a timely way, and that is having disproportionate refusal rates associated with certain parts of the world, it holds back our engagement.
We need to engage more with countries in Africa. There are perhaps a variety of reasons why we have not done a good enough job of that in the past, as a country. One reason comes down to the immigration system. There is a much higher refusal rate for many countries in Africa, in terms of people being able to come to Canada. There are challenges for people getting visitor visas. We have recently done a study at the immigration committee about some of the challenges for people being able to access student visas. People are making applications to come as students to Canada, and there are very high refusal rates for African nations, in particular for francophone African nations.
If we are talking about the need to have more francophone immigration and to have policies around that to set targets, yet we are having very high refusal rates for those who apply, we are going to lose out on this competition for talent, and we are going to lose out on the opportunities for engagement that come from it.
The connection I have been able to make recently is to understand how those failures in our immigration system affect so many other areas of engagement. If a young person wants to come here to study in Canada, they might stay afterward or they might go back while preserving those ties and connections they have with Canada. They could go back to their country of origin and start a business there. They see, because they spent time in Canada, the opportunities that can come from expanding those connections. However, if we cut short that possibility of connection between our country and emerging leaders in various francophone African countries, in particular, then we are going to miss out on trade, economic and cultural sharing opportunities that could come further down the line.
In particular, the legislation we have before us, Bill C-13, the section on immigration reads:
“The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration shall adopt a policy on francophone immigration to enhance the vitality of French linguistic minority communities in Canada.” It then continues:
The policy shall include, among other things,
(a) objectives, targets and indicators; and
(b) a statement that the Government of Canada recognizes that immigration is one of the factors that contributes to maintaining or increasing the demographic weight of French linguistic minority communities in Canada.
Substantively, what does that actually do with respect to francophone immigration? It says the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has to come up with some kind of policy, and that policy needs objectives, targets and indicators, and there needs to be a statement about the importance of this area. That does not have any teeth at all. That simply requires the expression of an aspiration. There is no indication in the act about what that policy should be, what the particular targets should be or how we might ensure the government meets those targets.
From what I understand, we have already had a target for francophone immigration for a very long time. Under the Liberal government, we have consistently failed to meet that target. We already have a target. We are not meeting it, and now we are putting in legislation and a statement saying that yes, we really need to have a policy and need to have targets.
The government needs to actually look at some of the fundamental problems that are holding us back. Yes, it is good to have a target, but we have to take that target seriously and we have to, as part of setting those goals, identify where have we failed up until now and why.
We know that there have been high refusal rates for many countries in Africa, particularly francophone countries in Africa. We actually have people who speak French who want to come here, who want to study, and maybe live and work here in Canada, and they are experiencing a very high level of refusal.
We have also been able to identify, through the work at the immigration committee, and much has been said and written on this elsewhere, problems of racism at IRCC and racism in those determinations. We also have massive immigration backlogs. People make applications wanting to come to Canada and are significantly delayed in doing so. That includes people who are coming as students. That includes people who are coming for work. That includes people who want to come for temporary visits.
We have people getting refused without a clear explanation as to why, or we have reasons that do not really make sense or fit the context. People are being told they do not have enough travel history, but there has to be a first time. If someone is a young person, and they have the skills and the abilities, and they have been accepted to come and study in Canada, but then someone will point out their travel history, that gets in the way.
Some of these reasons do not really seem to make sense and are really frustrating to potential applicants. It is unfair to these people who are making these applications, but it also a big loss for Canada. We are talking tonight about the benefits of our bilingualism and how we can reverse the decline of the use of the French language in Canada.
A big part of that response can be through immigration. If we are saying in legislation that we need to have a policy and a statement, and that we need to recognize how important this is, but then in practice, when people are making applications, they are experiencing a high refusal rate, we are missing a critical piece.
Over time, the implication of this is that people, the best and the brightest from around the world, will choose to apply somewhere else. There is a competition for talent that is part of our immigration system, and part of the way we compete is by making the immigration system effective, smooth and, as much as possible, a positive experience for the user of that system. On so many issues the government really wants to signal its aspirations, but we are not seeing the results.
This is on a different issue, but I was struck in question period today when members of my caucus were asking questions about setting up the three-digit suicide prevention line. It is such a very important issue, and the government is saying it is working as hard as it can to get it done as fast as possible. I am wondering how long it takes to set up a phone number.
The immigration minister said they would not remove the visa requirement for people applying from Ukraine because it would take them 12 weeks to remove the requirement. How does it take 12 weeks to remove a requirement? We are not talking about adding a requirement; we are talking about removing a requirement. The government is so slow to move on things that should not be that complex to get done. Again, with this legislation, Liberals are saying francophone immigration is great, they want francophone immigration and they want to have a policy on francophone immigration, but they are failing to meet the targets that currently exist.
As I emphasized, we have to understand the connections that exist between an immigration system that works and other forms of co-operation. If people are looking to do business and looking to build relationships, where maybe the first trip is purely a vacation, but then they meet other people and things come out of that, and our immigration system is not providing the level of service that people expect, then we are going to miss opportunities to build those connections and relationships.
I believe strongly that we need to strengthen our engagement with the francophone and other countries in Africa. There are immense opportunities for Canada that come out of the strengthening of that connection, but that requires us to have an immigration system that works well, that is fair to people in all regions of the world and does not have bias in it. Of course, applications will have to be refused some of the time, but applications should only be refused when there is good reason to do so.
That was what I wanted to focus on, for the most part, in my remarks. I do want to say that the failures in providing a clear road map on francophone immigration that we see in Bill C-13 are actually emblematic of larger issues in the bill. There is a lot of vagueness in the bill and a lot of desire to signal a commitment, broadly speaking, to good ideas and aspirations, but there is a failure to understand the mechanics of how those things could be delivered on. Some of the structural issues around the giving of many powers under this bill to the Department of Canadian Heritage as opposed to Treasury Board will lead to certain administrative problems and challenges. This is part of a larger issue around the effectiveness of some of these provisions in the bill.
Conservatives are very supportive of official languages. We are very supportive of having a strong linguistic duality in this country that benefits our country domestically, but, as I have also argued, presents us with significant strategic advantages and opportunities in our engagement with the world. However, it has to be real. It has to be substantive. It cannot just be about vaguely signalling commitments to things. We have to see the results.
I would like to move an amendment to the amendment. I move:
That the amendment be amended by adding the following: “and that the committee report back no later than 10 sitting days following the adoption of this motion.”
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The amendment to the amendment is in order.
The hon. Minister of Official Languages.
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Madam Speaker, I am a bit confused. This evening I have been hearing many Conservative members talking about how we have not done much when it comes to official languages since 2015. Let me do a bit of recap. I am very proud of the work that has been done since we formed government.
We have put in place an action plan, which we have backed up with investments of $2.7 billion, when it comes to official languages. We have made historic investments in post-secondary education in minority communities. We also moved forward with Bill C-32, and now we have Bill C-13. After the consultation I have been doing since I became Minister of Official Languages, we have put in place a bill that has even more teeth and more strength.
Through all of the activities we have done over the past four years, our objective has always been to have substantive equality when it comes to French and English within this country. I have many Conservatives over the past few months who have told me this is great work, that they support the work that is being done and that they support this bill. This evening, I am a bit surprised that we are seeing amendments and amendments.
Which is it? Are the Conservatives supporting our legislation, to move forward with strengthening our official languages for all Canadians, or are we going to be playing games and seeing this being slowed down?
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Madam Speaker, there was something very odd in the member's question, so I was just quickly researching this. The member cited Bill C-32 from the last Parliament as an achievement of the government. That bill did not pass. The bill was tabled for first reading on June 15, 2021. What happened to that bill? The government decided to call a premature election, which dissolved Parliament and, therefore, the bill. Only a Liberal would present a bill that was not debated and did not pass as a demonstration of their great accomplishments on this issue.
The minister then also spoke about money spent, instead of results. How do the Liberals measure their achievements? They talk about the money they spend instead of the results they achieve, and they talk about a bill they tabled at the 11th hour before they dissolved Parliament with a needless summer election. I suggest we need a better way of measuring accomplishment than that.
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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 federal immigration department never meets its targets for francophone immigration. We gave the example of temporary study permits for African francophones, which have an incredibly high refusal rate. Bill C-13 does not seem to resolve this problem.
What does my colleague believe should be done? Should there be binding targets? I believe that is the only way to solve the problem. Could my colleague comment on that?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his good question.
It is obvious that this bill does not have enough teeth to solve the problem. I spoke about some measures that I believe we should implement.
I think we need to address the problems of significant backlogs. I think people need to have clarity around the reasons refusals are given. I think we need to take the targets we have more seriously. I also think, at the very least, this act should require more, in terms of what the strategy looks like, and require the minister to be accountable when we fail to meet those targets. I do not think we can be too prescriptive on things that do naturally require the management of government, as opposed to the direct prescriptive action of the House of Commons, but we can expect more accountability when the government fails to meet targets.
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Madam Speaker, I have heard a couple of times tonight in the debate the mention of the 4.4% target for immigration, but I have also heard a couple of times tonight about the importance of children who are immigrating here to learn French, and actually the demand for it. When parents come, they want their children, outside of Quebec and all across Canada, to be able to learn French.
Does the member have any ideas about how the federal government could support immigrant children coming to Canada to learn French in provinces outside of Quebec?
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Madam Speaker, speaking from the perspective of an Alberta MP, there is great demand for people to be able to learn French. I see that in my community, and much of that is a question of what is within our education system. In my riding, we have a number of francophone schools for the francophone community. We have a very large and very successful French immersion program as well for people of all backgrounds, whether recent immigrants or people whose families have been in Canada for generations, who see the benefit and opportunities that are associated with being able to learn and study in French.
There is so much opportunity for French immersion, but I think one of the challenges is that sometimes there is less opportunity to actually use that French as people get older. People who have studied in French as students end up using the language less. I am not going to say anything that will surprise anyone, but generally the language of commerce and conversation where I live is English.
I think we need to think strategically about making those opportunities available to young people to study and having the federal government work collaboratively with provinces in terms of their areas of jurisdiction, and then also thinking about how we can create more opportunities for people to use French more as they get older.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's focus on what we could do to enhance francophone immigration. It is referenced, of course, in Bill C-13, but to ask the Minister of Immigration to develop a strategy for francophone immigration, given his catalogue of existing failures to seize this opportunity, does the member think that we have scope in amending Bill C-13 to jump-start strategies with specific measures that will improve and enhance francophone immigration to various parts of this country?
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Madam Speaker, the bill, I gather, will go to the official languages committee when it is adopted at second reading, and I think it has support across the House to pass second reading. However, concurrent with that, the immigration committee, which I sit on, is doing a study of many of these issues and I believe will bring recommendations to the House for specific points of action. I think part of the deliberation and the feedback the official languages committee will want to hear is what kinds of amendments could really strengthen that section.
What we are hearing at the immigration committee as well is that there needs to be a broader strengthening of our immigration system. There are many systemic issues in our immigration system. We need to address the problems of why we are seeing those disparities in refusal rates from country to country, why we still have issues of racism at IRCC, which need to be addressed, and why we have these problems with backlogs. Part of addressing the issues around francophone immigration is also addressing the challenges with the immigration system that have crept in under this government writ large.
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Madam Speaker, to begin, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
It is a great pleasure for me, as a multilingual member of Parliament and someone who grew up speaking French and Arabic at home, to rise today to discuss Bill C-13.
I think everyone can agree that it is time to modernize the Official Languages Act. I also believe that we can acknowledge that the federal government must do more to establish and maintain substantive equality between our two official languages.
Our government's modernization of the Official Languages Act is a big step in the right direction. It demonstrates our commitment to protecting and promoting French everywhere in Canada, including in Quebec, while also supporting official-language minority communities from coast to coast to coast. These goals are not mutually exclusive. We can and must do both proudly. This bill will move us forward to what I believe we all wish to see: substantive equality between Canada's official languages.
It is one of my personal priorities, and I am proud that it is also a government priority.
As my colleagues know, this legislation builds on the bill introduced during the previous Parliament. I want to acknowledge and thank my friend, the Minister of Official Languages, for her work and attention to this, and for the choice of historic Grand-Pré in my beautiful province of Nouvelle-Écosse as the site of this new bill's announcement. The symbolism of that choice did not go unnoticed.
I would also like to recognize the work done on this file by the former official languages minister, who is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I had the privilege of attending the 2021 federal, provincial and territorial meetings of ministers responsible for the Canadian Francophonie with her. While there, we discussed the modernization of this act, as well as the provision of services in French and the shortage of bilingual workers.
This improved bill adds important provisions that strengthen compliance with the Official Languages Act across government, enhance the powers of the official languages commissioner, and encourage the use of French in federally regulated businesses in Quebec and other regions with a strong francophone presence.
As several of my colleagues have noted, this is the first major reform of the act in over 30 years.
We have more experience today of how the act has worked over the years and where it has fallen short. We have the benefit of a great deal of input and feedback from stakeholders and official-language minority community groups to draw upon in our modernization, including what we heard in response to the bill introduced last year.
I have personally had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada and the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones. I appreciated their feedback on Bill C‑13. With this bill, we are demonstrating our commitment to listening to community organizations, keeping one of the main promises in our campaign platform and introducing a balanced bill that reflects the linguistic realities of francophone and anglophone Canadians.
What would the amendments presented in this bill accomplish? The answer is, many things, but I will highlight a few. The bill would specify that all legal obligations related to the official languages apply at all times, including during emergencies. It would provide that section 16 of the act applies to the Supreme Court of Canada. It would clarify the nature of the duty of federal institutions to take positive measures to implement certain Government of Canada commitments and the manner in which the duty is to be carried out. It would require the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to adopt a policy on francophone immigration. It would centralize the coordination of the act under a single minister, who would have access to the resources of a central agency, the Treasury Board.
The Treasury Board would be required to establish policies to give effect to certain parts of the act; monitor and audit federal institutions for their compliance with policies, directives and regulations relating to the official languages; and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of policies and programs of federal institutions relating to the official languages.
I think these changes make sense. Canadians need clear accountability so they can make sure their government is delivering concrete results.
Strengthening the Treasury Board's role and removing discretion would help us achieve the vision of a public service where everyone works in the official language of their choice.
Bill C-13 would also strengthen the powers of the official languages commissioners to make sure they have the tools they need to enforce the act, essentially ensuring that the Official Languages Act has teeth. This includes giving them the ability to impose monetary penalties on companies that work with the travelling public and to enter into compliance agreements.
It would provide for Government of Canada commitments to protect and promote French, ensure education rights are being met, and advance opportunities for linguistic minority community members to pursue quality learning in their own language throughout their lives.
It would provide for certain positive measures that federal institutions may take to implement our commitments, including to promote and support the learning of English and French in Canada and support sectors that are essential to enhancing the vitality of English and French linguistic minority communities and protecting their institutions.
It would empower the Minister of Canadian Heritage to promote the rights Canadians hold with regard to language of work, and advance equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society.
The bill would enact the use of French in federally regulated private businesses act, which would provide for rights and duties respecting the use of French as a language of service and a language of work in relation to federally regulated private businesses in Quebec, and later in regions with a strong francophone presence.
As I mentioned, our bill would give the Commissioner of Official Languages more enforcement tools, which had already been envisioned, to tackle the ongoing problem of non-compliance.
Bill C-13 also addresses worrisome trends, such as the decline in the demographic weight of Canada's francophone population, including in Quebec, and the stagnating overall rate of bilingualism among Canadians. The bill recognizes two important truths. One, the private sector must play a role in promoting our official languages and enhancing the vitality of official-language minority communities. Two, French is in significant decline in our country and we must make a concerted effort to reverse the trend.
I would also like to use my time to share why I feel it is my responsibility to support this bill.
Fostering bilingualism is a personal priority for me, as is growing our francophone population. I, too, am concerned by the decline of the demographic weight of francophones in Canada.
I think we can make inroads on this problem by working hard to increase francophone immigration and by making significant investments in French-language education. My province is in dire need of francophone early childhood educators. We have to do more to ensure that families can see their children grow up in French.
As someone who spoke French before I spoke English, and who returned to my home province as a child without speaking English, I have a deep appreciation for the importance of government taking action to ensure the continued vitality and use of French.
As the former minister of immigration and the former minister of Acadian affairs and francophonie, I launched Nova Scotia's francophone immigration action plan in 2019. I advocated for the introduction of French stop signs in the Acadian regions of Nova Scotia. I worked closely with the French school board le Conseil scolaire acadien provincial—
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- May/12/22 9:25:52 p.m.
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I have to interrupt the member since we are moving on to questions and comments.
The hon. Minister of Official Languages.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Halifax West for her speech and her support for Bill C-13. I would also like to congratulate her for her work as a member of the official languages caucus and for what she achieved while she was the minister responsible for immigration and other portfolios in Nova Scotia.
She is very familiar with the bill and understands full well the importance of modernizing the Official Languages Act. I would like to know if she can describe how this bill will benefit her province.
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Madam Speaker, the modernization of the Official Languages Act shows our commitment to protecting and promoting French across the country, including in Quebec, while supporting official language minority communities from coast to coast. I believe that this is extremely important and necessary.
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