- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Lévis—Lotbinière
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,672.97
- Government Page
- May/31/22 3:08:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Liberal inaction has struck again, creating an unprecedented vicious cycle for Canadian entrepreneurs who are facing a labour shortage hell.
This is yet another issue on top of the problems with EI, passports, foreign workers, permanent residency and identity theft in Canada.
What does this Prime Minister intend to do about his overall incompetence?
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her excellent French. It is a testament to what is possible right across Canada.
Could my colleague say a few words about the Liberal government's failure with respect to francophone immigration?
Since 2015, 2.5 million immigrants have entered Canada. Of that number, only a small fraction, in the tens of thousands, are francophones.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.
It is an honour for me to speak to Bill C-13, an act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other acts.
From the outset, I would like to point out to the hon. minister that I was parliamentary secretary for official languages during the 41st Parliament from May 2011 to September 2013. Not to upset or offend her, but I would remind her that her government is not the first to give Canada's two official languages the importance they deserve. The fact is that French has never ceased to be under threat, and there is no doubt that threat looms larger than ever since 2015, both in Quebec and the rest of Canada.
I worked on the road map for Canada's linguistic duality, which ended in 2013. We made an unprecedented investment of $1.1 billion to support linguistic duality that brought together 15 departments and agencies.
I will excuse the minister, since she was not yet elected and so many of the previous Conservative government's accomplishments were literally deleted from the Internet with the arrival of the Liberals in 2015.
We have been keeping a close eye on the act for quite some time to make sure it strives to achieve substantive equality between Canada's two official languages.
As a unilingual francophone, I am very familiar with the challenges of being from a small, practically unilingual francophone community, but I am very proud of my roots and my mother tongue.
Our two official languages are an integral part of our identity, and I am privileged to see my children function in both languages more comfortably than I ever did at their age. It is extremely important to be able to grow up, work and live in one's mother tongue. I understand the fragility of our official language minority communities and the many challenges they face.
Ensuring that francophones can access federal government services in their language and that federal public servants can work in the official language of their choice is still a very real challenge in 2022, and there is no denying it. This government has been in power since 2015, and things have not really improved on its watch. I will not even talk about balancing the budget or deficits or the possibility of losing our AAA credit rating, nor will I talk about our justice system or the legacy the Liberals have left our young people by legalizing both soft and hard drugs.
All that is scandalous, but let me get back to today's topic, Bill C‑13.
We have wasted precious time since 2015, and the Liberal government appears to have just recently realized that the Official Languages Act needs to be amended and modernized. I can guarantee that as a member of Parliament and a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I will personally work with my colleagues to ensure that Bill C-13 finally reflects the current linguistic realities and that it promotes substantive equality between French and English, while contributing to the vitality of official language minority communities, which greatly need us.
This bill could have passed in the previous Parliament as Bill C-32, but let me remind members that the Prime Minister felt the need to plunge us into a costly and unnecessary election. We are finally getting around to it now. Still, as the saying goes, better late than never.
Contrary to what the minister claimed last week, we have been working for quite some time already with community stakeholders, the provinces, the territories, the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, which is very important to me.
The common goal is noble and reflects our commitment to ensure that the modernized bill reflects the reality of francophones living in Quebec, anglophones across the country, francophones living in minority situations, Acadians and anglophone Quebeckers.
The hardest work is yet to come, but we need to ensure that the Liberal government does not start playing dirty tricks, passing the buck or dragging the process out.
The situation of French is very worrisome, not to mention critically at risk. With eight million francophones in Canada in a sea of more than 360 million anglophones in North America, the protection of French is an issue that deserves close and immediate attention. We will push this federal government to play its role with respect to protecting official language minority communities.
We will ensure that Bill C‑13 responds to the challenges that the French language is facing in North America and the challenges that official language minority communities are facing. First, we will ensure that the bill recognizes the linguistic realities of each province and territory.
The federal government collaborates with provincial and territorial governments that provide services in the minority language and promote the vitality of the official language minority communities. However, the federal government must also make it a priority to work together with indigenous communities across the country to ensure that indigenous languages are preserved and protected. The modernized legislation would therefore explicitly state that it does not affect the strengthening and revitalization of indigenous languages.
As everyone knows, I do not like scandals. We will continue to speak out against the fact that French is in significant decline in this country in 2022, and it is scandalous that this is still happening. The Liberal government needs to take concerted action to reverse this trend.
More must be done to protect and promote French across Canada, including, of course, here in Quebec. We will ensure that francophones can live in French. We must establish new rights to enable francophones to work in French and to be served in French in federally regulated private businesses.
In this respect, the minister said on April 1 that these new rights will be enshrined in a new act, namely, the use of French in federally regulated private businesses act, and that these rights will apply in Quebec as well as regions with a strong francophone presence.
We will, of course, ensure that the Liberal government does not forget that the private sector also has a role to play in promoting our official languages and enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities.
I look forward to seeing how the government might ensure better access to justice in both official languages by introducing a new bilingualism requirement for the Supreme Court of Canada. That is a major challenge and, unfortunately, such challenges are not this government's strong suit.
That being said, we will ensure that Bill C‑13 fulfills the promise of strengthening the Treasury Board's role as a central agency to coordinate and enforce the Official Languages Act. The discretionary aspect of its monitoring, auditing and evaluating powers will now become mandatory. We will also ensure that the powers of the Commissioner of Official Languages are strengthened. It is imperative that he be given more tools to do his job so that he is able to impose administrative and monetary penalties on certain privatized entities and Crown corporations operating in the area of transportation serving the travelling public.
Air Canada's recent appearance at committee gave us a good example of how francophone Canadians are basically being neglected because employees are not really encouraged to learn or improve their French-language skills.
The bill also includes important clarifications regarding part VII on federal institutions taking positive measures that will benefit official language minority communities. It will be mandatory to take into account potentially negative impacts that decisions could have on the vitality of the communities and on the promotion of both official languages. lt must also strengthen Canada's francophone immigration policy, which must include objectives, targets and indicators with the aim of increasing francophone immigration outside Quebec.
We will ensure that Bill C‑13 will increase supports for official language minority communities to protect the institutions they have built, both for francophones outside Quebec and for the development of the English-speaking minority in Quebec.
The bill must ensure that the Official Languages Act reflects the challenges of the 21st century. We are embarking on a legislative process that the Liberals have finally initiated to significantly advance Canada's linguistic framework, and not before time.
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