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Alistair MacGregor

Member of Parliament
Caucus Chair
NDP

Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 66%
Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 196 - May/12/23

Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

May/12/23 10:45:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today's debate on the Official Languages Act has to be placed in the context of the demographic decline of francophone minority communities. Given that both Liberal and Conservative governments have consistently failed to reach the 4.4% target of francophone immigration, aside from this attempted legislative fix the Liberals are proposing, does my hon. colleague from the Conservatives have any ideas on why successive Conservative and Liberal governments have failed to reach that target? As well, does he have any ideas of his own on how to best meet that target?

94 words

Context: House Hansard - 70 - May/12/22

Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

May/12/22 10:28:50 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-13

Madam Speaker, I am sorry to sound like a broken record, but this is on the same subject. This section of Bill C-13 reminds me of the government's Bill C-5, where it used a declaration of principles rather than doing the heavy lifting of amending the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This talks about setting objectives, targets and indicators. There is no catch-up target and no clearly stated objective. Francophone communities outside of Quebec have been let down for a couple of decades. Would my hon. colleague not agree with me that having some specificity in this bill would give those communities some certainty and hold the minister to account, rather than giving a wide swath of interpretation as the bill is currently written?

128 words

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Context: House Hansard - 70 - May/12/22

Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

May/12/22 8:43:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-13

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I know he wanted me to speak French for a bit. I very much understand how language is so intertwined with identity. It happens in variations of English as well. My wife is an Australian citizen, and I know from living down there for a year that the ways they spoke English were very much not the same as I spoke English. There is the Australian identity and the Canadian identity in the way we fell in love with our own versions of English. In my own riding, the indigenous people, the first nations, are revitalizing the way they are speaking Halkomelem. It is very much intertwined with the Coast Salish identity. There is also a huge demand among residents in my riding to get their children to learn French. There is more demand than there is availability. I truly believe in the bottom of my heart that the way to bring Canada and Quebec together is to make sure the French-speaking minorities all across Canada are built up to show solidarity with the francophone population in Quebec. I am just wondering if my colleague has some ideas on how we can build that solidarity in the rest of Canada, so that francophones in Quebec have that partnership right across the land.

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Caucus Chair

Alistair MacGregor