44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 12, 2022 10:00AM
- May/12/22 2:00:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise virtually. This is May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, hence the focus on nurses and nursing this week. I want to mention that Florence Nightingale, in the 19th century, was a leader. If she had been a man, she would have been known as the father of public health science and as one of the trailblazers in the use of statistics, but the misogynistic lens of history does not end there.
Fast-forward to 2022, and our nurses are struggling. The website of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions states, “nurses and health care workers are experiencing a silent mental health crisis. Short staffing, punishing workloads, widespread violence—these are everyday realities”. That is not good enough.
I know all parliamentarians in this place would like to join me in saying thanks to all the women and men in the nursing profession. We thank them, we stand with them and we owe them so very much.
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- May/12/22 3:19:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to be clear, I am rising in support. I put my hand up on the point of order when the hon. member from Calgary alleged something about the statement by the member for Kitchener Centre that cannot be said in this House.
I also read the report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, but if I commented on the facts of the matter, it would be entering into debate.
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- May/12/22 4:14:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent.
He asked about the climate change crisis. What he said is true. This problem in not limited to just Canada or China. At the same time, it is not true that we have clean fossil fuels here in Canada. That does not exist. There is a crisis, and we only have three years to reduce greenhouse gases on a global scale.
That is why I want to ask him if he has an answer for the IPCC.
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- May/12/22 5:25:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very concerned that we do start such a committee, and that one of the first things we take up is the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, which has been lopsided and given the People's Republic of China abilities to suppress Canadian interests.
As it was the member's government under former prime minister Harper that executed this extremely lopsided agreement, would he support that we study it at this point?
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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, I thank my colleague.
I am surprised by the decision to choose for New Brunswick, an officially bilingual province, a lieutenant governor who does not speak French, when the court already ruled that it is against the law to have a lieutenant governor who cannot speak French. That decision was made and it was final.
Is there anything in Bill C‑13 that will change this example?
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by acknowledging that I am on the traditional territory of the WSANEC nation in my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands.
Since we are talking about languages this evening, I want to point out that the word “saanich” comes from an indigenous language called Sencoten. The word was mispronounced by the Europeans, which resulted in the change that explains the name of my riding today.
We are here this evening to debate Bill C‑13. It has been a long, hard-fought journey to get protections for both official languages here in Canada. As we have heard, the French language is obviously threatened because it is the minority language in Canada and in North America. Quebec culture represents the largest francophone community in our country, but it is not the only one. There are the Acadians in the Atlantic provinces and there are other francophone communities all across Canada, such as the Franco-Manitoban and Franco-Albertan communities. There is also a francophone community in British Columbia. It is not big, but it is important.
The Official Languages Act was adopted in 1969. That was a long time ago. It declared that French and English were the two official languages of Parliament and the Government of Canada. The next step came in 1982, with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which reaffirmed French and English as the official languages of Canada. It has been 30 years since the last major reform to this legislation.
The government introduced Bill C‑32 during the previous Parliament, in 2021, but it died on the Order Paper when the election was called last August. We now have Bill C‑13, which was introduced in March 2022. This is my first opportunity to speak to this bill. We clearly need to address the decline of French in this country because French is still threatened, in spite of all of the work that has been done on official languages in Canada.
This bill has been well received. The Commissioner of Official Langauges said, “I have read the proposed measures and believe that they will breathe new life into efforts to protect and promote both of our official languages”. That notion of protecting and promoting French and of promoting and supporting the learning of English and French is a difference between Bill C‑32 from the previous Parliament and the current Bill C‑13. It is nevertheless clear that it is primarily the French language that needs to be protected. The bill also talks about promoting the French language, supporting francophone communities and, for the first time, protecting the right to work and receive services in French.
Bill C-13 is really two bills in one. It amends the Official Languages Act and enacts the use of French in federally regulated private businesses act, while making related amendments to other acts. This is an important effort for the protection and use of French in private companies.
As we have seen in tonight's debate, the Bloc Québécois will not be supporting this effort concerning Quebec. It is right to ask that French be protected in private businesses in Quebec. It is clear that the French language must be used in francophone majority regions. The bill does raise some issues, but I think we will be able to improve it in committee.
Bill C-13 expands and strengthens the powers of the Commissioner of Official Languages. It is a good idea to give him more powers and to strengthen his role by giving him the right to present and find solutions to violations related to the use of the French language in Canada.
This legislation also includes an effort to recognize indigenous languages. It is not much. It does not introduce new powers or new rights. However, the preamble of the amended act now includes these words in the way of recognition: “of maintaining and enhancing the use of languages other than English and French and reclaiming, revitalizing and strengthening Indigenous languages”.
I think that is a step in the right direction. We need to look to other legislation and other reconciliation programs to protect the most at-risk languages, our country's indigenous languages.
For unilingual anglophones who are following this debate, I cannot say how important it is for all of us who do not have French as a first language to keep trying to learn. I know that a lot of the members here tonight have tried, as I have, too. I love speaking French and I love improving my French. Late at night it gets a little more difficult, but it certainly improves and enriches our society.
It is not for nothing that French is known as the language of Molière. It is a beautiful language, and we need to make sure that Canada's identity on this continent, which is really one of the things that distinguishes us in an important way from, I do not know if we can call it American culture, but what passes for culture, not to be too self-satisfied about the richness of Canadian society in entertainment and music. We are, as anglophone Canadians, enormously enriched by the existence of the Quebec fact of the francophone reality that we are not a unilingual country. The more we protect and raise up indigenous languages and hang on to them, that will also improve who we are as a people and enrich us all.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the Minister of Official Languages for her question. I know that she is from a francophone region in Acadia.
Some recommendations were made by community groups in Quebec to strengthen complaint mechanisms and the commissioner's powers. I am eager to study these issues in committee in order to improve Bill C-13.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has made many excellent points in the debate tonight.
In Bill C-13, it says the minister would develop a strategy to increase immigration from nations that are essentially francophone and are likely to have those who speak French as their first language. We do not have a good record in terms of the approval of immigrants from francophone Africa. We need to do much better. I think we could improve this bill, and this is actually an answer to the minister's earlier question, by not just asking for a strategy for what we are going to do, or asking the minister to develop a strategy, but for some pointed changes in the way Bill C-13 is written, to actually suggest that some of the problems we are facing are deliberately addressed with targets.
I know the member is also on the immigration committee. We have a crisis right now in the backlog for immigration, which also may explain a good deal of this, but not the refusal rates being disproportionately from Africa.
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Madam Speaker, I know that my colleague will not like my answer, but there really is an anglophone minority in Quebec. That is the truth.
I remember well when a member of Bourassa's cabinet left. It was Clifford Lincoln. He stood in the National Assembly in Quebec when the rights of anglophone Quebeckers were reduced, and he said that “rights are rights are rights”. It was a brave statement from a courageous man of real integrity, and it spoke to the reality of a minority in Quebec that speaks English.
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