Official Languages Committee on Sept. 19th, 2017

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I am new here, and I don't always understand everything that's going on. I would like to clarify something.

I heard that Statistics Canada responded to the government and explained what had happened. Is it a quantitative error in the compilation or a more serious error?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

That's what we want to find out, and that's why we are inviting the officials from the department.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay. You have my support.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Choquette, the floor is yours.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to inform you that I will be moving a motion soon, but not today, on the bilingual bonus to public servants.

We heard about a report that apparently asks that the bilingual bonus to public servants be eliminated, which worries a number of stakeholders. It would be good to hear the views of unions and other experts. I'm not saying that an exhaustive study is needed, but we should address this issue before making a decision, whenever we have more time. If memory serves, the bonus has been around for more than 40 years. Before it is scrapped overnight, we should perhaps think about it to avoid a blunder.

There's one more thing. Perhaps we'll have the opportunity—

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Choquette, with respect to the first point, please send your motion to Madam Clerk.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Of course, Mr. Chair.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Chair, can we have the report?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Yes, the report is available.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Who prepared the report?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

We can ask the clerk to check.

[An hon. member]

It was the Clerk of the Privy Council.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

The clerk is looking into it.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

The clerk can then let us know.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Chair, let me conclude by saying that, these days, we hear a great deal about how difficult it is for official language community media to survive. We receive letters and requests about this from across Canada. A number of community newspapers, media outlets and radio stations say that their survival is increasingly difficult. I have previously asked the Treasury Board whether it was going to adopt a different policy to support community media in minority settings.

Should we perhaps delve deeper into the issue, because, for one thing, there is a community radio station currently threatened with being shut down if tools are not provided to improve the situation. We can certainly ask questions about this during our next trip, and subsequently study the issue.

That's all I had to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much.

Does anyone else have anything to say?

Since no one else wants to speak and since there are no other items on the agenda, I'm going to end the meeting.

The meeting is adjourned. We will see each other again on Thursday.