44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 8, 2024 02:00PM
- May/8/24 2:32:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, far be it from me to interfere with the poetic argument of the leader opposite, but the reality is that the word he referred to has been known around the world for a very long time. Our member was not the first to use it. He was certainly overzealous, but he apologized and withdrew his remarks.
The fact remains that we will continue to be there to protect francophones across the country, and we will continue to be there to defend French in Quebec and to do something the Bloc Québécois can never and would never do, which is defend francophones outside Quebec.
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- May/8/24 2:34:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois leader's responsibility is to pick fights with Ottawa.
The federal Liberal government's responsibility is to defend official languages across the country. We are here to defend French in Quebec, but also to defend the French fact everywhere in Canada. We will be there to defend linguistic minorities across the country.
It should not surprise anyone that the Bloc Québécois's latest battle is to attack a Franco-Ontarian. It is no secret that they do not like francophones who speak French outside Quebec.
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- May/8/24 2:47:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member apologized and withdrew the offensive word.
We will continue to be there to defend French and the francophonie around the world and across Canada. Unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois cannot say the same after attacking a Franco-Ontarian and minority language communities across the country.
We are always going to be there. We will be there to defend French in Quebec, with billions of dollars in investments, and we will be there for minority communities across the country, as we have always been.
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- May/8/24 2:48:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, the word that I used and that you called me out on is not nearly as bad as the word that the member over there used and that nobody said anything about.
The Prime Minister is trying to sow division between francophones in Quebec and francophones in Canada. I would like to remind him that, in the last election, I wanted to talk about francophones outside Quebec during the English debate and I was told that that was not the place and that we could not talk about French during the English debate.
Is that not picking a fight?
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- May/8/24 2:49:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to be able to work with the Bloc Québécois to defend francophone communities across the country, but if French starts doing better and better in Canada, that it will be bad for their dream of separatism. That is why they do not care about the fate of French outside Quebec. They want to show that Quebec is the only place where French can be protected.
We need to protect French in Quebec and that is why we are investing to do just that, but we will also protect French everywhere in Canada.
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- May/8/24 3:06:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, I expected the member to apologize and withdraw his comments, and that is exactly what he did.
At the same time, we will continue to defend the French fact across Canada and around the world through our participation in the Francophonie, based on our conviction that not only must we protect our two official languages across the country, but also be there to invest in protecting French in Quebec. We are the first government to do so, and we will continue to be there to protect French across the country.
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- May/8/24 3:06:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just heard that we need to protect both official languages. Where does English need protecting?
This summer in Montreal there is going to be the equivalent of a global conference of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie that will be chaired by his friend, who, by his own actions, is embarrassing us on the world stage.
I think I get it: The Liberals are trying to have everyone believe that French is just fine in Quebec and there is no need to do anything to make Canada's anglophones happy.
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- May/8/24 3:07:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we are the first federal government to recognize that we have a special responsibility to protect French in Quebec and to contribute to that protection. No other government has done that before. It is because we recognize that more needs to be done to protect French. Unlike the Bloc Québécois, we are not going to focus on what needs to be done in Quebec. We are going to keep protecting French in the entire country. We are going to do so in Acadia, in Ontario, in Manitoba, in the Far North, across the country—
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- May/8/24 3:18:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we see the reaction of the francophone members of the Conservative Party when their leader finally shows some concern for the fate of the French language in Canada.
We are here to talk about and defend the Francophonie. We are here to defend the French fact across the country. The member has apologized and has withdrawn his comments.
We also saw that their party's heritage critic could not even stand up for Radio-Canada when she asked a direct question. We know that the Conservatives want to make cuts to the CBC and Radio-Canada. They should be more clear about exactly what they are doing.
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- May/8/24 3:18:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, no one in this country who speaks French expects that the Conservative Party is going to defend Radio-Canada. They have heard the same old song too many times. They know full well that the Conservative Party's ideological opposition to public broadcasters is too deeply ingrained, and that the CBC and Radio-Canada will face cuts under a future Conservative government. That is why they know that they have to fight the Conservative ideology.
I encourage the leader of the Conservative Party to say in English what he just said in French.
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