How can you say that it is government policy, when the government has appointed a unilingual anglophone who was forced to promise to learn French in one year, but who has not done so? If it is government policy, why not redo the process and look for a candidate who speaks both languages, in order to comply with official language rules? That is the reason why this bill was introduced.
Canadian Heritage is supposed to play a coordinating role and to encourage federal institutions to implement section 41 of Part VII of the Official Languages Act. But in recent months, we have seen federal institutions make decisions that seem to go against section 41, such as the closure of Fishery and Oceans' only French-language library at the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, the closure of the only bilingual search and rescue centre in Canada, located in Quebec City, Industry Canada's broken promise to establish an official languages committee in companies under federal jurisdiction in Quebec. The government actually promised to establish a committee after the New Democratic Party tabled a bill. In addition, there have been cuts at Radio-Canada.
Is Canadian Heritage overseeing the budget cuts in other departments? What do you do when institutions make their cuts and close places of work without evaluating the consequences for official languages of doing so?