What impresses me the most about that bill is the idea of putting an end to using statistics to determine if a region will continue to obtain federal services in both official languages.
I have always thought that using percentages of the population to determine services and the rights of the minority meant that those services and those rights depended on the rate of growth of the majority rather than on the vitality of the minority. In that way, if the majority grows faster than the minority, the minority will eventually lose its services. Conversely, if in some maritime province communities, the majority leaves faster than the minority, obligations that were not there previously will appear, not because there has been a growth in demand, but because the majority left. I find it unbelievable that we apply such a system.
I think the bill suggests that we assess certain aspects of the vitality of the community. Are there schools, community centres, other minority institutions that would allow one to say that there is truly a community? In that way, we will not be able to say to minority communities that it is just too bad for them that their existing services will be abolished if they represent less than 5% of the community.