It will be a pleasure.
You must remember that the Emergency Measures Act replaced the War Measures Act in 1988, one week before the second Official Languages Act was passed. Members of Parliament had those two acts in mind in 1988.
I think that was a missed opportunity because the members made it so that the two acts didn't speak to each other. We always say that hindsight is 20/20, but it would have been possible and desirable—we have an opportunity to correct this—to ensure that respect for and the precedence of the Official Languages Act are expressly stated in the Emergency Measures Act.
Here's the connection with Mr. Blaney's comment. The Official Languages Act is already a quasi-constitutional act, and its precedence is already provided for in its section 82. Given its privileged status relative to other federal statutes, it would be helpful if its primacy were reflected in legislation such as the Emergency Measures Act and invoked and restated when special measures are passed. I'm thinking, for example, of emergency measures legislation passed in connection with COVID-19 in March and April. I'd also like to make the connection with what my colleague Ms. Chouinard said earlier, that this would encourage the bilingualism "reflex" and help us switch off autopilot and understand that we have to do everything in both languages.
Here's one way I explain the matter to students in my language rights course. In 1982, when, as a result of the charter, Canada became a constitutionally bilingual country, we took the Official Languages Act of 1969 and included it in our supreme law. We essentially made bilingualism so much a part of Canada's DNA that, when Canada catches a cold, it has to sneeze in both languages. That's the automatic reflex I want Canada to have in this new Official Languages Act.