It was in camera. That does not prevent our committee from making decisions. I believe that before coming to a final decision, we should invite experts to whom we can address questions, so that we are certain of making the right decision. We want our appeal system to work well, and it is not because something was said in camera that we should be prevented from getting to the heart of the matter.
That being said, I would like to ask Mr. Paquette if he does not see the difference between the issue of minimum wage and the issue of having two official languages in this country.
Let's talk about minimum wage. There has been no change in Quebec to eliminate minimum wage. Nor has there been any change providing that only Quebec has the obligation to comply with the requirements of minimum wage in that province. I believe the federal government has reviewed the matter. The government issued an order saying that it would respect the minimum wage in each province. We are talking about the bare minimum. If it wants to pay $20 an hour, it can do so, but we are talking about a minimum. The federal government will respect the minimum wage of the province. You cannot have both. That means that in Quebec, minimum wage prevails. At the federal level, it will be the minimum wage of Quebec, in New Brunswick, it will be the minimum wage of New Brunswick. I believe this was decided in 1996. The federal government never said that it would eliminate the minimum wage in Quebec or New Brunswick, or that it would allow the provinces to do so.
In this case, I am not yet ready to speak to the constitutionality of the bill, but the following argument could be made. We could argue that in Quebec alone, anglophones would not be protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In Quebec, an employer could say that the language of work is exclusively French. Not only would citizens be deprived of this protection, but so would employers and everyone else.
Like me, do you believe that there is a difference between these two? Thank you.