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House Hansard - 51

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 1, 2022 10:00AM
  • Apr/1/22 10:02:47 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-13 
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege for me to rise today to begin the second reading debate on Bill C‑13, an act for the substantive equality of Canada's official languages. I would first like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe. Our two official languages and 70 indigenous languages are central to our identity. They are a core part of our lives and integral to our interactions in our families, at school, at work and in the community. They are the focal point of our diversity and the face we proudly show to the rest of the world. As an Acadian, I understand the importance of being able to grow up, work and live in one's own language. I also understand the fragility of our official language minority communities. It is therefore with a deep sense of purpose that I carry out my responsibilities as Minister of Official Languages, and I am proud to rise in the House today to talk more about Bill C‑13. Since its enactment in 1969, the Official Languages Act has helped shape a state where English and French play a central role not only in the public affairs of our country, but also in our lives. It has also provided francophone minority communities and anglophone minority communities in Quebec a powerful development tool. It has helped ensure that francophones can access federal government services in their language and given federal public servants the opportunity to work in the official language of their choice. It has helped francophone minority communities and anglophone communities in Quebec build strong institutions. However, Canada and the world have changed over the past 50 years, and we understand that the Official Languages Act must be modernized and changes must be made to it. With Bill C-13, we are ensuring that the act responds to current linguistic realities and that it promotes substantive equality between English and French while contributing to the vitality of official language minority communities. This bill is the fruit of several years of consultations with community stakeholders, provinces and territories, the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages and, of course, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, whose members are here with us today. Throughout these consultations, we had a specific goal in mind, which was to ensure that the modernized bill reflected the reality of francophones living in Quebec, anglophones across the country, francophones living in minority communities, Acadians and even English-speaking Quebeckers. Thanks to a major team effort, we now have a bill with teeth. However, one thing remained clear throughout our work on modernizing the act. The situation of French is worrisome. Whether we are talking about the predominance of English as an international language or about the fact that digital technologies, social media and streaming platforms far too often favour the use of English over French, one thing is becoming apparent. With eight million francophones in Canada in a sea of more than 360 million anglophones in North America, the protection of French is an issue that deserves close and immediate attention. At the same time, we must recognize the critical role that the federal government can and must play with respect to protecting official language minority communities. It is a duty that is especially important to me. Bill C‑13 responds to the challenges that the French language is facing in North America and the challenges that official language minority communities are facing. It solidifies the vision proposed in the reform document and in Bill C‑32, which was introduced last June. Today I am very proud to introduce at second reading a stronger bill that rises to the challenges we are facing. It is a bill that, as I just said, has teeth. First, the bill recognizes the linguistic realities of each province and territory. Our government collaborates with provincial and territorial governments that provide services in the minority language and promote the vitality of the official language minority communities. However, as a government, we must also make it a priority to work together with indigenous communities across the country to ensure that indigenous languages are preserved and protected. The modernized legislation would therefore explicitly state that it does not affect the strengthening and revitalization of indigenous languages. We are the first government to recognize that French is in significant decline in the country and that we must make a concerted effort to reverse this trend. This is why we are proposing additional measures to protect and promote French across Canada, including in Quebec. We will establish new rights to ensure that francophones can live in French and that they can work and be served in French in private-sector businesses under federal jurisdiction. These new rights will be enshrined in a new act, the use of French in federally regulated private businesses act. These rights will apply in Quebec as well as in regions with a strong francophone presence, because our government recognizes that the private sector has a role to play in promoting our official languages and enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities. We are going even further. We introduced a new bilingualism requirement for the Supreme Court of Canada to improve access to justice in both official languages. We will strengthen the Treasury Board's role as a central agency to coordinate and enforce the Official Languages Act. In other words, we will replace the discretionary aspect of its monitoring, auditing and evaluating powers and make these powers mandatory. We will also will strengthen the powers of the Commissioner of Official Languages to provide him with more tools to do his job. He will be able to impose administrative monetary penalties on certain privatized entities and Crown corporations operating in the area of transportation serving the travelling public. Our bill also includes important clarifications regarding part VII and federal institutions taking positive measures that will benefit official language minority communities. It will be mandatory to take into account potentially negative impacts that decisions could have on the vitality of the communities and on the promotion of both official languages. In addition, we will also strengthen Canada's francophone immigration policy, which will include objectives, targets and indicators with the aim of increasing francophone immigration outside Quebec. We are also increasing supports for official language minority communities in order to protect the institutions they have built. I want to take a moment to reassure English-speaking Quebeckers that nothing in this bill takes away from the rights and protections they have. We will always continue to support the development of the English-speaking minority in Quebec. In short, this modernized legislation will result in numerous benefits for communities across the country. The bill we are presenting today ensures that the Official Languages Act reflects the challenges of the 21st century. In other words, more francophones will be able to work and live in French. More anglophone parents would be able to send their children to immersion. More official language minority communities would be able to thrive. All Canadians would recognize themselves in this legislation, which would give our children and grandchildren a world of opportunity. Our history has taught us that we could never take our linguistic duality for granted. With this bill, we are adapting to a world that is constantly changing. We are preparing for the challenges of today and preparing for the challenges of tomorrow. We are embarking on a historic legislative process that will significantly advance Canada's linguistic framework. The implications for everyone in Canada are huge. I know parliamentarians will examine Bill C‑13 very closely. That is excellent news. As parliamentarians, we all have a duty to ensure this country has the best possible bill and that it will have a positive impact on all Canadians. I want to assure all of my colleagues on both sides of the House that I will be here to work with them throughout this process and when it comes time to implement this bill that will soon, I hope, become law. Thank you. Meegwetch.
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  • Apr/1/22 10:17:19 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-13 
Madam Speaker, I am truly pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C‑13 on modernizing the Official Languages Act and, especially, its importance to Canadians. Canada's official languages are a defining characteristic of who we are as a country. They contribute to our diversity and inclusion, our social cohesion and our resilience. Madam Speaker, as a proud Franco-Ontarian, I can assure the House that our two official languages and standing up for the interests of minority francophone and anglophone communities are very important to me. This bill is possible because Canadians shared their passion and their ideas. Whether we are talking about community leaders, parliamentarians, experts or citizens, I am grateful to Canadians across the country for their comments and their important contributions to this bill. Canadians want us to do more to ensure the ongoing vitality of official language minority communities and enhance French across the country. In the federal public service, we have seen major improvements in bilingualism. Since 2000, the number of bilingual positions and bilingualism rates among employees have increased, especially among those who provide services to the public in both official languages. What is more, the capacity of the public service to provide services in French and English has increased year after year. There are more bilingual supervisors, more employees who meet the linguistic requirements of their position and more positions that require a higher level of bilingualism. The federal government continues to be a key partner in supporting the development and success of official language minority communities. A prime example of this is Canada's new official languages regulations for communications with, and services to, the public. These regulations will ensure that anyone who uses a minority official language at home will be considered when calculating the demand for services. This means that, for the first time, bilingual families and immigrants are included in our calculation. Equally important, federal offices in the vicinity of 900 minority schools across the country will have to offer their services in both French and English. We expect that, in the coming years, around 700 offices that are currently unilingual will become bilingual. Canada's Official Languages Act became law more than 50 years ago, before digital technology, and it has been more than 30 years since its last major reform. The act needs to be modernized to ensure it continues to serve Canadians well. That is why the government introduced 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. This bill would make improvements that would address challenges facing the French language in Canada and the challenges faced by official language minority communities. In addition to including the key measures in the previous bill, Bill C-32, Bill C-13 would significantly improve the Official Languages Act to clarify and strengthen the part of the act concerning the promotion of official languages and support for official language minority communities, and it would further improve compliance by federal institutions concerning official languages through more robust monitoring and new tools for the Commissioner of Official Languages. With respect to the role of the Treasury Board Secretariat, we share responsibility for the implementation of the Official Languages Act with other federal institutions. Under this act, the Treasury Board is responsible for the general direction and coordination of policies and programs relating to the part IV of the act on communications with and services to the public, part V on the language of work in federal institutions, and part VI on the participation of anglophones and francophones in the federal public service. As we know, these powers are exercised by the Treasury Board Secretariat, which establishes and interprets official languages policies, directives and regulations and monitors federal institutions for compliance. Modernizing the Official Languages Act will enable the Treasury Board to reaffirm its role as a central agency by strengthening and expanding its powers to monitor federal institutions for compliance. That will improve our ability to support communities and serve Canadians in the official language of their choice. More specifically, the new bill requires the Treasury Board to issue policies and regulations to help federal institutions meet their obligations under parts IV, V and VI of the act and to hold them accountable. This is now a mandatory requirement rather than a discretionary one, as it was in the past. For the first time, in consultation with Canadian Heritage, the Treasury Board will verify whether federal institutions are taking positive measures to enhance the vitality of these communities and promote English and French in Canadian society. The Treasury Board Secretariat, as a central agency, is better positioned to monitor, audit and evaluate the act, and to develop and publish appropriate policy instruments designed to provide guidance to federal institutions. Furthermore, under the new legislation, the rights surrounding language of work for employees in regions designated as bilingual for language of work purposes will continue to be protected. What is more, Treasury Board policies will continue to ensure that public service jobs are designated bilingual where necessary and that they reflect the appropriate level of second-language proficiency. More specifically, we are currently examining the need to increase the minimum second-language proficiency requirements for supervisors in bilingual regions so that those employees are able to work in the official language of their choice. The new bill also shows how important bilingual communications are in emergency situations. Treasury Board is working closely with the departments that play a key role in the health and safety of Canadians in order to ensure that communications are always of equal quality in both official languages in emergency or crisis situations. In my mandate letter, the Prime Minister tasked me with continuing to ensure that Canadians across the country can receive services from federal institutions in both official languages. He also asked me to support the Minister of Official Languages in fully implementing the measures related to the public service that are outlined in the document “English and French: Towards a Substantive Equality of Official Languages in Canada”. For example, one of the measures proposed in this document is a new second-language training framework for the public service adapted to the needs of employment equity groups and, more specifically, indigenous employees. This framework will guide the departments so that they are able to provide training that responds to the diverse needs of employees and makes bilingualism attainable for them. By increasing the level of bilingualism in the public service, we will be better able to meet the growing need for bilingual services. The beginning of this decade was very difficult, but the time has come to build a stronger, more dynamic and more inclusive country for everyone. Our official languages and their vitality unite us, and we must continue to defend and promote them. At this time in our country's history, it is more important than ever to protect and promote our official languages in federal workplaces and throughout Canada, and that is what this bill would do. Thank you very much. I am ready to answer questions.
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  • Apr/1/22 10:53:01 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-13 
Madam Speaker, we all know the old adage that history repeats itself. I would like to refresh the memory of my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, who today is praising the Conservative Party for its defence of bilingualism and its efforts to protect French in Canada. The first thing the Harper government did when it came to power in 2006 was to make cuts to the court challenges program. That was the first thing. Next, it appointed unilingual anglophone justices to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Conservative Party never wanted to appoint bilingual justices to the Supreme Court. Today, in 2022, these great defenders of the French language are still doing nothing in this regard. Let us also consider the former minister of foreign affairs, the Hon. Rob Nicholson. Imagine a great big country, Canada, with two official languages, whose minister of foreign affairs conducts diplomatic business in English only. That is unacceptable. I would like my colleague to tell me, truthfully, what the Conservative Party has done to defend the French language.
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  • Apr/1/22 12:20:52 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-13 
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 new when Gilles Duceppe said that there are two languages and that bilingualism in the federal government means English and translated English. In fact, French has remained the translated language, and in the past, francophone members who wanted to make themselves understood had to speak English because there was no simultaneous interpretation. Anglophones were responsible for the important economic portfolios and held the vast majority of management positions in the public service. That too has not changed very much, but until the 1970s there were almost no francophones at all working in the federal public service. For nearly a century, there were laws that banned French in all the provinces that are now predominantly English-speaking. Ontario's Regulation 17 is just one example. Unfortunately, it was not an exception, and it caused nearly 70% of Canada's francophones to become anglicized. These are the figures from the last time this was measured. However, objectively speaking, I have to admit that there has been some progress, such as the adoption of bilingual stamps in 1927, bilingual bank bills in 1936 and bilingual federal cheques in 1962. Of course, with such dizzying progress, many people were not happy in Quebec, where things were moving and shaking. The Quiet Revolution was under way, Jean Lesage's “maîtres chez nous” was on everyone's lips, and the modern independence movement was gaining traction. I am not suggesting things were better outside Quebec. Speaking French outside Quebec remains a daily struggle. It is an act of resistance. Getting back to the Official Languages Act, people say it is the result of the work of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the Laurendeau-Dunton commission. That is not quite true. The Laurendeau-Dunton commission was set up at the urging of André Laurendeau, who wrote an editorial calling for a commission of inquiry rather than debates about bilingual cheques and other trivial concessions to French Canadians. André Laurendeau was a federalist. He thought the French‑Canadian nation could co-exist with English Canada. He would have wanted Quebec to be given special status as the heart of French‑Canadian society. He wanted to create an egalitarian partnership between French Canada and English Canada. To him, bilingualism was a secondary tool. He wanted a new division of powers between the central government and the francophone province. Prime Minister Pearson made the commission of inquiry an electoral issue. He was elected. He said he wanted “to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races”, but it did not happen that way because André Laurendeau died in the meantime and a new Liberal leader arrived. He was a fiercely anti‑nationalist Quebecker. His name was Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Contrary to what is often written, the key recommendations of the Laurendeau‑Dunton commission were cast aside by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who rejected the idea of two peoples and two national cultures and kept only the idea of having two languages associated with individual rights and multiculturalism, rather than biculturalism, which reduced Quebec culture to one culture among many. It is important to consider the historical context because the fundamental principles of the Official Languages Act have not really changed, despite the fine declarations offered up in Bill C‑13 and in the Speech from the Throne. In the study of language planning around the world, language policies are grouped into two major categories based on whether they are founded on the principle of territoriality or the principle of personality. Virtually all experts agree that only an approach based on territoriality and collective rights can ensure the survival and development of a minority language. It is also interesting to note that André Laurendeau talked about the Belgian and Swiss models, which are examples of how effective the territoriality principle can be in defending minority languages. In Flanders, in Belgium, everything is done in Dutch. The entire public service and education system, from kindergarten to university, operate in Dutch. This does not prevent people there from learning five or six second languages, often very capably. The same thing goes for French in Wallonia, but the central government in Brussels is bilingual, and that is where most of the problems have been, but that is not the subject of today's debate. The Quebec model is based on the principle of territoriality, with the Charter of the French Language, which aims to make French the only official and common language in Quebec, while respecting the historic anglophone community and recognizing the right of first nations to maintain and develop their original language and culture. In fact, Quebec treats the anglophone community eminently better than the Canadian provinces treat the francophone and Acadian communities. In response to the rhetoric I hear from the Liberals, I would say that the principle of territoriality could very well apply outside Quebec, in territories that have a large concentration of francophones or Acadians, as we heard from an expert who recently testified before the Standing Committee on Official Languages. This does not mean that we could not maintain some form of institutional bilingualism, as already exists in regions in which there are fewer francophones and they are more spread out. This would be a nominal gesture towards righting all of the wrongs done by the Canadian government's assimilation policies. The Canadian model, with the Official Languages Act, is based on the principle of personality. It establishes individual language rights that can be transported across the Canadian territory. It claims to guarantee equal access to federal government services for people who belong to either of the two big linguistic groups, yet it limits such access to areas where numbers warrant. This personality-based approach ultimately ends up creating a situation in which the strongest of several official languages develops at the expense of the other, more vulnerable ones. All over the world, models like Canada's non-territorial institutional bilingualism result in minority languages being assimilated. This is what we have seen over the past 52 years with the Official Languages Act. The assimilation rate of francophones outside Quebec has steadily increased. It was 40% in 2016, which means that 40% of francophones outside Quebec now speak English at home. As for language of use, it went from 4.3% in 1971 to 2.3%. This drop in the use of French is a result of the Official Languages Act. The Office québécois de la langue française is predicting a drop in the demographic weight of francophones in Quebec from 78.9% in 2011 to 69% in 2036. That prediction was made based on a high rate of immigration, but there has been a lot less immigration under the Liberal government. Federal bilingualism is also territorial to some extent, because, as I was saying earlier, it is limited to regions where the numbers warrant it or there is sufficient demand. That does not make any sense at all. When French declines, the government cuts services in French. That is a bit like having a law to support employment that provides for cuts to employment services when there is a high rate of unemployment. People would be inclined to inflate the numbers to hide the real unemployment rate so that employment services would not be cut. That is more or less what is happening here. Francophones outside Quebec have an incentive to inflate the numbers, to seem more numerous because they do not want their French services taken away. This is good for Ottawa, which makes it look like all is well. However, the consequence is that the federal government has, until very recently, denied the decline of French despite all the obvious signs. It has found all sorts of ways, all manner of indicators to send the message that French was doing just fine and, ostensibly, to help Francophone and Acadian communities. This adversely affects Quebec because organizations like the QCGN and Canadian Heritage use indicators such as FOLS, first official language spoken, which they manipulate somewhat to inflate the figures. As a result, the QCGN advocates for the rights of anglophones who are defined in this way, many of whom are newcomers whom Quebec should, in fact, integrate into the francophone community. Our big problem is that, in order to maintain the demographic weight of francophones in Quebec, 90% of the language transfers must be to French. At the moment, it is a little more than 50%, and this is mainly because of an agreement that enabled the Quebec government, for a time, to select more francophone or francotropic immigrants. However, that is happening less and less because the federal government adopted a two-stage strategy whereby immigration is increasingly based on temporary study permits. As we have heard in the media, the main sources of francophone immigration are experiencing abnormally high rejection rates. At the same time, the federal government has, until very recently, always denied the decline of French. Another principle underlying the Official Languages Act is the symmetry established between anglophones in Quebec and the francophone and Acadian minorities. This is another absurdity that has been criticized by the Bloc Québécois, in particular, but also by a number of authors and journalists in Quebec. It is very easy to demonstrate that this does not correspond to reality. Even the Laurendeau-Dunton commission showed that in Quebec, not only did anglophones have considerable privileges, but there were fewer francophones graduating from university, and that is still the case today. Francophones also had lower incomes. They ranked 12th out of 14 linguistic groups. Although there has been some catching up, there is still a decline, and the average salary of francophones, for example, if we do not use the doctored Statistics Canada indicators, is still well below the average salary of anglophones in Quebec. The very principle of official language minorities is highly questionable, since as long as Quebec is in Canada, it will unfortunately be subject to the will of the federal government, which is controlled by the English Canadian majority. We have seen the results. This government had no qualms about changing and imposing a Constitution in which the principles of the Official Languages Act were enshrined, against the will of Quebec. It never worked. No Quebec government has signed this. It is locked up, so to speak. In 1993, even the UN Human Rights Committee stated that anglophone citizens of Canada could not be considered a linguistic minority in the Canadian context, where they are in the majority. Still today, the sociolinguistic reality is that English is used in Quebec as a majority language in Canada and not as a minority language in Quebec. As in the rest of Canada, language transfers disproportionately favour English. This symmetry that is at the very foundation of the concept of official language minority communities has another adverse effect, in that it has divided Quebec from francophone and Acadian communities. As a result, the federal government has ignored French language advocacy groups, claiming that they represented a majority. A study was done on the status of French at the Standing Committee on Official Languages, the first in 52 years. Despite all these criticisms, the Official Languages Act has maintained this fictitious symmetry between the anglophone community and the francophone and Acadian communities. This has allowed the federal government to justify providing massive funding to anglophone institutions and lobby groups, thereby contributing, as several researchers have noted, to the anglicization of Quebec. Let us come back to Bill C‑13. After the Canadian government announced that it would modernize the Official Languages Act, the Government of Quebec stated its expectations. It asked that the Official Languages Act recognize that of the two official languages, French is the only minority language across Canada. This seems to have resonated because the government mentioned it in the Speech from the Throne and in Bill C‑13, while maintaining that the federal government has a responsibility to protect and promote the anglophone minority in Quebec. The federal government acceded to the Government of Quebec's request to some extent, but upheld the same principles. There are no specific measures in Bill C‑13 for defending the French language in Quebec. It is a little contradictory. We will see how things develop. A month before the first bill to modernize the Official Languages Act was presented, the Quebec government detailed its position and presented five guiding principles. The first was recognition of the minority status of French. As we saw, the bill offers some very ambiguous recognition and maintains the principle that the anglophone minority in Quebec needs support. We understand this to mean that all of the money from the official languages programs will continue to be devoted to defending English in Quebec. The second request was that an asymmetrical approach be adopted. However, no such approach can be found in Bill C‑13, which maintains a symmetry between anglophones in Quebec and francophone minorities outside Quebec. The third principle was that the Official Languages Act should recognize that Quebec is the sole architect of language policy on its territory and that the Charter of the French Language must take precedence. The bill does not incorporate this at all. In fact, it does the contrary, with measures that will have an impact on French as the common language and that will hamper the Quebec government's efforts. There is a strong consensus in Quebec. All of the political parties unanimously adopted a motion in the National Assembly. The mayors of all of the big cities and the former premiers, including the very liberal Jean Charest, want Bill 101 to apply to federally regulated businesses. The previous bill, Bill C-32, prevented Quebec from doing this by including a clause that made the application of Bill 101 optional. The present bill, Bill C‑13, goes so far as to raise the prospect of a separate bill that will prevent Quebec from applying Bill 101 to federally regulated businesses by allowing these businesses to choose which law will apply to them. We saw how this will play out when the question was put to the CEO of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau. Naturally, he said that he would prefer the Official Languages Act. In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois recognizes the progress made in terms of promoting and protecting the French language in francophone communities outside Quebec. That said, we feel that we could go much farther, and we will support the demands of the francophone and Acadian communities. There again, we see the value of a differentiated approach. However, the demands of the Quebec government and the Bloc Québécois were completely ignored, both in the previous bill and in this one. At the time of the Laurendeau‑Dunton commission, it was said that Quebeckers had two choices. They could either choose an extensive amendment to Confederation and the Constitution, or they could choose independence for Quebec. We are now in the same place 52 years later, just worse off because we are gradually losing our language and at risk of losing our political weight. Quebeckers need to be well aware of this. In conclusion, long live a free, French Quebec.
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  • Apr/1/22 12:48:01 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-13 
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for his speech, which included lots of historical reminders and facts. I disagree with his conclusion, but I do think the facts he shared are relevant to understanding the reality of the French fact and bilingualism in Canada. Let me just say that I am happy to see you in the chair, Mr. Speaker. This is the first time I have addressed you, the hon. member for Joliette, in this capacity. Welcome, thank you, and congratulations on your excellent work. Getting back to my colleague's speech, he said French is in jeopardy. Everyone knows that. He said the bill we are debating today does not go far enough. My colleague from Portneuf–Jacques-Cartier rightly said as much. Yes, French is in jeopardy, but laws can only go so far. There is an ever-present reality that is amplified by social media, which are constantly bombarding us with information, documentation and communications in English. What does my colleague think of that? What are his thoughts on that reality?
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  • Apr/1/22 1:31:07 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-13 
Madam Speaker, as my colleague said, we have francophones and francophiles here in the House who have travelled across the country. Bilingualism is important from coast to coast to coast. We have to find ways to promote French and protect minority communities in Quebec, and we have to work together to find ways to support minority communities across the country. We will do that by working with the provinces, municipalities and organizations. Bill C‑13 is a step toward helping French flourish everywhere in Canada.
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