Official Languages Committee on Feb. 25th, 2020

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Okay.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

My other point has to do with…

Ms. Lattanzio, I'll let you go ahead.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I indicated to the chair that I would like to speak, but I'll wait until you're done.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

That might be one possible avenue, but there's someone who disagrees less.

I pretty much summed up what I was saying earlier. The Official Languages Act aims to strengthen English in Quebec. All the money in the official languages program is given to support anglophone groups and their institutions, while French is in decline. That being said, another one is being started—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

We aren't going to solve everything all at once. Still, I'll give you an idea of where I'm headed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

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

We're just beginning our deliberations.

I have a very simple question. Were these two motions discussed at the subcommittee meeting this morning?

Mr. Beaulieu, were you there?

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Yes, we had the same discussion.

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

You had the same discussions.

A subcommittee is used to indicate what we are going to talk about and our direction. I feel like we're going in circles. In any case, we're beginning our discussions.

Those who are new to this will find out fairly quickly—this was the case in the past, at least—that there is good cooperation between all the parties. It is very friendly, and it allows us to move forward in various ways to protect all francophone communities across Canada and anglophone communities in Quebec. That is our objective here. There isn't much room for partisanship in that.

I understand that Mr. Beaulieu wasn't necessarily taking a strictly partisan angle, but we need to give ourselves time to be able to begin our work.

Otherwise, if we get into such fundamental issues as what you just talked about, Mr. Beaulieu, we'll never get out of it. We'll be discussing the first motion for the next six months.

We're dealing with some very deep issues here. I'm neither for nor against it. We need to have these discussions, I agree, but we can't just think we're going to lump it all together in one motion.

We have to produce it at some point. If we're going to deliver, we have to be productive and we have to move forward in time. There will be time over the next few months or even years to deal with much more complex vision issues.

You can't get too caught up in a motion. There will be no end.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Ms. Lattanzio, you have the floor.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I would like to thank my colleague, Mr. Généreux. He summed up exactly what I was going to say.

I'm from Quebec and have an anglophone background, and my perspective isn't the one you presented on services for anglophones. I agree that this is an issue that could be studied later, but I wouldn't want us to get bogged down in another debate that isn't necessarily the subject of our motion.

We should stay focused on the issues at hand. We are talking about minority rights. In Quebec, anglophones are the minority. I understand what you are arguing today. You're saying that Quebec is the minority in Canada. I agree with that.

However, we should stick to the motion as it stands. Then we will see if there are other issues. Otherwise, we get bogged down in other debates and other issues. I don't see the relationship between what you've just proposed and the motion on the table. It's out of context.

I understand there's a connection. It connects with my experience. However, the motion must remain as it is. Let's have the discussion and hear from witnesses. Then, if there are other issues that need to be dealt with from a national perspective or from the perspective of minorities in the country, and if that is the will of the committee members, we'll do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

The role of the subcommittee is not to decide what motions are coming forward to committee. This is the right of every individual member. The role of the subcommittee is to come back with recommendations—i.e., we now have this, that and the other—to try to streamline a calendar. That comes back to the committee and the committee can look at it. It's still the role of individual members to decide if they have a problem. It is the right of every individual member to bring a motion. It is the right of every other member to either agree or suggest an amendment. If there's no amendment, then one can say they won't support it for whatever philosophical reason. But I think there is a motion and it is in order.

Mr. Beaulieu, I don't know if I heard an amendment that was clear on this.

If there is one, we vote on the amendment. If there isn't one, then we say whether or not we support it. That's what we have to keep in mind. This motion is in order. It is within the confines of the role of the committee. It might be philosophically different from my colleague's beside me, but it's the right of Ms. Lambropoulos to bring it and for us to decide whether we support it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I would just like to say that it’s not philosophical, but that it's very concrete.

According to Statistics Canada's projective studies, the French language is expected to decline fairly rapidly.

Whether in terms of mother tongue, language of use at home, first language of use, first official language spoken, there is debate about indicators. In my opinion, when we talk about official language minorities, Quebec is one of them.

Even the UN Human Rights Committee considered that Quebec anglophones were part of the majority and, therefore, not a minority as defined by the UN. I am one of those who want anglophones to flourish and prosper, and I'm not at all against the rights of the historical anglophone minority. However, for me, it's important to take this into consideration.

When we look at the results for the francophone and Acadian communities, we see that there are considerable language transfers from francophones to English. The lowest results are in Acadia, but it is still in the order of 12 or 13%.

If we want to ensure that there is linguistic duality in Canada, we must therefore look at the problem as a whole. Saying that we're only going to study the promotion of bilingualism from that perspective until June, and then we will see in a few years, it will be a little late.

However, I can propose an amendment to add the point I mentioned earlier. I don't know if people would agree or if it would make the discussion too long, but I think it all goes together. It would read as follows: “study the impact of the Official Languages Act and institutional bilingualism on the situation of French in Quebec”.

I'm not against what you proposed earlier for outside Quebec, but I'm not sure if you were proposing it again—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay.

Mr. Beaulieu, as Mr. Angus also explained, there is a formal motion on the table. Before I turn the floor over to Mr. Godin, I would like to say that we should think about proposing and writing this amendment so that we can discuss it, vote on it and then deal with the main motion. It would be nice to have it in writing. In the meantime, we will—

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I already have it in writing. Would you like me to text it to you or would you like me to write it by hand?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You just have to write the amendment by hand and submit it to the clerk to see if it is admissible.

In the meantime, Mr. Godin would also like to say something.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, I don't completely disagree with my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. We can play with numbers when we change the units of measure. So we have to be careful. I share his question in this regard.

However, with regard to the motion on the table, I have an amendment to propose, and its purpose is to move the committee forward.

I will read the passages where there are corrections: In the first line, “That pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(f), the Committee initiate a study to examine how the Government of Canada may”. I'm removing “at least 10 meetings”.

Moving on to the next point: "(b) promote bilingualism in minority regions;" I'm taking out everything else.

I'm beginning the last paragraph with “that the Committee presents”, which means that I'm removing “that this study be completed by June 2020;”. There is no time limit. As for the promotion of bilingualism, some regions that don't need the promotion of bilingualism, such as Quebec, are being eliminated.

That's what I'm proposing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

All right.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Is that clear?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, Ms. Lambropoulos?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I agree that the number of meetings should be removed, because that's going to depend on the witness list, which we do not have yet. However, with regard to item (b), its purpose is really to make Canada a bilingual country from coast to coast to coast.

If English speakers in Saskatchewan happen to want to learn French, they should be able to do so. They should be given the opportunity to do so and more chances that it will happen. However, I don't know if I want this to be limited to situations where there are minority communities. It kind of runs counter to promoting bilingualism across Canada, which is what we should be doing.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I would like to add something for committee members. Last year or the year before, we visited western Canada. Statistics show, as Mr. Généreux can attest, that bilingualism is stagnating among English speakers outside Quebec and New Brunswick. In many anglophone communities, people want to send their children to immersion schools. In my opinion, based on everything we have heard, that is the most practical solution to having people become bilingual if they wish to do so but do not have the tools. I am saying that as an example. There are other tools and other ways, but a study needs to be done on that to see what the demands are, what the tools are, what infrastructure can be offered to them, how it's done elsewhere, and vice versa in Quebec.

Quebecers and Acadians are fairly bilingual. Quebec anglophones are very bilingual compared to the rest of Canada's anglophones. We still need to conduct a Canada-wide study. This is about Canada's Official Languages Act, which deals with two minority communities, one outside Quebec and the other within Quebec.

I understand my colleagues' reluctance with respect to the 10 days, but nothing in this motion's current form prevents Mr. Beaulieu from asking the same questions of witnesses. At the end of the day, I think we are going to end up with the same motion. If we eventually need to go further and focus on something more specific at Mr. Beaulieu's request, we will have the opportunity to do that. There will be a lot to study. The Standing Committee on Official Languages has no shortage of ideas.

I think that it is important to keep the bilingualism provision as it is written.