Mr. Speaker, I will try mightily to do that.
Let us collectively look at history and ask how we can improve things. In 1608 New France was founded by Champlain. In 1752 Acadia was conquered by the British and therein was the first and most horrid example of linguistic intolerance. As soon as the Brits conquered Acadia they kicked out all the Acadians. They said: "We do not need your language. We do not need you-out". That is the worse case we have had. Maybe in one sense historically we have improved things, at least from that point.
In 1759 New France was conquered. By the standards of that day, the Brits really made some improvement. They said: "Fine, there will be a tolerance not only of the French language but of the religion". Let us remember in historical perspective that religion has been part of the language equation.
Moving on to 1774, we had the Quebec Act which confirmed the rights of French-speaking people and catholics. In 1791 we had the constitutional act which created a legislature for Lower Canada. Because French became the language of legislation, francophones essentially became politically active for the first time.
Between 1820 and 1840 we started to have problems again. The rapidly rising English-speaking minority worried the French dominated assembly in Lower Canada. As a result, they adopted a series of intolerant laws regarding the districts and the eastern townships, denied them representation and invoked a head tax on immigrants from Britain.
Between 1837 and 1838 we had real problems, including a bit of open rebellion and almost warfare. It is important to note that from 1840 to 1880, as the proportion of English speaking and French speaking people balanced, people felt a little more secure. Things quietened down nicely in those 40 years up to 1880.
It allowed the British North America Act to be passed in 1867. So quiet were things that the BNA Act was hardly mentioned at all. People were comfortable with it. It did of course guarantee in section 133 that both languages would be used in Parliament, the Quebec legislature and in laws.
I am trying to paint a picture of the see-saw of what has been happening in Canada and the emotions that went with it. From 1880 to 1920, the proportion of French speaking people in Canada and catholics-we might as well put in-started to rise thus sparking fears in English Canada and among the protestants that their status would be reduced to a minority position.
As a result, one province after another adopted laws that were restrictive of the educational rights of francophones and catholics; New Brunswick in 1871, P.E.I. in 1874, Manitoba in 1890 and again in 1916 and Ontario in 1912. Here we can speak with shame. Regulation 17 in 1912 was the most restrictive educational law in Canadian history. It made it unlawful for any francophone child to be educated in his own language beyond grade three. That is bad news but it illustrates that pendulum swing.
Where were we after that? From 1920 to 1960, once again that stability was achieved. There was stability in the language environment. What did we see in Quebec in 1963? We saw rising nationalism. All right? There is going to be a reaction to that. Lester Pearson therefore established the royal commission on bilingualism, the B and B commission. It filed six volumes up until the year 1971.
That commission endorsed territorial bilingualism which I will address in detail in a few minutes. Territorial bilingualism is really a compromise between the territorial principle and the personality principle. Incidentally the findings of that commission were essentially compatible with Reform principles as we espouse them officially today.
The spirit of thought of that commission is in this quote: "A bilingual country is not one where all inhabitants necessarily have to speak two languages. Rather it is a country where all principal public and private institutions must provide service in two languages to citizens, the majority of whom may very well be unilingual". Think on that. It is not bad.
In 1969 the first Official Languages Act was passed. That is what we are critiquing today. Twenty-five years later there is unhappiness with it.
This Official Languages Act favours the personality principle in which individual minority language rights are to be extended as widely as is politically feasible with the result that onerous obligation to respect these rights are placed on the majority populations and, of course, particularly on taxpayers.
It is clear that in passing that act Pierre Trudeau did what he believed to be a just and generous gesture. He repeatedly states that the law's goals of justice and national unity are inseparable. One can understand that. But Trudeau's technocratic view of society is also built into the act, one of its key features being the creation of a supreme language bureaucrat, the Commissioner of Official Languages. That was 1969.
In 1972 Quebec, fearful that its French language was in decline, said it had better pass a law. That was bill 22, the Official Language Act for Quebec.
In 1977 the Levesque government passed bill 101. These are now getting to be famous or infamous in this country, bill 22 and bill 101.
We go from there to 1982. This is a very important date as well in that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave recourse to those offended by bill 22 and bill 101 and allowed them to appeal the injustice, shall we call it that, of the Quebec legislation.
In 1988, finally the Mulroney government rescinded the old Official Languages Act and introduced a new one, the current one, which somewhat extends the scope of official bilingualism and in fact perhaps to too great a degree.
I would like now to define territorial bilingualism because this is really what we are talking about here. It is a compromise position between the legitimate desires and concerns of linguistic minorities and the legitimate concerns of linguistic majorities. It is one of four distinct and clearly articulated philosophies designed to bring justice to the matter of language policy.
These policies are, first, the personality principle. This is really the one championed by Pierre Trudeau. He believed that the key to a just system is that all individuals wherever they might be located in the country have the right to communicate and receive services from the government in their preferred official language. That is what we are trying to put in place in Canada today. We say it is not working and cannot be afforded.
The next principle is the territorial principle which should not be confused with territorial bilingualism which we will come to.
The territorial principle holds that language rights should be territorial and non-portable in nature. In the case of Canada it means that everyone living in Quebec should be expected to live and work in French and everyone in the other nine provinces should be expected to live and work in English.
This principle has been successfully implemented in Switzerland but it will not work in Canada because our minority populations in Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario are so much larger than in Switzerland.
Next we hit territorial bilingualism, not the territorial principle but territorial bilingualism. As I said, it was first proposed by the royal commission on B and B, since adopted by the Reform Party. It is essentially a compromise between the extremes of territorial and personality principles.
Under this model, language rights and minority language services would be extended only to those minorities large enough to survive over the long term. Smaller minorities would not receive full rights on the basis that the burden imposed on the majority population, which has to foot the bill for all of this, outweighs the benefit being received by the minority.
This model has been successfully employed in Finland in dealing with its Swedish-speaking minority. If practised in Canada the model would extend full minority language rights to the large francophone communities in eastern and northeastern Ontario, to the Acadians of New Brunswick, as well as to the anglophone community of west end Montreal. The rest of the country would be unilingual.
The fourth principle or style of language policy is what we might call asymmetrical bilingualism advocated by the Bloc Quebecois which calls for full and generous language rights to be extended to francophones living outside Quebec and very few rights to be extended to anglophones living inside Quebec.
The logic of this asymmetry is that French is in danger of extinction in Canada and can only survive on an equal footing with English if it receives preferential legal treatment. Most English Canadians find it unbelievable that someone would actually advocate such a position. Nonetheless, it is genuinely believed by many to be the only true and just language policy.
There we are. We have a situation that has hurt Canada and that we must collectively address. I leave it to this House to listen closely to the ensuing speakers. Be critical of yourselves, be critical of us, but at the same time be positive. What can we do to be just and furnish proper services to everyone across the country where the numbers warrant? Where numbers warrant is a little buzz phrase that is fought with difficulty. I think on that one we have to get down to brass tacks and put numbers on it and say: "This is where the numbers warrant and this is what we can afford or we cannot afford".
We must address all those points. I would ask the House to think in positive terms as we go through the speeches that follow. We must think about our history which I have gone to some length to expand. It really has been a back and a forth. One group gets stronger and the other group gets afraid and starts putting in restrictive legislation. This is not good news. Let us try and balance it out and be together.
That is all, Mr. Speaker. I would ask everyone, you and others, to consider seriously the adoption of this motion to amend the official languages to reflect the philosophy of territorial bilingualism.
