Hon. Lucie Moncion: I am not certain my comments will contribute much to the discussion, but we shall see.

I rise today in support of Senator Gagné’s motion proposing that the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages be authorized to study the subject matter of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

I am a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages and have been part of the study on modernizing this law, and I am convinced that such a study will enrich debate in the House of Commons and the Senate. This pre-study will not prevent the Senate from conducting a proper study once the bill arrives here. Believe me when I say that we have waited too long for this bill to rush it through.

In recent sessions, senators have debated whether it would be appropriate to conduct a pre-study of Bill C-11. That discussion is also relevant to the debate on the pre-study of Bill C-13. In particular, several senators emphasized the benefits of the two chambers maintaining a dialogue in order to achieve a more refined final product that better represents what stakeholders and Canadians are looking for. I share this view as well.

[English]

The context of the pandemic and the hybrid session format makes it difficult to follow the usual committee meeting schedule. The uncertainty of committee schedules and the labour shortage that also affects the Senate is another reason to have a pre-study of Bill C-13 at the Official Languages Committee. It would be unfortunate, in my view, not to take advantage of the valuable meeting time that is available in the coming weeks to study the subject matter of the bill and to get ahead of the game. Giving ourselves time should be a priority in such an uncertain environment.

As Senator Saint-Germain pointed out in her speech on the pre-study of Bill C-11, many pre-studies of non-budgetary bills have been conducted in previous parliaments, including under previous governments. Therefore, we would be continuing a well-established practice. I thank the senator for providing the historical context in this chamber.

Also, the current political environment suggests that there will be sufficient time to do a proper study of this bill, in addition to the pre-study. This is a bill that official language minority communities have been awaiting for over 30 years. I believe that we need to give time and proper consideration to this quasi-constitutional piece of legislation, which is at the heart of Canada’s social contract.

[Translation]

I sincerely believe that, by proposing a pre-study with no constraints related to exchanges and procedure as we approach the end of the session, this motion offers us a reasonable and judicious way to begin our work.

Many of the stakeholders who have been waiting a long time for this have already expressed their concerns about some aspects of the bill. They are ready and we are ready, so why wait?

For one thing, a pre-study would enable us to be proactive in our study of the following aspects.

Stakeholders want Treasury Board to be designated as a central agency responsible for implementing the bill as a whole, but the bill makes Canadian Heritage responsible for exercising leadership in relation to the implementation of this act. We have to examine the complex issue of the central agency.

Next, the clause about francophone immigration policy does not explicitly state that the policy must increase the demographic weight of French-speaking Canada. Should this clause be amended to clarify its remedial purpose?

Many stakeholders are concerned about the fact that this bill does not contain a provision requiring the government to include linguistic provisions in agreements with the provinces and territories. What jurisdictional issues prevent the government from including a clause requiring linguistic provisions? Are there viable alternatives that could satisfy stakeholders?

[English]

The bill does not contain a provision for the disposal of federal real property, a long-standing request by stakeholders to facilitate the acquisition of such property by French-language school boards whose infrastructure is insufficient to meet the needs of their communities.

Finally, we must also consider how the bill will affect the English-speaking minority in Quebec. The Quebec Community Groups Network has expressed significant concerns about various issues that deserve our attention.

The Official Languages Committee has particular expertise in the reform of the Official Languages Act, having conducted an extensive study on this subject matter during the Forty-second Parliament. We should build on this expertise by initiating a pre-study as soon as possible, in parallel with the study of the bill by the Standing Committee on Official Languages in the other place. The other place could benefit from our knowledge. A productive dialogue between these two committees would be an asset to stakeholders and to Canadians.

[Translation]

This bill is long overdue and we need to do it justice. Esteemed colleagues, I urge you to support this motion to ensure that we can start studying the substance of Bill C-13 as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.

[English]

Senator Moncion: Thank you for the question, and it is an important one. I think people believe that a pre-study is something that will be done right away and that we will approve the bill by the end of June. That is not the purpose of the pre-study.

It is important that people in your province are concerned about issues of a linguistic nature, and the fact that you are hearing them is also important. I understand the loyalty you have towards the people of your province, just as I have loyalty for the people of my province.

It is important to understand that with this pre-study we are not pushing to have this bill passed by June. We want to start our work on specific issues that are very contentious right now. We want to work with our francophone colleagues who represent Canadians from coast to coast to coast in order to find resolutions within what is being provided to have the best bill we can for linguistic minorities in Canada.

This bill has been 50 years in the making. The last bill we had was 50 years ago. It was amended along the way, but what we currently have is not what is needed for minorities in our country, whether in Quebec or outside of Quebec.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is leave granted?

Senator Plett: As I mentioned earlier, I oppose this motion for the same reasons that I opposed the previous one. I find it strange that people who one day say we should not do this or we should only do it under certain circumstances, and then when it comes time to show that they really mean that, they stand and vote completely contrary to what they have said previously.

But for the record, allow me to recap very briefly. As I said earlier, colleagues, pre-studies are a legitimate tool available for the Senate to use when utilized for the right reasons. We didn’t vote on whether or not we support Bill C-13 just now. We voted on whether or not we should waste the Senate’s valuable time doing something that will have no bearing on us passing the bill, none.

I debated with a few during the break, and it was clear that people were thinking they were voting in favour of Bill C-13 by voting against a pre-study. In no way is that the case. As I said, pre-studies are a legitimate tool available for the Senate to use when utilized for the right reasons. But this motion for a pre‑study on Bill C-11 does not meet that bar for three reasons:

The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to seek our advice on amendments; their mind is made up. The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to draw from a specific expertise in the Senate; they believe that they are the only house that has this expertise. The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to meet a court-imposed deadline or other urgent situation. This bill meets none of these conditions.

Colleagues, we have a responsibility to the Senate to vote based on criteria. We didn’t do that five minutes ago. This bill meets none of these conditions, which have been the convention when requesting pre-studies. Instead, both the government in the other place and the Government Representative right here seem intent on bypassing sober second thought in order to rush bills through unnecessarily. We hear over and over again from this government leader, right here, “These are the government’s priorities, and we need to rush these through.” Then he says, “Let’s do a pre-study, but let’s take our time. But let’s get it done by this date.”

Colleagues, I must say that I find Senator Gold’s message a bit confusing on this matter. On the one hand, he tells us that the pre-studies have nothing to do with rushing the bills, and the Senate can take all the time it wants. Then he adds:

To be clear, the Senate ultimately decides how many days and weeks it chooses to spend on second reading, on committee stage and on third reading of a government bill.

Here we are, one day away from June 1. We have at best 30‑days left in one month, and we are not going to be here all of those 30 days because we are only here a maximum of 4 days a week, so we have 28 days left.

But then in the next breath, Senator Gold tells us:

. . . it is important to understand that, should Bill C-11 be delayed, hundreds of millions of dollars targeted for allocation to Canadian content and Canadian creators of content would be lost.

That is a misrepresentation of facts. That would not be lost. It may not be there right now.

A delay would perpetuate the void in the Broadcasting Act for minority and marginalized communities.

And then:

For those who may argue that there is no urgency in passing Bill C-11 and that it is not time-sensitive, again, I would respectfully disagree. In my view, depriving Canadian artists of deserved, earned income and tacitly permitting the absence of Canadian content in our broadcasting is an urgent, time-sensitive issue, and it is also a priority of this government.

Along with 100 other priorities that they have.

This is exactly why we are suspicious, colleagues, of the government. Is this bill urgent or not? How can they say, “Oh, take all the time you want, but remember, people are starving while you nitpick at the bill?”

Colleagues, I agreed with Senator Dasko when she made the following statement, and we saw how Senator Dasko voted just a few minutes ago:

My concern with Bill C-11 is that I fear we will be doomed to this inadequate process and its shortcomings and that we will not conduct the proper investigation we need on Bill C-11, and we have no assurances that a regular committee study would follow from our pre-study. With Bill C-11, the ideal process, in my view, would be for us to take into account all the learnings from the House of Commons committee, their proceedings and their report, and build from there.

Colleagues, that is exactly what we should be doing. As I stated earlier, we should have defeated the pre-study on Bill C-13. We should defeat this motion and get back to doing the important work of the Senate. Thank you.

Hon. Scott Tannas: Honourable senators, I just want to put some comments on the record.

First of all, let me just say that I thought we have had a good debate on this. I’m looking forward to hearing the final few speakers before we vote on Bill C-11.

I have listened carefully. I think there have been good points made on all sides. I sense, though, a fatigue — maybe a frustration — among some of us on how often we seem to be debating how to work rather than just getting on with working.

But I have to say that I think this is an important issue for us to pause on before we plow ahead. If you believe, like I do, that we are in a new era of independence, then we are setting precedents as we go.

I will just go through a few of the impressions that I gained.

I am not persuaded much either way by the kind of he-said-she-said in 1990 or 2017 — or whatever — that has been quoted by the government and the opposition. The government’s job is to pass legislation through this place as quickly as possible. Period. The opposition’s job is to defeat — or, failing that, delay — legislation for as long as possible. Period. So I think that while the speeches were interesting, and there were great, wonderful arguments on both sides — compelling arguments on both sides — the rest of us who are independent and trying to make a decision about a side need to weigh the interests of others at all times.

In my view, we need to come to decisions on matters like this without hanging our personal feelings on whether or not we like the bill or the government of the day. There will be times when it will be a different government. Those of us who like today’s government may not like tomorrow’s government.

If we are truly exercising our independence, then we will need to be consistent, won’t we? Given the same circumstances five years from now — with a Pierre Poilievre government in place and Senator Plett making the case about how we ought to give ourselves the extra time to study a policy that many of us find appalling — we want to make sure we’re consistent, don’t we, if we are going to be independent.

I think that is partly what is at stake in these kinds of detours that we take into process — because there are precedents. It is not about somebody calling us out five years from now. It is about looking ourselves in the mirror and saying, “Yes, I was truly independent. I made the same decision for the same reasons five years ago that I am going to make today.” That consistency is something that I reflected on. What is the consistent thing I can support today that I know I can support in the situation where there is a different government? For myself, I am satisfied that in this case I am doing that.

This does not mean that I won’t ever support pre-studies. We’ve all talked about this. There are times when pre-studies are an important tool. I just do not happen to believe that these particular two items have arrived at the right thresholds for us to agree to do this.

I also think about the role of the Senate, and some of the debates that were done pre-Confederation talked about the role of the Senate to pass, reject, amend and delay with dispassionate consideration. All those things, I think, come into play here, in particular with Bill C-11. This bill is going to come to us, I believe, with a lot of heat. It is going to come to us with a lot of people who are passionately for Bill C-11 and a lot of people who are passionately against it. I think it was Senator Plett who talked about that today. There are going to be winners and losers in this.

In my instinct, this is not the time that we should be trying to get into the mix quickly. We should be the ones who take the heat out of it. We should be the ones who say that we’re going to take space and time and make consideration here. We are going to see this bill come to us time-allocated, where debate has been truncated, and where activities in committees, whether they are dilatory or not, have been truncated. We may see it as we did at Christmas and last June with last-minute deals and whole sections written in — like we had. All of those things give me reason to think that it is not a good idea in this case for us to embark on an adventure of pre-study.

But I want to be clear. My vote has nothing to do with the bill. It has nothing to do with the contents of the bill. I don’t know how I’m going to vote on the bill. The way I deal with my job here is to not pay a lot of attention to what is going on until it is in my chamber, and I am supposed to be focused on it. I know that others deal with it differently.

But I honestly can say I have no hot clue how I’m going to vote. For me, this is 100% about whether or not it is a good idea for us to embark on pre-study. I know a number of my colleagues feel the same as I do. It is not about the bill and its contents.

That is really all I wanted to say. In closing, the idea of us being appropriately cautious in guarding our space and time on Bill C-11 will be important to the credibility of the decision that we make in the end.

I encourage you to give my thoughts today, short as they are, some consideration as we move to a vote. Thank you.

Senator Gold: I will refrain from — I appreciate your acknowledging that I have said publicly what I have said, and privately. What I said was that a pre-study is not a Trojan Horse to displace all other stages of study, which it is for the Senate to decide. I have two colleagues whose votes I hope I can count on. I have the responsibility to quote Spider-Man but not the power: With great responsibility comes no power except the power of persuasion and the power of my own integrity and reputation.

I will allow myself to take the liberty of saying that it is very fine to be told, “Of course, we think you are a wonderful person, but the government could always change their mind. And what is to stop it? We haven’t been told this and we haven’t been told that.”

At the risk of revealing more than I wish, it is offensive to me that despite my public and private pronouncements time and again and the respect I have shown for this chamber, we still think it relevant in this debate to trade on the suspicions.

I can’t do anything about it, colleagues, except to tell you that my question is as follows: Can you explain two things? First, why is it that you think we in the Senate — for the reputation which we all extol, and properly so — will be drawn into the political partisanship in the other place? If we choose to not be drawn into the politics, surely we will not be drawn in. If we choose to play the politics, as some do in this place, then c’est la vie.

Secondly, why do you assume that the government — or I should say, more accurately — the parties in the other place will not be responsive —

Senator Tannas: You have strained my attention span with your questions. Let me start with the first one. I do not believe that the files that you quoted have anything like the potential acrimony that these do.

Maybe we would have to go back. That may be a matter for somebody else to debate down the road or for history to judge about how long they have taken in the House of Commons, the fact that closure has been utilized and that we still do not have a bill. We do not know what amendments there are going to be.

In the case of the pre-studies that you did mention, we did do some great work, and it was collaborative. Certainly, during Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, which you mentioned, there was no rancour. There were no theatrics. There were no winners or losers. We were all pointed at a result that we wanted to get to and to create the best product that we could.

Senator Gold, I do want to say that I am sorry I have raised your anger with my comments. I am not making up the fact that we have had some last-minute surprises. We have had pressure put on us by ministers publicly in the media; ministers phoning us; and other officers phoning us to tell us that we needed to hurry up for whatever reasons at the last minute when the bill had only just arrived or when there were changes to it at the last minute. I am not making that up.

I do take you at your word that is not going to happen this time. Maybe next time, after it doesn’t happen this June, it will be more of a distant memory. I know it is frustrating, but it is true. We have had some problems where we have not, in my view and in the view of others, had the opportunity to properly consider government legislation because of so-called time deadlines.

I am sensitive about it. It is in the back of my mind. I have always spoken my mind here and felt that I could trust people with that. I do not mean anything bad by it. It is how I feel. I think it is how others feel. We all have scars and bruises from it, including yourself.

In this debate, it is important that we all have our say. I am having mine. I thank you and appreciate your questions.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: As you know, Senator Simons and I are both members of the Transport and Communications Committee. We have discussed this bill at length. We received witnesses together — or should I say, lobbyists — to try to understand the situation a bit better. I subscribe to your analysis and I totally agree that it is complicated, that there are not just two parties, but many parties. However, I believe that the issues are very important. It is, in part, about the survival of the Canadian culture as we know it. Yes, we must change things; yes, we must innovate, but we nevertheless have a duty to protect this Canadian culture. How can we do that in an environment that is completely different?

How does starting a pre-study next week, when we could begin to receive witnesses who would give us a comprehensive view and people who are knowledgeable about the technology, prevent us from conducting a study that would no longer be a pre-study when the bill comes to the Senate? I do not see how that changes anything at all. We are seated in a room, we receive witnesses, we listen to them, we ask questions. What is the difference between a pre-study and a study we could do at that stage, which would be an extension of the other?

Hon. Claude Carignan: Would Senator Cormier take another question?

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, it is now six o’clock. Pursuant to rule 3-3(1), I am obliged to leave the chair until 8 p.m. If you wish this session to be suspended, please say, “suspend.”

The Hon. the Speaker: The session is suspended until 8 p.m.

(The sitting of the Senate was suspended.)

(The sitting of the Senate was resumed.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Gold, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator Gagné:

That, in accordance with rule 10-11(1), the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications be authorized to examine the subject matter of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, introduced in the House of Commons on February 2, 2022, in advance of the said bill coming before the Senate; and

That, for the purposes of this study, the committee be authorized to meet even though the Senate may then be sitting or adjourned, with the application of rules 12-18(1) and 12-18(2) being suspended in relation thereto.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted to answer the question?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Simons, I’m sorry, but before you answer, your time is expired. Are you asking for five minutes to respond?

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, before calling upon the next senator, I should point out that we are debating Motion No. 42, the substance of which is whether or not there should be a pre-study of Bill C-11, not the substance of Bill C-11. We have a fair amount of leeway when it comes to speeches and questions and answers, but, please, we’re debating Motion No. 42.

The Hon. the Speaker: You have one minute.

The Hon. the Speaker: It was moved by the Honourable Senator Gold, seconded by Senator Gagné, that in accordance with rule 10-11(1) — may I dispense?

The Hon. the Speaker: I see two senators rising. Do we have agreement on a bell?

The Hon. the Speaker: Forty minutes. The vote will take place at 10:02. Call in the senators.

Motion agreed to on the following division:

The Hon. the Speaker: If you are opposed to the motion please say “no.”