Evidence of meeting #31 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was languages.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lise St-Denis Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Do you have the jurisdiction to audit those mechanisms?
12:50 p.m.
Commissioner of Official Languages, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
No. We audited an accountability system in one department, but it is not always easy to see what is going on on the ground, in a school board for example.
12:50 p.m.
Commissioner of Official Languages, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Funds are transferred to the provinces, and they report to the department in question, but there are limits to what we can learn or draw from these reports.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lise St-Denis Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
In the promotional campaigns you do, of any kind, would it not be interesting to include the socio-historical realities of relations between francophones and anglophones? In an ad, you could describe how francophones and anglophones experience bilingualism. We never talk about that. We never talk about what is going on between the two communities. There is a whole lot there.
12:50 p.m.
Commissioner of Official Languages, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
That is a very good question.
In our preparations for the celebrations in 2017, I hope that, as an organization or with others, we will be able to create a document telling the story of these contacts between anglophones and francophones, without ignoring or trying to hide the negative aspects of the story. The negative story is a fairly easy one to tell, but we tend to forget that there are also examples of mutual accommodation and cooperation.
An example that comes to mind is Lord Elgin, who followed Lord Durham, and who established French as an official language in the legislature. There is also La Fontaine and Baldwin, the language policy supported by John A. Macdonald, the Bonne Entente movement, which contested regulation 17. There is a positive story that is often forgotten.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
Thank you, Ms. St-Denis.
We will stop there. I would like to thank all of you for your questions, answers and comments.
After discussion with the committee members, we have decided to meet for two hours to discuss the report and future committee business.
The committee will not be sitting next week because three members will be travelling on parliamentary business.
Without further ado, this meeting stands adjourned.