I, for one, am going to make a bit of a longer introduction.
In my opinion, there are two main problems with the Official Languages Act. The first is that it does not consider francophones in Quebec to be part of the francophone minority in Canada, yet they are the largest francophone minority. As a result, all groups that defend and promote French in Quebec are excluded and are not consulted.
I'm simplifying the facts a little bit, but let's say there are two main models of language planning. One model is based on institutional bilingualism and individual rights, and the other is based more on collective rights and the principle of territoriality. Almost everywhere, models of institutional bilingualism of the kind we see here lead in many cases to the assimilation of minority languages or, in other words, to language transfer.
The Quebec model is based more on the principle of language rights. The fact that French is the common official language in Quebec does not preclude services in English from being offered to the English-speaking minority. In fact, Quebec is probably the most bilingual province in Canada. It is where anglophones receive the most services. They have so many services that it ends up promoting the linguistic transfer to English among allophones. That's one point of view.
The Official Languages Act will likely be modernized this year. In Quebec, the Charter of the French Language will be updated. It would be interesting to assess the impact of the official languages policy and institutional bilingualism on the situation of French in Quebec.
The second problem with the Official Languages Act is the principle behind the words “where numbers warrant”, which means that, in French-speaking and Acadian communities, when French declines, when there are fewer francophones, services in French are reduced. Perhaps the opposite should be done.
One of the effects of this is that francophones outside Quebec are trying to broaden the definition of “francophone” and change the indicators to make it appear that there are more of them in order to get more services. That is legitimate. However, I think we need to find a mechanism that will make it possible to no longer have to skew, to change the number of francophones in order to obtain services in French. In my opinion, if we could do that, we would really move the debate forward. Otherwise, it would be as if, in order to reduce unemployment, we would change the employment statistics; it would give the impression that we have solved the problem. It is important that the picture be realistic and objective and that measures be taken to remedy the situation.
Recently, even analyses of Statistics Canada's language projections indicated a rather worrisome decline in French in Quebec. In fact, over the next 20 to 25 years, the proportion of people whose mother tongue and language of use is French is expected to decline significantly. I don't know if it's possible to incorporate this into the motion. I would simply like to avoid postponing this issue until later.
