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Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23

May/10/23 3:56:08 p.m.
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I always appreciate the energy of my friend from Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook as an Acadian from Nova Scotia. Questions and comments. The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

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Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23

Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, BQ)

May/10/23 3:58:04 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-13

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I am always surprised to see people of Acadian descent join a party like the Liberal Party, which is a monarchist party. I might understand it one day. We know that it was the monarchy that ordered the deportation of Acadians. They are fervent defenders of Canada, even though French is prohibited in almost every Canadian province, except for Quebec. The member is very pleased with the results of the Official Languages Act, which was passed in 1969. This same law has performed so many miracles that the French-speaking population in Canada continues to steadily decline. The number of people whose mother tongue is French and the number of people who speak French at home is declining. In the member's province, Nova Scotia, about one in two people whose mother tongue is French speak it at home. That means that one in two people have already lost their language and cannot pass it on to the next generation. I wonder if the member opposite is deluding himself that the Canadian government is not killing French in North America.

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Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23

Mr. Darrell Samson

May/10/23 3:59:28 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-13

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to respond to my colleague. I must say that I am a bit surprised. I expected a question about immigration, considering that tomorrow is an opposition day and we are going to discuss demographic weight. Bill C‑13 settles this issue, and that is very impressive. I would like to say something very important to my colleague. If the Official Languages Act had not been passed in 1969, very few people in Nova Scotia or outside Quebec would be speaking French now. That fact is indisputable. Not only that, but we had no French schools before 1969. Today, Nova Scotia has 23 French schools, and the student population has doubled in size since the Conseil scolaire acadien de la Nouvelle‑Écosse school board was founded in 1996. That is impressive. The Official Languages Act is doing its job.

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Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23

Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

May/10/23 4:29:39 p.m.
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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.

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