Bill C-13

An Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages

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

Part 1 amends the Official Languages Act to, among other things,
(a) specify that all legal obligations related to the official languages apply at all times, including during emergencies;
(b) codify certain interpretative principles regarding language rights;
(c) provide that section 16 of that Act applies to the Supreme Court of Canada;
(d) provide that a final decision, order or judgment of a federal court that has precedential value is to be made available simultaneously in both official languages;
(e) provide for Government of Canada commitments to
(i) protect and promote French,
(ii) estimate the number of children whose parents are rights holders under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ,
(iii) advance formal, non-formal and informal opportunities for members of English and French linguistic minority communities to pursue quality learning in their own language throughout their lives, including from early childhood to post-secondary education, and
(iv) advance the use of English and French in the conduct of Canada’s external affairs;
(f) clarify the nature of the duty of federal institutions to take positive measures to implement certain Government of Canada commitments and the manner in which the duty is to be carried out;
(g) provide for certain positive measures that federal institutions may take to implement certain Government of Canada commitments, including measures to
(i) promote and support the learning of English and French in Canada, and
(ii) support sectors that are essential to enhancing the vitality of English and French linguistic minority communities and protect and promote the presence of strong institutions serving those communities;
(h) provide for certain measures that the Minister of Canadian Heritage may take to advance the equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society;
(i) provide that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is required to adopt a policy on francophone immigration and that the policy is to include, among other things, objectives, targets and indicators;
(j) provide that the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of cooperating with provincial and territorial governments;
(k) provide that the Treasury Board is required to establish policies to give effect to certain parts of that Act, monitor and audit federal institutions for their compliance with policies, directives and regulations relating to the official languages, evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of policies and programs of federal institutions relating to the official languages and provide certain information to the public and to employees of federal institutions;
(l) enable the Commissioner of Official Languages to enter into compliance agreements and, in certain cases, to make orders; and
(m) enable the Commissioner of Official Languages to impose administrative monetary penalties on certain entities for non-compliance with certain provisions of Part IV of that Act.
It also makes a related amendment to the Department of Canadian Heritage Act .
Part 2 enacts the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act , which, among other things, provides for rights and duties respecting the use of French as a language of service and a language of work in relation to federally regulated private businesses in Quebec and then, at a later date, in regions with a strong francophone presence. That Act also allows employees of federally regulated private businesses to make a complaint to the Commissioner of Official Languages with respect to rights and duties in relation to language of work and allows the Commissioner to refer the complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board in certain circumstances. It also provides that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for promoting those rights. Finally, Part 2 makes related amendments to the Canada Labour Code .

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have two things to say.

First, I heard what my colleague Mr. Beaulieu had to say, and I must say that we Quebeckers are all Quebeckers on an equal footing, whether our mother tongue is English, French or some other language. No political party or individual has the right to speak on behalf of Quebec as a whole. Quebec, like all societies, is made up of people who have different points of view, and we all have the right to express these points of view without being attacked as anti-Quebeckers. That's unacceptable.

Number two, I appreciate very much what my friend Ms. Ashton said. I just want to correct a couple of things.

The last three meetings.... This amendment came up only at the end of the last meeting. For the first couple of meetings, the Liberals on the committee were concerned about amendments coming from other parties, Conservative and Bloc Québécois amendments, that would have reduced the rights of minority language communities. We weren't trying to change the bill.

There are two references in the Official Languages Act and the proposed Bill C-13 that include references to the Charter of the French Language. The bill was tabled before Bill 96 became law and changed the Charter of the French Language from what was first adopted in 1977 to what is there now. The pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause was deeply troubling to many people, and it caused a change in the position of many people about whether it was appropriate to reference that bill.

I'm not trying to hold up the committee. I'm only trying to say that this is, as you know, very important to the people I represent, and I think it's important to all who share our vision of Canada, because the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause is not acceptable. Whether it was right or wrong, however we got here, in the end result right now we are where we are, and this reference shouldn't be in the bill. I just plead with my colleague, who I know is incredibly intelligent, to consider that.

Thank you.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As an MP for the past 14 years, whenever I've looked at legislation, I have tried to look at it from the point of view of ensuring clarity and logic. Although I'm not a lawyer, I'm an engineer, and in engineering those two qualities of clarity and logic in anything that is written are particularly important.

The way I look at this bill, Bill C-13, the modernization of the Official Languages Act, is as follows.

It has two main purposes. Let's go back to fundamentals. First, it is to promote the two official languages that exist in this country across the country. Second, it is to protect the linguistic rights of minorities again across Canada, whether it's the anglophone rights of Quebeckers who are a minority within Quebec or the francophone rights of minorities living outside of Quebec. That is its fundamental purpose.

If we look at the Quebec Charter of the French Language, we see that this is a provincial charter. It is based on, and essentially is, Bill 96 as adopted by the National Assembly. Its focus, of course, is to address language rights within Quebec. One is federal and one is provincial, and yet that provincial law is being incorporated into a federal law, Bill C-13. I think we owe it to those who will be interpreting Bill C-13 in the future to achieve clarity and logic in the content of this bill. This is fundamentally important.

Whether we agree with Bill 96 or not is one matter, and I suspect that much of it will be probably settled in the courts. Either way, it is a provincial law that is being put into a federal law. That to me is not logical, and it does not make for clarity. It should not be in a federal bill, so that in the future, when the Parliament of Canada does have to interpret Bill C-13, there will be greater clarity in its interpretation.

The proposed amendment, LIB-4, is an eloquent way to, yes, recognize that the National Assembly of Quebec has determined that French is the official language within its sphere of jurisdiction, which we fully recognize, but at the same time it achieves greater clarity by removing something that should not be in this bill.

I appeal to you as legislators who believe in clarity and I'm sure believe in logic to accept this amendment.

Thank you.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Dear colleagues, I will repeat my arguments briefly, for the benefit of those who were not here.

We are starting to make decisions regarding Bill C‑13. Today, the committee has to make a choice. It can choose to maintain the same vision of the official languages in Canada that has prevailed since the Official Languages Act was enacted in 1969, namely, that there is a francophone minority community outside Quebec and that French has to be supported right across the country, but that the anglophone minority community in Quebec also has to be supported.

The committee can also choose the vision presented by the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc maintains that the anglophone minority in Quebec is not truly a minority, because it is part of Canada's anglophone majority, and that the federal government has no obligation to support Quebec's anglophone community. Further, the Bloc maintains that the government should give in to Quebec's demands.

Proposed amendments to the bill are intended to eliminate the federal government's responsibility to support the development and vitality of Quebec's anglophone community and to implement the provisions of Bill 96, Quebec's Charter of the French Language.

That is a legitimate vision, but it is the Bloc Québécois's vision.

This has never been the vision of any other political party in Canada historically. The Conservative party has always supported the vitality and development of the English-speaking minority in Quebec; in fact, Brian Mulroney, in the Charlottetown Accord in 1992, proposed to make that part of the Constitution of Canada. We've always believed that all linguistic minority communities need to be supported.

Now we come to a reference in the bill that needs to be removed. It's a reference to Quebec's Charter of the French Language, which is now Bill 96, a law that was adopted using the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively to deprive Quebeckers of their right to go to court if their charter rights are violated and to have the court order a remedy.

Remember, the notwithstanding clause is there to say that there's a right, and section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms says that all rights are limited to what's reasonable in a free and democratic society. Now that doesn't apply; people won't be able to check to see if their right was violated and if it was done in a way that was fair in a free and democratic society. It basically overrides these rights. Nobody ever, when the Constitution was being repatriated or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was being added in 1982, saw the notwithstanding clause being used in this way.

Recently in Ontario with respect to labour rights and in Quebec with respect to Bill 21 and Bill 96, the notwithstanding clause was used pre-emptively. The New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, at least, have come out four-square against the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause. Here we would be incorporating the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause federally by making an approving reference, because this sentence talks approvingly of this law. We would be essentially handicapping the Attorney General when the Attorney General goes to court, as he said he will do in the Bill 21 case, to argue that the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause is not constitutional. The Attorney General of Canada has already stated that when the Supreme Court hears arguments on Bill 21, the Government of Canada will be arguing that the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause is not constitutional. However, what we would be doing here is allowing any of those provinces that try to justify the use of the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively to say, “But Mr. Attorney General, in your own bill you referred approvingly to a law that uses the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively.” That is not a good thing at all.

I would also point out that Bill 96 says that in order to receive services in English in Quebec, you need to have access to English schools, thus depriving close to half of the English-speaking community in Quebec of the right to get services in English.

The Official Languages Act has always provided that both communities should receive services in both languages.

Wherever you may be in Canada, as a francophone, you should be able to receive services in French from the federal government. The same applies for anglophones in Quebec, even in regions where they are in a very small minority, in ridings such as those represented by my colleagues here. Anglophones make up perhaps less that 1% of the population in Mr. Lehoux's riding but, federally, we should have access to services in both languages, right across the country. Yet that is not what the Charter of the French Language currently provides. That is not what Bill 96 says. Today, we have the opportunity to say the same thing.

The purpose of this sentence was to affirm that French is the official language of Quebec. It did not say anything more than that. There is a different way of saying it. We can say that Quebec's National Assembly has declared that French is the official language of Quebec, within its areas of jurisdiction, without mentioning that this is based on the operation of Bill 96. We can say the same thing, without mentioning a bill that does not enjoy a consensus in the minority community.

I want to point out that we would be referring to a bill, a law, that is probably supported by the majority of francophone Quebeckers but, according to all of the polls I have seen, is not supported by almost the entire English-speaking community in Quebec, at well over 95%, nor by any English-speaking organizations.

Why would we be referring to a law that nobody in the minority community supports? We would never do this to francophones in Ontario if they didn't support an Ontario bill. We would never then refer to it approvingly in a federal law. Why are we doing this when the English-speaking minority in Quebec, which is one of the communities we're supposed to be protecting under the Official Languages Act, doesn't agree at all? Not only is there no consensus; there's a complete disagreement with this law. There's no need to mention it.

Let me go to the final things.

One, there is no references to any other provincial law in this bill. We're not referring to Ontario's French Language Services Act. We're not referring to acts across this country to protect official languages, including in New Brunswick; we're referring to only one province's law. Why are we referring to only one province's law?

Also, the way we would be doing this, we would be approvingly referring to this law no matter what changes are ever made to it. As the federal Parliament, we would be surrendering our authority to a provincial legislature to change a law however it wanted at any time, as our officials said, without any control over what they would do. That is also not a good thing.

What message are you giving to the minority community in Quebec that disagrees with this law when the federal Parliament simply embraces it and includes it in a federal law and the minority community doesn't agree with it?

Also, I would again respectfully say that many of the amendments that are being proposed would cause real legal jeopardy to the English-speaking minority in Quebec. When you apply this bill and you apply it federally, when we're going to the courts to seek redress for our rights, the reference here, in my view, would cause real legal issues in terms of the rights of the English-speaking community in Quebec.

So I am making my case to my colleagues. Our discussions about the official languages are rare opportunities to truly put partisanship aside, because this is something we are passionate about. All Canadians are passionate about the official languages. The protection of their language is a hot topic for francophone minorities in the country, but also for anglophones in Quebec.

There are different ways of saying things: in a way that hurts others or in a way that does not hurt anyone. I am asking you, personally, as a colleague, to think about this when you vote on this amendment today. A number of Quebec MPs who are here today have very strong feelings on the topic. Please help us get our amendment through. It is very important, not only to us, but also to the community we come from. We want our voice to be heard.

As a member of Parliament, I would say that in the seven years I've been here, this is perhaps the most important argument I have ever made in Parliament, because I'm speaking about not only something I'm passionate about but also something my community is really frightened about. I've never had more calls or more emails on any issue than I've had on this one in my riding in Quebec. My constituents are scared about the effect it will have on them if a provincial bill and law that the English-speaking minority entirely disagrees with is put into federal law .

I plead with my colleagues. I hope you will support amendment LIB-4. I think this is the historical vision of all the federalist parties from 1968 until now.

I appreciate my colleagues' time. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

This meeting is called to order.

Welcome to meeting number 47 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, May 30, 2022, the committee is resuming its consideration of 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.

Pursuant to our routine motion, I wish to inform the committee that all members completed the required login tests prior to the meeting.

Today, we are resuming the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C‑13.

I welcome the officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Citizenship, Refugees and Immigration Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat, who are here to support the committee and answer technical questions.

From Canadian Heritage, we welcome Ms. Julie Boyer, assistant deputy minister, official languages, heritage and regions; Mr. Jean Marleau, director, modernization of the Official Languages Act; and Ms. Chantal Terrien, manager, modernization of the Official Languages Act.

From Citizenship and Immigration, we welcome Mr. Alain Desruisseaux, director general, francophone immigration policy and official languages division.

From Treasury Board Secretariat, we have Mr. Carsten Quell, executive director, official languages centre of excellence, people and culture, office of the chief human resources officer.

Thank you to all these experts for taking part in our work.

Let us pick up from where we left off with the clause-by-clause consideration on Tuesday. We were discussing amendment LIB‑4.

Mr. Housefather, you have the floor.

[Julie Boyer]

Thank you very much. My comments will take less than two minutes.

The effect of this amendment is to delete from Bill C-13 the reference to the Charter of the French Language. Instead, it makes the connection with the language regime established by the Quebec National Assembly. It also makes explicit the fact that French is the official language of Quebec, but only in the Quebec National Assembly's own areas of jurisdiction.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I propose that Bill C‑13, in clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 37 to 41 on page 2 with the following:

the importance of remedying the decline in the demographic weight of French linguistic minority communities, including by fostering the re-establishment and growth of their demographic weight;

And whereas the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of francophone immigration in enhancing the vitality of French linguistic minority communities, including by fostering the re-establishment and growth of their demographic weight;

Mr. Chair, do you also want me to talk about the rationale for this amendment?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Since the other Bloc Québécois amendments have been defeated, we propose an amendment to clause 2 of Bill C‑13, by replacing line 20 on page 2 with the following: the duty to provide opportunities for everyone

In point b), we propose replacing line 26 on page 2 with the following:the duty to support sectors

In point c), we propose replacing, in the English version, line 28 on page 2 with the following:minority communities and to protect and promote the

Those are the changes we propose for CPC-2.

[Julie Boyer]

I would say that's correct. It's what's currently.... Again, though, with this process, Bill C-13 can change and evolve.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am very much against this large and very wide-scoping subamendment.

First of all, it will stop other different, better amendments on French immigration from even being heard. Secondly, it changes the entire way we look at the Official Languages Act from a substantive equality approach to one which, essentially, no longer values the obligation of the federal government to support the vitality and development of the English-speaking community in Quebec.

If you were to incorporate this into the preamble, the preamble would no longer reflect what is now in the bill, and the scope would be completely different from what's in the act.

I have a few questions for the officials, if you will allow me, Mr. Chair.

I know this is an interpretation, rather than something you might be able to give a clear answer to. Would you agree with that commentary? If we change the preamble, according to the way Bloc 1.1 is amended, it would amend the preamble so that it is no longer in line with what's currently in Bill C-13.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yesterday and today, we've seen media like ONFR+ and La Presse reporting that the Quebec government and the federal government are having a conversation and negotiating with respect to Bill C‑13. I'm not making this up, it's in the public domain.

Notwithstanding the work the committee is doing to improve the Official Languages Act with the various amendments moved by all parties, I really think that people need to trust the Quebec and federal governments to work hand in hand to halt the decline of French in Quebec and across Canada. I'm sure that the two governments will find common ground.

Mr. Housefather, I respect your opinion and I agree that we need to keep a close eye on these situations. However, I feel that people need to trust in both governments, which can negotiate everything needed to ensure that French will be protected in Canada and in Quebec, and the services available to anglophones in Quebec as a minority will be maintained.

We can go to a vote, Mr. Chair.

[Julie Boyer]

Thank you for your question.

I think on this I would say that the preamble normally does a summary of the key articles and important concepts from the bill. In proposed Bill C-13, only one article comes up to remind us that official languages legislation applies in emergency situations. That is not raised elsewhere in Bill C-13. However, it is in the Official Languages Act, which we are modernizing.

Usually, Mr. Housefather, it is true that what's in the preamble comes up later in the rest of the legislation.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you.

From what I understood from what Monsieur Beaulieu was saying, I agree; it's two different visions. There's the old historical vision that both languages are treated equally and the English-speaking minority in Quebec and the French-speaking minorities outside Quebec have equal rights at a federal level. Then there's the vision that the Bloc has always had, that the English-speaking minority of Quebec is not a real minority and they should not be protected federally.

That's never been the position of the Conservative Party before. The Conservative Party, including in Charlottetown with Brian Mulroney, tried to include in the Constitution of Canada the obligation of the federal government to protect the vitality and development of both linguistic minority communities. To introduce the Charter of the French language into this bill is essentially saying that we're agreeing that only some English-speaking Quebeckers get served in English—only those who have access to English schools. It's agreeing with using the notwithstanding clause in a pre-emptive way.

Mr. Chair, I understand the time. This will be my last intervention. I have just a couple of questions for the esteemed panel.

Number one, when you have a preamble of a bill and you make an amendment like this one, which is not actually in the bill—there is no reference in Bill C-13 to respecting Quebec's language choices as set out in Bill 101—you would assume that the same proposer would then try to put other references to Bill 101 in the bill, in many locations in the bill, to say that we're then subject in the bill to the choices made by Quebec, and federal services will be done in that way.

Would that not have a significant legal effect and go against the original intention of the bill of substantive equality?

[Julie Boyer]

Here I would say that we are in the preamble of the legislation. It's a summary of what is in the clauses in the rest of the legislation.

This does not have a binding effect, but it does state the intent of Bill C-13. Having said this, if a federal law and a provincial law apply and there's a conflict in interpretation, the federal law supersedes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

From our perspective, we don't see the same danger in the future. In fact, the Official Languages Act is slated for review every 10 years. So if there was a specific amendment based on a possible change in the Charter of the French Language in Quebec, adjustments could be made.

The amendments announced in Bill C‑13 even provide for a possible review of the act every five years. Therefore, if we did see a change and go back, we would also have the opportunity to amend the Official Languages Act at some point.

If I understand correctly, you are concerned that the Quebec government is being given carte blanche to amend its legislation as it sees fit and that the federal government would be required to respect it in the long run. However, that wouldn't be the case, since the review of the Official Languages Act is provided for in the bill, and that will allow us to make amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I call this meeting to order.

This is the first meeting in 2023 of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Welcome to meeting number 46 of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

I'd like to welcome Ms. Gladu, who is a new full member of our wonderful committee, as well as Mr. Martel, who is substituting for Mr. Godin.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, May 30, 2022, the committee is resuming consideration of 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.

Pursuant to our routine motion, I wish to inform the committee that all members completed the required login tests prior to the meeting. However, in this case, almost everyone is here in the room; it's the first time that's happened in a very long time.

Today, we resume the clause‑by‑clause review of Bill C‑13.

I would like to remind members that amendments submitted by committee members remain confidential until they are moved at committee.

I would like to begin by welcoming the officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Citizenship, Refugees and Immigration Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat, who are here to answer more technical questions from committee members.

From the Department of Canadian Heritage, we welcome Julie Boyer, assistant deputy minister of Official Languages, Heritage and Regions; Jean‑François Roussy, director general of Policy and Research, Official Languages Branch; and Jean Marleau, director, Modernization of the Official Languages Act.

We also welcome Alain Desruisseaux, director general, Francophone Immigration Policy and Official Languages Division, Department of Citizenship and Immigration. We met him at our previous meeting.

Finally, from the Treasury Board Secretariat, we welcome Carsten Quell, executive director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, People and Culture, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer.

I'm going to repeat what I said about procedure at the first clause‑by‑clause consideration meeting, because it's very important. I won't do this at every meeting, but since this is the committee's first meeting in 2023 and we're a little rusty, I will say the following, if I may.

As a reminder, I would like to explain to members of the committee how committees conduct clause‑by‑clause consideration of a bill.

As the name suggests, this exercise is to consider, in order, all clauses of a bill. I will call each clause, one at a time, and each clause may be debated before it is voted on.

If an amendment is moved to the clause in question, I will give the floor to the member moving it, who may explain it if he or she wishes. The amendment may then be debated and voted on when no other member wishes to speak. Amendments shall be considered in the order in which they appear in the bundle which the members of the committee have received from the clerk.

It is important to note that all amendments and subamendments must be submitted in writing to the committee clerk.

Amendments must be legally correct, but they must also be procedurally correct. The chair may rule an amendment out of order if it impinges on the financial initiative of the Crown, contravenes the principle of the bill, or exceeds the scope of the bill, i.e., the principle and scope that were adopted by the House of Commons when it passed the bill at second reading. If you want to remove a clause from the bill altogether, you should vote against the clause when it comes to a vote, rather than move an amendment to remove it.

As this is a first experience for most of us, the chair will proceed slowly. This will allow everyone to follow the deliberations well.

Each amendment has a distinctive number. It is in the top right-hand corner of the page and indicates which party has submitted it. The proposer does not need anyone else's support to move the amendment. Once an amendment has been moved, unanimous consent of the committee is required to withdraw it.

During the debate on an amendment, members may propose subamendments. These do not need to be approved by the member who moved the amendment. Only one subamendment can be considered at a time. You will remember that we got somewhat lost in the subamendments at one point. So the rule is strict. The subamendment may not be amended.

When an amendment is the subject of a subamendment, it is the subamendment that is voted on first. Another subamendment may then, and only then, be moved, or the committee may revert to the main amendment and vote on it.

Once all the clauses have been voted on, the committee shall hold a vote on the title and on the bill itself. The committee must also give an order to reprint the bill so that the House of Commons has an updated version at report stage.

Finally, the committee must ask the chair to report the bill back to the House of Commons. This report shall contain only the text of the adopted amendments, if any, and an indication of the deleted causes, if any.

I thank members for their attention. I wish the committee a productive clause‑by‑clause study of Bill C‑13.

With that said, we resume clause‑by‑clause consideration. Last time, we were debating clause 2.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have an amendment to move: amendment BQ‑0.1. You have the floor.