SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 194

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 10, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23
Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)
  • May/10/23 4:13:01 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-13 
Mr. Speaker, I think that everyone in the House agrees that French is in decline in Quebec and across Canada. That is the impression I get. Perhaps the Liberals still have their doubts, but that is the way it goes. How does my colleague explain the fact that the Liberal government is promoting English in Quebec by allocating $137 million for services for anglophone communities? If his party were in power, would he be providing those same services?
79 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23
Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia
  • May/10/23 4:28:34 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-13 
Mr. Speaker, I talked about the preamble to reassure my community that the government will not have the power to take away the rights of the anglophone community. With respect to the anglophone community, the English language is obviously not under threat in North America. Nevertheless, a community can face challenges without its language being under threat. The anglophone community has many cultural institutions. It has its own arts scene and culture. For a community to feel at home, for a community to flourish, it must have access to these types of cultural institutions, for example, not to mention its educational institutions. The action plan for official languages will help the community maintain institutions that it considers to be important. I believe that the member opposite must recognize this.
129 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23
Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)
  • May/10/23 4:29:39 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-13 
Mr. Speaker, the more I hear the Liberals talk, the more discouraged I become. They always confuse words and concepts, but these things matter. The member from Nova Scotia was speaking earlier about the anglophone minority in Quebec. In the same sentence, he was talking about the anglophone minority in Quebec and the court challenges program. Even the UN has said that there is no anglophone minority in Quebec. There is an anglophone community, which is part of the Canadian and North American majority. That is a fact. Pierre Elliott Trudeau's fantasy was to establish bilingualism throughout Canada. I have here a table from Statistics Canada that contains data on bilingualism in Canada from 1971 to 2021. In 1971, Canada's bilingualism rate was barely 6%, and today it is 9%. The bilingualism rate in Quebec in 1971 was 26%, while in 2021 it was nearly 50%. After that, people want to tell me that the anglophone community deserves those levels of investment and that it feels threatened, even though it has universities and hospitals. I challenge anyone to show me a francophone community that has as many services in the rest of Canada.
195 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border