44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 11, 2023 10:00AM
- May/11/23 12:37:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague and neighbour from Saint‑Hyacinthe—Bagot on his excellent speech, and at the same time wish him a happy birthday.
There was a lot of passion in his speech, and a lot of facts too. There is one thing that concerns me greatly about the erosion of the political weight of Quebec within Canada. Laws are being passed in Canada to protect certain aspects of culture, including French, culture itself and the people who shape our cultural sector, which is always under threat, always at risk. In fact, it is often in danger, and we often have to come to its rescue.
With the Century Initiative, Quebec risks losing its political weight. What does my colleague think Quebec will have to do to protect itself from this increased risk of Quebec culture withering away?
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- May/11/23 1:03:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, several studies over the past few months and years have shown that francophones outside Quebec rely heavily on the strength of French in Quebec and on the support for French in Quebec to protect them in their official language minority community.
Why does my colleague think it is a good idea to improve and strengthen French outside Quebec but let it get weaker within Quebec? Does he not think that francophone communities outside Quebec are ultimately at risk of suffering the consequences and getting weaker themselves?
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Madam Speaker, I will take it upon myself to deliver to the Government of Quebec the message given by my colleague, who just finished his speech, that it should pull up its socks on the immigration file. I think it might appreciate the message, but I am not sure.
I will begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Terrebonne.
Our motion today is very simple. I think it has been a few minutes since we repeated it. It states:
That, given that,
(i) the Century Initiative aims to increase Canada's population to 100 million by 2100,
(ii) the federal government's new intake targets are consistent with the Century Initiative objectives,
(iii) tripling Canada's population has real impacts on the future of the French language, Quebec's political weight, the place of First Peoples, access to housing, and health and education infrastructure,
(iv) these impacts were not taken into account in the development of the Century Initiative and that Quebec was not considered,
the House reject the Century Initiative objectives and ask the government not to use them as a basis for developing its future immigration levels.
It is not a very complicated request. It only makes sense. It is a question of understanding each other.
This objective of increasing Canada's population to 100 million by the end of the century is something that worries me. I must say that I am finding the ruse to be less and less subtle. It is difficult to believe that the hidden agenda is not basically to put an end once and for all to Quebec's never-ending demands, which certain self-righteous federalist thinkers see as a fly constantly buzzing around their heads.
There are two ways of looking at this. The first is to see bad intentions. The government and its policy-makers know full well what they are doing to Quebec by setting immigration targets that are much too high for the province to absorb. They know that by doing this, they are ensuring that Quebec's francophone culture, the Québécois culture, will be completely snuffed out.
How will that happen? It will be because of the massive influx of newcomers who, even if they speak French, will not be welcomed as Quebec likes to welcome its immigrants. They will not be able to integrate into Quebec society properly because the infrastructure and services are insufficient and ill-equipped to receive such an influx. What happens when a host society is unable to welcome and integrate its newcomers? This leads to ghettoization. Newcomers gather where they feel safe, where they feel a sense of familiarity, and this creates ghettos. This leads to what we have already seen around the world, including in some Canadian cities. This is not what Quebec wants.
Quebec wants large numbers of francophone immigrants so that the common language, the language of work, the language of everyday life, is French. Quebec wants to welcome and integrate its newcomers based on a model that is not one of multiculturalism. Quebec's specificity is precisely that it has a language to protect, a language that is constantly at risk of disappearing in an ocean of some 300 million anglophones in North America.
There is also the issue of Quebec's political weight, which is mentioned in today's Bloc Québécois motion and is fuelling this discussion and debate. If Quebec loses political weight within the Canadian federation, it means that the various laws that protect the specificity of the Quebec nation will be open to more vigorous attacks, and Quebec will be even less able to defend itself. Consequently, Quebec will continue to dwindle gradually, little by little. It is a bit like putting a frog in a pot of cold water and then turning on the heat, letting the frog slowly get used to the heat as the temperature rises until, well, we know the rest of the story. I am not sure that has been scientifically proven, but everyone gets the picture.
In short, Quebec will fade away and accept its fate, telling itself that a known misfortune is probably more comfortable than an uncertain happiness. We will then find ourselves in the ocean of multiculturalism that Trudeau senior dreamed of all those years ago. I will not be fooled into believing that protecting the French language was part of that particular dream.
That widespread lack of sensitivity is disappointing, but it also makes me realize that this is one of multiculturalism's adverse effects on French.
We know that Quebec culture is gradually drowning in the Canadian and North American cultural maelstrom. Those who champion French are increasingly viewed by many in the rest of Canada as old grey-haired reactionaries straight out of what they wish was a bygone era. I have to acknowledge that I myself might be an old grey-haired reactionary not unlike my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé. No doubt he approves.
If we allow things to carry on as they are, speaking French will eventually become a mere curiosity. A comparison comes to mind that deeply saddens me. It will be a bit like the first nations we hear about, where the language is still spoken by some elders but has disappeared from everyday use. Young people are trying to resurrect those languages. I recently talked to an Abenaki woman who told me she was trying to relearn her grandparents' language, which is no longer being spoken. Maybe one day my great-grandchildren will ask their grandfather, “Grandpa, say a few words in French.” It will be cute and quaint, but also pathetic and sad.
That is what we are trying to protect. We are not trying to sow division or stir up trouble, as our friends on the other side like to say. We are trying to protect something that is dear to us, namely our culture, our language, our specificity.
We talk about political weight. Sometimes people say that Quebec's political weight boils down to the number of seats it has in the House of Commons. It seems that some people do not appreciate the importance of that. What is the effect of Quebec having less political weight? In future elections, if we do not correctly adjust the number of seats that go to Quebec, if we do not give Quebec a minimum number of seats, as is the case for other Canadian provinces, we will once again lose the influence we can have here in the House of Commons. We will lose the number of seats held by Quebec members of Parliament. I am not even considering the political affiliation, because the Quebec seats lost will not just be the ones held by the Bloc Québécois, but also those of Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament. There will be fewer of them because there will be fewer seats available for Quebec.
Would it have been possible to protect supply management, for example, if there had been fewer members of Parliament from Quebec? The work of my colleague from Berthier-Maskinongé and the Bloc Québécois on this file should be noted.
Bill C‑10 also comes to mind. It was tabled in November 2020 as a modernized Broadcasting Act and was later rebranded as Bill C‑11 in the next Parliament. It contained nothing for Quebec culture. Without a strong Quebec caucus and the Bloc Québécois's unwavering determination to add measures to the bill to protect the French language and content created by our artists, I am not sure if the new Broadcasting Act would have provided any protection for Quebec's francophone culture. Quebec's political weight made all the difference.
The more influence that Quebec loses within the Canadian federation, the more Ottawa can push its centralizing agenda and keep sticking its big fat nose where it does not belong. On February 8, 2022, the House had a great chance to show Quebec that it believes in the need for Quebec to preserve its culture and acquire tools to protect the French language. On February 8, 2022, I had the honour of tabling, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, a bill to amend the Constitution Act. Yes, while awaiting independence, a Bloc member is trying to amend the Constitution Act.
We simply wanted to add a provision that would guarantee Quebec 25% of the seats in the House of Commons. That would have been a game-changer because, with a threshold of at least 25% of the seats, we would no longer have to worry about the political weight of Quebec being at risk and the consequences that would bring, regardless of any demographic changes that might occur in the coming years.
That is why the Bloc Québécois is moving a motion today to reject the immigration levels proposed by the Century Initiative, which the government seems to be following very closely. This is a good opportunity to debate that, but it is also a good opportunity to understand why the Bloc Québécois wants to reject those objectives.
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- May/11/23 1:16:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
First, I take issue with one of the premises of his question. We are not painting immigration in a negative light. On the contrary, we are in favour of immigration. We are in favour of immigration policies that will ensure that French is able to thrive and that get people interested in speaking French, as he said about people in his province of Manitoba.
I think it is great news that francophone immigration is on the rise, that francophones are being welcomed, that French is being seen in a positive light and that people in Manitoba and other provinces are interested in learning to speak it.
However, the situation in Quebec is different than in the rest of Canada because French is the common and official language in Quebec. It is in danger in the English-speaking ocean of North America and Canada. The reality is not the same in Quebec. We need to protect French because it is at risk. We are not trying to help a minority grow. It is a majority language in an ocean where it is a minority and at risk. That is the difference.
That being said, we are all in favour of immigration.
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- May/11/23 1:18:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a good question, and it fits in with what I said at the beginning of my speech.
We want to welcome and integrate immigrants. We do not want them to end up in ghettos in the areas where they will settle. In just about every Quebec municipality I know of, there are organizations dedicated to supporting and integrating newcomers. Who generally manages and sponsors these organizations? It is either the municipalities or the Quebec government.
Once again, there is a clear desire on the part of Quebec to make sure that we have the capacity and infrastructure to allow immigrants and newcomers to integrate, to take advantage of services, to send their children to school and to participate in society upon their arrival. Newcomers who integrate into Quebec communities in French are not a burden. They benefit society.
It is important to make sure we have the infrastructure, and for that, we must take into account our capacity to integrate immigrants. Otherwise, we would simply be doing a poor job, and we do not want to do that with immigration.
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- May/11/23 1:20:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Government of Quebec is already doing a lot of good things to manage immigration and to welcome francophone immigrants.
It is true that as far as my colleague from Hochelaga is concerned, other than a slight Hochelaga accent, we can say this is a perfect integration in French. She is a colleague that I hold in high regard.
Quebec often has its hands tied because of Ottawa, which manages immigration for the most part. The fact that Ottawa is looking to set immigration levels at 500,000 people a year is a big problem. The crux of the problem is the fact that this will create a huge imbalance in the demographic weight and in the political weight of Quebec.
I think that we could debate this at length, my colleague and I, but, essentially, we agree on the fact that there are a lot of fine examples of immigrants who were welcomed and integrated successfully.
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