Hon. Mobina S. B. Jaffer: Thank you for being here, minister.

I’m from British Columbia and I dream of having everyone in B.C. speak French. As you know, my fellow British Columbians don’t have the opportunity to learn it.

What, in particular, has the department done to promote the French language and francophone culture in Canada outside Quebec? Your mandate letter states the following:

 . . . support the maintenance and vitality of official language minority communities by helping to build, renovate and develop educational and community spaces serving them.

Minister, what, specifically, have you done to fulfill this commitment?

What’s your plan, minister?

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Hon. Ginette Petitpas Taylor, P.C., M.P., Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: Thank you very much for that important question. We certainly have a lot of work to do to address the demographic weight issue. We recognize that French is in decline in Canada and in Quebec. If we look at some statistics, in 1971, the francophone population outside Quebec was 6.6%. Projections indicate that it will be 3% by 2036. That is a 3.6% loss of francophones outside Quebec, which is huge.

That is why we drafted this bill with Minister Fraser. We want to go further than Bill C-32. We want to make sure we have an ambitious immigration strategy with targets and indicators. If we want to adjust this country’s demographic weight, we need targets and we have to do the work to meet them. We want to establish this policy for francophones outside Quebec, but we also have to make sure we can offer French integration services to immigrants to Quebec.

Once again, I’m very happy I had the opportunity to work with Minister Fraser to make sure that Bill C-13 includes an ambitious immigration policy complete with targets and indicators. This is a step in the right direction towards correcting that loss of demographic weight in this country.

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Hon. Judith G. Seidman: Minister, welcome to the Senate. In Bill C-13, your government is giving up on the long-held principle of symmetry. That is the principle that the two languages, English and French, have equal status and rights in law in the federal jurisdiction. It is important for Canadians to understand that fact, and the reasons why, especially the impact on the English-speaking community of Quebec, who are completely abandoned. Why?

Hon. Dennis Dawson: Thank you, minister, and welcome to the Senate. I’m going to open a debate on a new topic, the issue of French on the international stage. As you know, at the UN, the International Olympic Committee, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and other organizations, French has the same status as English. However, that status is not respected and the use of French is decreasing every year. This week, you are meeting with the president of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. I also know that the APF is meeting in Quebec City on the weekend to promote French. Should we be ensuring that French is used wherever we have the right to do so? In light of the growing use of English in the digital world, we in the international francophone communities need to work together on finding a way to combat the growing presence of English internationally and ensure the presence of French.

Hon. Ginette Petitpas Taylor, P.C., M.P., Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: Thank you very much for these important questions, senator. Once again, the federal government recognizes that French is declining in Canada, including in Quebec. That is why we are addressing these concerns with a more ambitious bill that has more teeth. Federally regulated private companies like Air Canada and CN, which are subject to the Official Languages Act, need to step up and lead by example by respecting their official language obligations. Like you, I was angry to see that CN had not appointed a francophone to its board of directors. We would have expected the board of directors to be representative of Canada’s population and of our linguistic duality.

Our government has established strong measures in Bill C-13 to protect the use of French as a language of work and service in private and federally regulated businesses in Quebec, as well as in regions with a strong francophone presence. Again, with respect to the language provisions, which was part of your second question, we took the time to ensure that the text of Part VII clearly defines “positive measures.” We did that because we want to make sure that, in the context of issues such as language provisions, once Bill C-13 receives Royal Assent, the federal government will consider the impact that these issues will have on official language minority communities. As a government, we must ensure that we take positive measures to address these situations.

Hon. Ginette Petitpas Taylor, P.C., M.P., Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: Thank you so much for that. Yes, it’s a very important issue. When I became the Minister of Official Languages, in putting together the new Bill C-13, I really wanted to ensure that all Canadians saw themselves in this legislation. Being a francophone who lives in New Brunswick, and belonging to an official language minority community, I know the importance of protecting and promoting our rights, may it be anglophones in Quebec or francophones outside of Quebec. That is why, in the piece of legislation we brought forward, we have enshrined in the legislation, if you will, to ensure that the Court Challenges Program was not going to be optional for future governments. We want to make sure that the Court Challenges Program is going to remain, because it is an important tool for many official language minority communities to use when their rights are not respected. So moving forward in the bill, we wanted to make sure that was defined there as well.

Finally, my message to English-speaking Quebecers and to francophones outside of Quebec is that we want to ensure that people are aware that, through this legislation, we want to protect the official language minority rights all across the country. It is absolutely imperative that we do so, and again, as I have indicated, if I had the advantage of living in Moncton, studying in Moncton and doing my post-secondary education in Moncton, it’s in part because of the official languages legislation that existed when I went to school.

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