Official Languages Committee on Dec. 5th, 2017

[Raymond Théberge]

Exactly.

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

You said that members of the community were also involved in the process.

I ask you this question very sincerely: do you think that could be a way of choosing commissioners in the future? I'm talking about the commissioner of official languages.

However, the communities involved could be members of a possible selection committee. I don't think that was the case this time, because it's a government process. In fact, the government contracted an external firm.

Do you think that would be something we should be looking at? Maybe this is a suggestion you could make, as a commissioner, to avoid fiascos like the one in the spring.

[Raymond Théberge]

We have read a lot of things, after what happened in several organizations, including the FCFA, the SANB, the SNA and other groups. We've talked about the process. Should I be speaking about the process? I don't know, but it's clear that this position is extremely important for the future of francophone and anglophone minority communities.

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

I'm putting the idea forward because it might be an interesting way of doing it in the future.

I now want to talk about your ability to be independent of the government that just appointed you, even though it outsourced the process to an outside firm. The minister didn't intervene this time, unlike the other time.

Do you feel totally independent from the government that appointed you? Of course, the government has to appoint someone who can criticize it in terms of management, governance, bills, and so on. It's important to consider this aspect as well.

[Raymond Théberge]

Absolutely.

During my career, I have worked for Conservative and Liberal governments, as well as for a New Democrat government, in Manitoba. My role will be to defend and promote linguistic duality in Canada. If the government needs to be criticized and pursued, that's what we are going to do.

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

I would like to give you an opportunity to criticize the government, if I may.

I will start with a digression.

Our official languages committee is working extremely well right now. We all do a very good job here, no matter what party we represent. You said earlier that you read our last report. We will present another one next week.

Despite some reluctance from each of our parties, I can assure you that our committee is independent. The minister said that the committees are independent; I can guarantee you that ours is. We even go against some things.

In interviews, which have gone down in history, the minister said that before, governments were working in isolation, but the current government is taking a whole-of-government approach.

Now, the departments are sending the ball back and saying that it's not their fault, it's the other's fault and things like that. I don't think there is a perfect approach, whether it's vertical or horizontal, but we have to make sure that all the departments fulfill their official languages responsibilities, which is not currently the case.

[Raymond Théberge]

I've been working in this area for a long time. In the 1980s, people were already saying that the interdepartmental approach was the solution for meeting the needs of minority communities.

The fact remains that each department… [technical difficulties]

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

We're going to suspend the meeting for 30 seconds.

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

Since the technical problems are ongoing, we're going to adjourn.