Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-315, introduced by the hon. member for Trois-Rivières. I would like to congratulate him on this bill. This is the second time that a similar bill has been introduced in the House, but this one is more specific. It does not target the public service and federal institutions because they are already covered by the Official Languages Act. I would also like to comment on the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier's speech on this bill.
There was a debate in the House that was brought forward by the Conservative government. There were discussions with our former leader, Jack Layton, and we agreed to recognize Quebec as a nation. The Liberals voted in favour of that. I do not want to get into the definition of a nation and on what it should be given. In terms of labour law, it is hard to believe that in Quebec, where there is a provincial law, workers, as my colleague from Trois-Rivières so rightly said, have the right to work in their language at a credit union, but not in a bank. How can that happen in Quebec?
We also met with the association representing anglophone minorities in Quebec. Anglophones are not entirely comfortable with this bill because it will help only one province instead of the entire country, but they are not overly concerned. They understand. I got the impression that they understand what is happening, especially in Quebec.
The House made the effort to recognize Quebec as a nation. The labour code of that nation gives people the right to work in French and to have their collective agreements in French. However, in federally regulated private businesses, people do not have the same right. That is very difficult to accept.
The bill introduced by the member for Trois-Rivières does not say that anglophones cannot work in their language. Members must not try to muddy the waters and make people believe that we are trying to take something away from anglophones in Quebec. We are simply saying that francophones have the right to work in their language. They are the majority and they have the right to work in their language. Quebec is the only province in Canada and in North America that is truly francophone.
After the bill was introduced, the Minister of Industry and Minister of State for Agriculture said that as far as language of work was concerned, the NDP had clearly not done its homework. He has the nerve to say that in the House when his government just appointed a unilingual Auditor General of Canada. They have the nerve to stand up in the House and say that the NDP did not do its homework when they have the power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court.
This is 2011. Our country has been bilingual for 40 years, but the Auditor General of Canada is going to go before the press to report to Canadians without being able to speak one of our country's official languages. They have the nerve to tell us in the House that we did not do our homework? We are doing our homework by introducing a bill like this one, to allow a francophone employee working for a private company in Quebec to speak his language and have his collective agreement in his language.
The House cannot support that, but it can recognize Quebec as a nation?
It is not enough to just unanimously accept that Quebec is a nation. We need concrete actions. One of the best actions that can be taken is to ensure that all workers in Quebec can work in their language without taking anything away from anglophones in Quebec. This bill does not take anything away from them. The hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier tells us this bill might prevent clients from being served in their language. Let us be reasonable. The bill does not do that. We are not in Moncton, New Brunswick, the only bilingual province in Canada, where you cannot get served in French at the casino. In Montreal, you can get served at the casino in both official languages. We are not in Moncton, New Brunswick, where they thumb their noses at the French language. As a New Brunswicker, I am not shy to say so. I hope the Prime Minister hears me as well.
That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about respecting workers and their community in Quebec, without taking anything away from the other community. If there is anyone being trampled on in Canada in terms of language, it is francophones, because of the way today's Conservatives are treating official languages. With the new rules of the House of Commons and the Government of Canada, I had to file a complaint with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to get a new voice mailbox.
During the initialization, the voice mail will address the person in English, the system's default language. Once the person's voice mail initialization is completed, the person will be allowed to easily change it to French, should he or she choose to do so, by following these steps.
This is 2011. Are they trying to say that Bell Canada does not have the technology to put both official languages on their voice mail? All it would take is to add “press 2 for French and press 1 for English”. This is November 25 and we still have to file complaints with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Now they are worried because a bill will give workers in the Quebec nation the right to work in their language and to have a collective agreement in their language when they work for a federally regulated company. I have a hard time seeing how someone could not be in favour of this bill. I do not see how that could be the case.
Otherwise, perhaps we should have another vote in the House of Commons. Are they sure they want to recognize Quebec as a nation within Canada? We should ask that question again. Were they being sincere the evening of the vote when they recognized Quebec as a nation within Canada? Were they being sincere when they rose? If they were, they must take action and make some changes in this regard. They must be able to tell Quebeckers that they are not only welcome, but that they are also part of Canada, that they are Canadian citizens, regardless of whether they are from Quebec or any other province, and that we will work together and respect them.
It shows a lack of respect for the entire province of Quebec that, these days, people still cannot get their collective agreements in French. The government tells us that it will create a committee to take care of it and do its homework, but where have the Conservative members from Quebec been this whole time? It is true that there are not many left. Where were the Conservative members from Quebec when they voted to recognize Quebec as a nation?
That is why this bill is a way to show Quebec that it fits in with the rest of Canada and that we will work to keep Quebec with us in a united Canada. As colleagues, we will do it together.