Thank you.
Mr. Samson raised a critical issue, the issue of delinquent suppliers. I would like to talk about that.
You were talking about solutions. In fact, the solution is strictly political. There are no others. However, it is extremely dangerous, in Canada, to talk about bilingualism. It can cost us an election.
In November 2015, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Caron-Boutet case. In my opinion, it was not by chance that the decision was issued after the election. During the election, it could have triggered a constitutional crisis, or at least a political crisis. This is certainly a case that you are very familiar with, madam. The Court decided to reject the challenge of these two francophones from Alberta and Saskatchewan that was based on historical reasoning and on agreements. In their opinion, Alberta and Saskatchewan should be bilingual provinces and all their laws should, by this very fact, be bilingual. They unfortunately lost their case, because the Supreme Court must first and foremost protect Canadian unity. It does not say this, but it remains that this is its absolute role.
I remind you also that, on the site of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, your predecessor, Mr. Graham Fraser, expressed his extreme disappointment in this Supreme Court decision.
Mr. Caron's lawyer, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said this: “The Trudeau government should do the right thing and say that it will correct this mistake and pay the province of Saskatchewan and Alberta the money they need to translate all their laws and the court rules”.
Bilingualism is a question of politics and money. This is the problem. It is extremely expensive. When the Supreme Court decided that Manitoba should be bilingual, according to the agreements, it cost billions of dollars.
For the providers to stop being delinquent, we, the politicians, must set an example. In particular, we could invest the billions of dollars necessary for Alberta and Saskatchewan to become bilingual provinces. In this way, they could no longer oppose this idea for financial reasons.
On the other hand, there would still be political problems. In fact, I am not sure that Ms. Notley would be re-elected if she took this initiative.
That being said, madam, I would like to know whether, like Mr. Fraser, you were disappointed by this decision and whether you believe that the current liberal government—and I really am asking this without any partisanship—should correct this problem in a political manner and not stop at this decision?
