44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/1/22 2:54:58 p.m.
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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 businesses.
Why not simply let Bill 101 apply in Quebec as Quebec has requested?
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- Mar/1/22 2:56:49 p.m.
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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 amend the bill so that Bill 101 applies to federally regulated businesses in Quebec?
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- Mar/1/22 4:29:32 p.m.
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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. However, the number of seats is Parliament's decision, hence our motion today.
This would be the first time since 1966 that a province loses seats in the House of Commons, but Quebec's weight has been going down non-stop since the coming into force in 1867 of the British North America Act, which became the Constitution Act. At the time, Quebec had 65 out of the 181 seats, which gave it a political weight of 36%. Today, since 2015, the Quebec nation has had 78 seats out of 338, for a political weight of 23.1%. Now it would drop to 22.5%, which is unacceptable.
This is actually just the next chapter of the story that started with the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The purpose of the Quebec Act of 1774 was to prevent French Canadians from joining the American Revolution. The Constitutional Act of 1791 established a territory in which English Loyalists were the majority. Over time, immigration made Canada's anglophone population the majority. Things culminated with the British North America Act of 1867.
Throughout Canada's history, British and Canadian governments have openly resorted to military suppression, anglophone immigration, the prohibition of French schools and all kinds of other measures to assimilate francophones and make us the minority.
The people originally known as French Canadians dropped from 99% of the population in 1763 to 87% in 1791 and 29% in 1871. The percentage has been in steady decline ever since. As my colleague said, the Constitution Act, 1867, was followed by statutes abolishing French schools in all of the Canadian provinces that now have an anglophone majority.
From the start, the Constitution Act, 1867, protected bilingualism in Quebec. The federal government ignored that for a very long time. We are still feeling the effects now with the Official Languages Act.
At the end of that period, in the 1960s, the Laurendeau-Dunton Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was established. André Laurendeau sought to give collective rights to the Quebec nation, but that did not happen. The commission's work led to a multiculturalism act, which somewhat weakened the Quebec identity, as it was seen as one cultural community among many.
The commission also resulted in a bilingualism act, which was supposed to protect official language minorities. In Quebec, the anglophone community just happened to be considered the minority, which until then had benefited from colonial privileges and had a very dominant position in Quebec society. Thus, instead of taking action to defend French everywhere, the Canadian government took action in Quebec, the only francophone state, and found nothing better to do than to strengthen English.
Today, we are seeing the decline of French, which the Official Languages Act will not reverse. It is nonetheless surprising to note that French has declined with every census and that since the Official Languages Act was passed, the rate of francophone assimilation has increased across the country.
The Government of Canada admitted just two years ago that French is on the decline and that it has a responsibility to defend and protect French everywhere, even in Quebec. That is not what we see in the Official Languages Act. Certain principles have been laid down, but the same old approach is being used.
I think Quebec is caught in a trap. If we continue to welcome large volumes of immigrants and do not get these newcomers to learn French, francophones will become the minority in Quebec, and the federal government is contributing to that. If we do not increase immigration, Quebec will lose its political weight. We are trapped.
Canada has no problem welcoming lots of immigrants, but we know that almost all language transfers among francophones and allophones are to English. I think everyone would agree that English is not at risk in Canada, but French is at risk in Quebec. The only way to survive and to react as a nation is to protect our political weight.
With regard to Quebec's population, proportionally speaking, Quebec welcomed nearly twice as many immigrants as the United States and nearly two and a half times more than France. We have seen some projections showing that the demographic weight of francophones in Quebec stands to drop significantly in the next 20 years. However, with the new policy of bringing in more and more immigrants, that decline will happen even more quickly. We need to do something.
The Liberals talked about increasing the total number of immigrants received to 430,000 per year. This is significantly more than the 280,000 immigrants the Conservatives proposed to take in.
Quebec is a nation. It has an identity that is unique in the world, a history, a particular culture, a way of doing business, a common language. Peoples' right to self-determination is perfectly normal. It would allow us to ensure the future of our language, our culture, our way of life. It is what the right to self-determination is all about.
Maurice Séguin, a historian who studied settler colonialism, said that if a people cannot decide for itself its own social, economic, cultural and political development, it is bound for dissolution. I think we have reached a breaking point.
We were able to counteract our minority status for a while because Quebec had a very high birth rate, especially prior to the 1960s. However, much like all western countries, our birth rate has declined. We depend more and more on immigration. We need the means to promote the use of French among immigrants, but we are losing even that power.
The Canada-Quebec agreement gave us a certain amount of control over economic immigration, but the formula has changed more and more, and the government is mainly giving permanent residence to temporary workers and students. We recently saw that there is a much higher refusal rate for study permits for francophone students from African countries. Basically, I think we are reaching a breaking point.
If Quebec wants to continue to developing as a people, we need to at least be able to maintain our political weight in Parliament. That is why we moved this motion and that is why we are asking that any scenario for redrawing the federal electoral map that would result in Quebec losing one or more electoral districts be rejected. We are proposing that Quebec always be able to maintain its political weight at 25% because we are a nation. We are the only French-speaking state in America, and we have a duty to resist, to defend French and cultural diversity in the world. We will see the reactions here. I call on all my colleagues to allow Quebec to maintain its political weight.
I also call on all my fellow Quebeckers to take stock of the situation. If we do not succeed in doing this and if we do not succeed in amending the Official Languages Act to ensure the future of French, the only solution will be for Quebec to become independent.
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- Mar/1/22 4:40:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, the current Quebec government has not decreased immigration that much. It has more or less stayed the same.
Second of all, as I was saying, we have two choices. If we increase immigration without sufficient means to teach these immigrants French and truly integrate them, francophones will become a minority in Quebec. If we reduce immigration, as the member said, our political weight will decrease.
I think Quebec, as a nation, should be able to set its own integration policies for newcomers. It should not be penalized for trying to make sure it can integrate the newcomers settling in Quebec.
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- Mar/1/22 4:42:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from the Conservative Party for his excellent question.
I think that the environment needs to be considered here. We are not against Alberta. We are in favour of combatting climate change, and we think we need to reduce our dependence on oil. We are prepared to help Alberta through the energy transition.
I do not think it will have a choice. If we want to secure an economic future, we ultimately cannot rely entirely on oil. That does not mean that we need to eradicate oil. We will still need it tomorrow. The issue in Quebec is a little different because we are a nation, a people, with a very different language and culture, and we want to continue to exist, much like the first nations want to continue to exist. We have nothing against the people of Alberta, despite our difference of opinion on environmental issues. I think that debate is the path to serenity.
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- Mar/1/22 4:45:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we will see if our colleagues will consider this to be acceptable and we will draw our own conclusions. I hope that things have changed, but the result of the vote will give us our answer.
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- Mar/1/22 5:03:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned earlier that no one in the House is evil.
I grew up in an anglophone environment, and of course there are no major differences between people on an individual level. Culturally, however, there are some differences.
How does my colleague explain, for example, that in many provinces there are not enough schools for francophones at the moment? Some efforts are being made and this has gone all the way to the Supreme Court, but the governments of these provinces are not following through. Something is up. Francophones have voluntarily assimilated just about everywhere, but there is no culpability or desire for redress.
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