44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 20, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I like what my colleague, the Minister of Official Languages, is saying, but the government is not walking the talk.
In my opinion, Bill C-13 is very important because it establishes rules to ensure that, in 50 years, Canada will still be a bilingual country, where both French and English are spoken.
The minister is from New Brunswick, the only bilingual province in Canada, yet she is supporting her government as it argues against including a requirement in the act stating that the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick must be bilingual. I am having a hard time understanding the logic behind what she is saying.
Furthermore, the minister said that stakeholders were happy with what had been done with Bill C‑13. Indeed, it is a step forward, but when I met with the same stakeholders, they told me that it was not enough.
We do need to work on it, but in a democracy like the Canadian Parliament, all parliamentarians must be respected, be given the right to speak and be allowed to express themselves, because this is a very important bill for the future of bilingualism in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, let us get one thing straight right off the bat. This is day four of debate on Bill C‑13. There have been 63 speeches in the House about this bill: 19 by the Conservative Party, 18 by the Liberal Party, 13 by the NDP and 12 by the Bloc Québécois.
Let us not forget that, even though a big part of the work is done in the House, a lot is done in committee as well. Committee work is very important. I also know that my hon. colleague is a member of the committee, which does great work, often working very closely with all the parties. That does not mean we always agree, but some great work gets done.
At this point, we are very eager for the parliamentary committee to get going on this so the bill can then come back to the House.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
I would like to ask the minister a question. The government says it recognizes the decline of French in Canada and Quebec, especially in Montreal. However, this bill would give people in Quebec the choice to speak English or French. Quebec is the only place where the official language is French, yet the government wants to give people the choice to speak English.
I would like my colleague to explain how we are supposed to protect French when Bill C‑13 gives federally regulated companies the choice to speak English or French.
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Madam Speaker, once again, our government is the first to recognize that French is in decline in Canada, including Quebec. That is why we are moving forward with an ambitious bill. We also must recognize that the Bloc Québécois does not represent all of Canada's francophones.
As Minister of Official Languages, I want to ensure that I am putting in place a bill that will respect official language minority communities across the country. That is why I am very pleased to move forward with this ambitious bill that will make a real difference in the lives of those residing in such communities.
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Madam Speaker, we have seen in the course of last few weeks that we have two blocs in the House of Commons: the Bloc Québécois and the “block everything party”. The “block everything party” has been the Conservative Party.
We have seen its members systematically blocking every single piece of legislation, refusing to have legislation go through to committee to improve it. These are fundamentally important things, yet what we saw this week was absolutely a travesty. Conservative MPs, when we extended hours so that everyone could speak to important legislation, decided they wanted the House of Commons—
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- May/20/22 10:17:50 a.m.
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I am sorry to interrupt the member, but the hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques‑Cartier is rising on a point of order.
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Madam Speaker, right now, the House is debating Bill C‑13. We are not debating procedure.
I do not need a lecture from the NDP—
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- May/20/22 10:18:04 a.m.
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That is debate, not a point of order.
The hon. parliamentary secretary has a point of order. As it is on the same point of order, I will say that I ruled it is not a point of order, so I do not think we need further discussion.
The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby can wrap up.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party blocks everything. Why are the Conservatives refusing to refer this bill to committee so the committee can improve it?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
As I said, this is the fourth day of debate. At midnight on May 12, I was still in the House, and I was quite disappointed to see the Conservative Party move an amendment and a subamendment that could have killed this bill. Believe it or not, people watch CPAC at midnight, and several people called me to say they were worried about the Conservative Party's interventions.
I repeat: We do not want to play political games. This bill is very important to me, and I want to see it passed as soon as possible. The parliamentary committee has work to do. I am eager to get this bill to committee so it can do its study and get it back to the House for another round of debate. I am also eager for the Senate to be able to do its work, which is very important too.
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Madam Speaker, I am a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, along with some of my colleagues currently in the House, whether virtually or in person. I can confirm that this committee has the best team, across party lines, to carry Bill C-13 forward and do exactly what we hope to achieve with it.
I would like to hear more from the minister about what she has heard from stakeholders from coast to coast to coast, wherever they are located in our big, beautiful Canada, about this new version of the legislation.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend and colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche for his hard work on this file. I know he has spent a good part of his life working to advance the cause of official languages. He is doing an excellent job as chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
Since I was appointed minister, I have had the privilege of meeting stakeholders from coast to coast to coast. People are telling us that they want Bill C-13 to move forward. The feedback we received on the new version of the bill was generally very positive. People appreciate the work we have done. Stakeholders have also told us that they are eager for us to start working on the regulatory framework. Of course we want the bill to pass, but there will be more work to do after that, because the associated regulations need to be developed. Let us not forget that we have an action plan and some consultations coming up soon. We want to prepare our work plan for the next five years. Passing Bill C-13 is one of the steps we hope to accomplish soon.
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Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague, the chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. We are working together to advance the cause.
We now have the proof that this government is not really paying attention to the French language and has no real intention of protecting it. I would remind members that the first speech, the first debate, was on a Wednesday afternoon. I want to make people at home aware of this. Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings are the two periods of the week when a member has less speaking time. The last time there was an intervention on this topic was on Thursday.
It is clear that we are in the process of pushing this bill through. This upsets the senior members of the Liberal Party, of the government in place. Unfortunately, the Minister of Official Languages is David against Goliath in her own party. If we look at what happened this week in the news, we see that three Liberal MPs are disputing the Liberal government's decision.
I would like to hear the minister's thoughts on that.
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Madam Speaker, what truly concerns me is that the Conservative Party is trying to derail this bill.
Last Thursday, the opposition criticized me for being here until midnight talking about this. Canadians expect us to be in the House to do our work as MPs, whether that is Monday morning or Friday afternoon. That is exactly what we are doing by debating this bill.
This is an ambitious bill, since we want to be sure to do everything we can to protect both of this country's beautiful official languages. I hope that we will have the co‑operation of my colleagues from all parties.
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Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the Minister of Official Languages. She is very involved and believes in her commitments.
However, I sincerely believe that the government appointment of a unilingual anglophone lieutenant governor in New Brunswick, the only bilingual province, sends the wrong message. That message conveys that the government does not care about French in minority situations, including in New Brunswick.
The minister says that the government promises never to do this again, but it just did. Furthermore, it is defending the right to do this before the courts. How can she justify that?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question. I have a great deal of regard for him as well.
Our government is firmly committed to doing everything it can to promote and protect both our beautiful official languages in Canada. That is a priority. I have also stated many times that we agree with the principle that the lieutenant governors of New Brunswick must be bilingual. All of Ms. Murphy's successors will be. We have stated that and we will absolutely abide by it.
What is before the courts is a constitutional matter. It has nothing to do with the principle of the bilingualism of future lieutenant governors. We have made it clear that we will absolutely ensure that the lieutenant governors of New Brunswick appointed after Ms. Murphy will be bilingual.
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Madam Speaker, we saw this week the travesty of an evening session where parliamentarians were supposed to get together and speak to important legislation, but the Conservatives turned it into a circus where debate was over which Conservative faction would put forward its speaker. It was lamentable. I have not seen, in my years in Parliament, an entire party say to the people of Canada that what is most important is its internal stuff rather than talk about important debates. We have seen bill after bill blocked by the Conservatives.
Why are the Conservatives blocking everything? Why, on a bill as important as official languages, are they refusing to get it to committee so hearings can be held and the legislation improved? These are all things I would think every member of Parliament should take to heart.
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Madam Speaker, we have to recognize that, yes, important debate happens in the House, but important debate and work also happens at the committee level. That is exactly where we are hoping this work is going to go. We want the committee members to look at this legislation with a fine-tooth comb, because we want to have the best legislation possible. We recognize the Official Languages Act has not been revised substantially over the past 30 years, so Canadians are expecting us to do a really good job and their expectations are very high.
What we saw this week in Parliament, with respect to the Conservative Party playing games, was really disheartening. I know that when my colleagues and people at home are watching this they wonder what is going on here. When we hear bells ringing every 30 minutes and the motion we have to vote on is which Conservative speaker is going to speak next, people wonder if that is really what we are doing here in Ottawa. People really want to see the work and debate being done constructively, and I certainly hope we are going to have the co-operation of all members as we move forward with this really important piece of legislation.
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Madam Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to rise today to speak to Bill C-13.
As an Acadian from Nova Scotia who worked on the ground in the field of education for 30 some years, I was able to witness first-hand the challenges we face in advancing French in our official language minority communities.
We have known about these issues for 30 years, and we know that something needs to be done to remedy them. We have taken some action over the past five or 10 years, namely with the Translation Bureau, the court challenges program, services in French and bilingual judges in the Supreme Court of Canada. Those are all very important things.
Positive measures are essential, and the courts are saying that we need to do more in that regard. Does the minister think that Bill C-13 responds to this request from the courts?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to once again thank my colleague who has been working in this field for several decades. I am extremely grateful to him for that and for the work that he does here in Ottawa as the chair of the official languages caucus.
Positive measures are indeed a very important part of Bill C-13. The stakeholders we spoke to really wanted to see improvements in the definition and handling of positive measures compared to former Bill C-32. That is exactly what we did.
We took care to closely examine every word and every comma in our new bill because we want to ensure that it will really help official language minority communities. We want the positive measures to be clearly defined, because they are a very important component.
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