There are two parts to your question.
First, you asked what kinds of laws we would like to see covered by the program. As things stand, I would say the programs pertain to constitutional rights only. That means the charter.
We would also like the Official Languages Act, which is quasi-constitutional, to be covered by the next program, since it is an extremely important statute for francophone and Acadian communities, and for all minority communities. This act provides the framework for the federal government's specific actions relating to language rights, services to the public, public servants' language rights, and support for official language communities.
Under part VII of the act for instance, the government is required to take positive measures to enhance the vitality of official language communities. What exactly do “positive measures” entail? Does the government do this systematically and at all times? How does it do this? These are important questions for us because this legislative tool gives us leverage to bear upon the government to take positive steps to support community development. We are therefore adamant and strongly recommend that the act be covered by the new program.
Other federal laws also impact language rights. Consider, for example, the Criminal Code or the Canada Revenue Agency Act. There are about twenty laws in all that impact language rights or concern matters affecting language rights. If all of these laws were covered by the next program, the program would then be able to review the federal government's whole legislative framework relating to language rights to ensure that these rights were respected and upheld.