Official Languages Committee on April 28th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

If there are no further comments, I am prepared to call the question.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would like to hear what Mr. Rodriguez said. Sometimes, Pablo can be wise.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

What did you say Mr. Rodriguez?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

What I am saying is that when we are referring to broadcasting, we always use the terms "the various broadcasting platforms". Conservatives referred to that a great deal in the new Media Fund, to extend broadcasting to all platforms. So, the web is a platform—

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I would like to see the word "television" included.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Television, radio broadcasting and other means.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

And multimedia. I would support that suggestion.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

To say "various platforms" includes everything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I will reread the subamendment once.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Chairman I think we are having a small discussion on—

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

—on the subamendment.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

—on linguistics, vocabulary, or terminology. Our colleague Mr. Petit has a suggestion which could be comprehensive if we were to use the word "multimedia".

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

No, what I have just said is—

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

That's what we've just said.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

The subamendment would read "...the broadcasting and multimedia of the games, and the compliance...".

Any further comments?

We will now vote on the subamendment.

(Subamendment agreed to.)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

If you are ready, we will now proceed to the vote on the amendment replacing "status of the frenchization" with "respect and promotion of the linguistic duality".

(Amendment agreed to.)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Finally, we can vote on Ms. Guay's motion, as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to.)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

If there are no further comments, we will suspend the meeting. Mr. Godin?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would like to say that the Association franco-ontarienne des conseils scolaires catholiques—I do not know if some of its representatives have spoken to you as well—would really like to meet with the committee to discuss federal funding granted to the provinces for education. Their representatives have been asking to meet with us for a number of months.

Could we, at this point, consider it? I could present the request as a motion, if needed, or we could perhaps agree to set aside one hour and put this meeting on our agenda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I would say that we can set the matter aside for now, and depending on how long it takes to complete our study on post-secondary institutions and adopt the report, we may have some meetings left over.

In fact, if you have witnesses to suggest on the various subjects, do so. There is, among other things, the subject Mr. Nadeau raised on the National Defence Official Languages Program Transformation Model.

Personally I'd like to recommend having Mr. Semianiw as a witness, his testimony would be relevant given that he is the armed forces specialist in the area.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

With respect to the AFOCSC, I will provide the clerk with the person's name and the organization's name.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Very well.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would appreciate that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Perfect.

There is one last thing. Someone from UBC would like to come and meet with us pursuant to our study on post-secondary institutions, specifically to discuss multimedia. It would be a two-hour meeting with four witnesses. We could spend the first hour and a half hearing from the three witnesses who would actually physically be in the room, and hold a teleconference over the last half hour, with a ten-minute presentation and five-minute rounds for each political party, if that suits you.