Hon. Claude Carignan: Along the same lines, I understand that you have concerns about the Quebec law, but I have issues with the fact that you want to get rid of references to all provincial language regimes.

With respect to Quebec’s law, you know that MP Housefather tried to put that same amendment forward, but it was rejected in the other place. I don’t see how you’d convince the other place to go for this.

Hon. Claude Carignan: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak at third reading of Bill C-13, whose short title is an act for the substantive equality of Canada’s official languages.

I support this bill, although I think it represents just a small step and could have gone further.

In this speech, I’ll provide a few examples of important measures that I think are missing from this bill. I believe they would have served to better protect and promote respect for Canada’s two official languages, French and English.

On February 8, 2022, I gave a speech in the Senate on official languages. In that speech, I expressed my support for the motion that later passed unanimously in the Senate, on March 29, 2022, calling on the federal government to correct an unacceptable situation that has persisted for decades. Even today, 41 years after the passage of the Constitution Act, 1982, large sections of the Canadian Constitution are still written only in English.

What a missed opportunity for the federal government not to have included in Bill C-13 the measure called for by the Senate in that motion.

The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages shares my disappointment.

In its report on Bill C-13 tabled the day before yesterday, the committee recalls the content of the motion. It simply asked the government to do the following:

 . . . “consider, in the context of the review of the Official Languages Act, the addition of a requirement to submit, every 12 months, a report detailing the efforts made to comply with section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982.”

Senator Dalphond, who was the sponsor of the motion, asked Minister Lametti a question on December 13, 2022, when he appeared before a Senate committee that was studying another bill. The senator reminded him of the sad reality that although the Constitution Act, 1982, was adopted 41 years ago, nothing has been done since to adopt the French text of the Constitution.

The minister acknowledged that the situation was unacceptable, but that he would continue to reflect on how to adopt the French texts of the constitutional laws, which are the most important laws in Canada.

Senator Dalphond reminded us, as I also reminded senators in the speech I gave on his motion on February 8, 2022, that there are a number of French constitutional texts that the federal government could have adopted through a procedure that doesn’t require the provinces’ consent. For those texts that do require the consent of some or all of the provinces to be adopted in French, Minister Lametti gave Senator Dalphond an answer that clearly shows the government’s lack of determination and action in getting those French texts adopted. Here is the question that Senator Dalphond asked. He said, and I quote: “Why won’t the government commit to making an effort to get this part of the 1982 constitutional work completed?”

The minister’s answer was vague and non-committal. He said, and I quote:

I share your opinion. I’d like to see an official bilingual Constitution. What I can tell you is that sometimes you have to rely on evolution. So, I hope that in the near future and at the right time, we can do that.

In its June 13, 2023, report, which I mentioned earlier, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages pointed out other serious flaws in Bill C-13.

The committee shares my concern about the lack of accurate data on the number of children of rights-holders, meaning children who are entitled to be educated in the minority official language. I believe that the federal government could have fixed this problem if it had amended Bill C-13 to make it a requirement that these children be periodically enumerated.

In fact, the committee correctly notes that the current version of the bill does not include a requirement to count these children, but simply includes a requirement to estimate the number. In this excerpt from its report, the Senate committee stresses the urgent and serious nature of the problem:

However, given the alarming decline of French in Canada, several stakeholders argued for the importance of counting, rather than estimating, the number of children of rights‑holders, given the detrimental impact and pressures to assimilate resulting from systemic and historical underestimation. . . .

Based on the testimony heard and briefs received, your committee notes that periodic enumeration of the children of rights-holders is critical to the survival and vitality of francophone minority communities . . . .

In light of such a disturbing observation, and one that is common knowledge, I was very disappointed by the results of the vote at the House of Commons Committee on Official Languages on February 17, 2023. In a close vote, six of the 11 committee members rejected the original text of MP Joël Godin’s amendment. Had it been adopted, this amendment would have required that the federal government commit to periodically enumerating the children of rights-holders under section 23 of the Charter.

The six Liberal and NDP members of the committee voted in favour of a subamendment that completely watered down the Conservative member’s amendment. Indeed, their amendment to the amendment replaced the requirement to count, as proposed by Mr. Godin, with a simple obligation to estimate the number of children.

Another missed opportunity was the bill’s failure to incorporate an important proposal from the 2021 white paper released by the Honourable Mélanie Joly, the then minister of official languages. She proposed expanding the powers conferred on the Treasury Board so that it could monitor federal institutions’ compliance with the provisions of Part VII of the Official Languages Act. This part of the act is very important because it seeks to advance the equality of status and use of English and French.

The duties of the Treasury Board, as currently proposed in Bill C-13, do not include all aspects of Part VII. Despite these missed opportunities, I will nonetheless be supporting Bill C-13. In her speech at second reading, the bill’s critic, Senator Poirier, said, and I quote:

The bill represents a step forward for language rights in this country. . . .

Thanks to some amendments made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, the modernization of the Official Languages Act is more responsive to the needs of minority communities.

I agree with her, and we are not the only ones who think this way, because 104 Conservative MPs voted in favour of the bill at third reading. Only one MP, from another party, voted against it.

I could list many worthwhile measures in Bill C-13, but since I only have a limited amount of time, I will just choose two.

The first has to do with the adoption of a federal immigration policy. That is particularly important today, when we hit the population milestone of 40 million. The original version of Bill C-13 provided for the adoption of that policy.

However, the amendments that were made to the bill strengthened and clarified the policy’s objectives. That is what Liane Roy, president of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, told the Senate committee on June 5. She said, and I quote:

 . . . it was important to us that this policy have the explicit objective of restoring the demographic weight of our communities.

The members of the House of Commons set the target at 6.1%, which is the proportion that our communities accounted for in 1971.

This paves the way for a much higher federal francophone immigration target, and for immigration measures specifically tailored to the realities of our communities.

The 6.1% target referred to by Ms. Roy will be enshrined in the Official Languages Act, thanks to clause 6(2) of Bill C-13.

The second example I have of a worthwhile measure in Bill C-13 has to do with bilingualism at the Supreme Court of Canada. The bill establishes an institutional bilingualism requirement for the Supreme Court, but does not require all of the court’s nine judges to be bilingual.

On this matter, I agree with the interpretation of the Leader of the Government in the Senate. On May 30, 2023, in an exchange regarding this obligation in Bill C-13, he confirmed that, and I quote:

 . . . this does not mean that every judge appointed to the Supreme Court or any other Supreme Court must be bilingual, fluent or otherwise. That is not what the legislation requires. It is an institutional obligation on the court as an institution . . . .

It is important to note that the hearing of an appeal at the Supreme Court is done with a quorum of at least five judges. The obligation set out in Bill C-13 would require the court to have at least five bilingual judges so that it can always have a quorum of bilingual judges able to understand the evidence and the arguments, whether in English or in French, without the help of an interpreter.

Accordingly, Bill C-13 will not deny exceptionally talented jurists who are not perfectly bilingual the opportunity of applying for appointment to the Supreme Court.

If Bill C-13 had set out an obligation of individual bilingualism, in other words, required all nine justices of the Supreme Court to be perfectly bilingual, I believe this would likely contravene section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

I already said as much in a speech in the Senate on May 11, 2010, when I stated the following:

Section 16 creates a duty for the judicial institution to ensure that the judge who hears the case understands the language of the party. It does not require the judge to be bilingual. There is no prerequisite for a judge to be bilingual because that would violate a judge’s right guaranteed in Section 133 . . . .

For all these reasons, I invite you to vote in favour of the bill. As the Commissioner of Official Languages wrote on June 7, 2023, to the Senate Committee on Official Languages, and I quote:

Although the Bill is not perfect, I think it contains the necessary foundation for moving forward.

It is crucial that the implementation of the Act be closely monitored in order to assess its impact and identify any problems encountered in its application.

Thank you.