Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It seems to me that the subcommittee is taking a long time to do its work. It's a bit like what's happening here at the table: There are a lot of discussions but very few conclusions at the moment. So I'm happy to hear what's happening on the subcommittee.
I want to pick up where I left off last time.
As I said, the purpose of my amendment is to reach out to my colleagues around this table so that we can take action on very important issues, such as the education continuum.
Really, it would be the first time in Canadian history that we would actually be talking about a continuum. The committee's analyst, who has a great deal of expertise, could confirm that. Indeed, that word has been used in the past, but it has never been recognized under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the Constitution Act, 1982. I am referring specifically to section 23, which deals with education. If I remember correctly, the Charter recognizes the right to minority language instruction for persons aged 5 to 18. Some might say it goes up to age 21. I'm not sure how it was described at the time.
I remind you that I started by talking to you about French in Canada. As you well know, the first French settlers in Canada arrived in Nova Scotia in 1604 and 1605. Some people wonder about the location of that piece of land, but, more or less, when La Sagouine tells us that it's the cradle of Acadia, who might well doubt it?
So the first French settlers arrived in Nova Scotia, not in Quebec. I just want to point out that Samuel de Champlain didn't go all the way from Nova Scotia to Quebec. I apologize for telling you that. I know some people would like to believe that, but that's not the case. Samuel de Champlain landed in our region in 1604. I hear my colleague talking about Isle Madame. In principle, of course, Samuel de Champlain also toured Isle Madame on his way to Quebec. You are no doubt somewhat familiar with the map of Nova Scotia and, of course, the road to Quebec City.
So I wanted to start with that. It's very important to say that the first French settlers arrived in the cradle of Acadia.
That said, in fairness to my colleagues from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, I must say that the land of Acadia at that time was not limited to the current territory of Nova Scotia, but also included the territory now occupied by New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The Acadians were deported in 1755 for reasons related to their lands.
I want to take you now to 1755; we're moving forward in time.
Then came the Great Upheaval, that is to say the deportation of the Acadians. As you well know, this was a very sad time in our history. The men had been invited to go to the church, where they were told they were going to be transported by ship. Ideally, they would have liked to return to France, but that's not what happened. They didn't know that. They were also promised that families would not be separated, but they were. We all know the damage that has caused. We're well aware of Evangeline and Gabriel's story. I could go into the details of that story as well.
So in 1755, the Acadians were deported. The homes on their land were burned down, and then anglophones came and took their land. The Acadians had cultivated that land at the time to make it more fertile.
Having said that, I don't want to get too far back in history. I want to go back to the basics, which is the education continuum, of course.
I'd now like to take you back to 1969. Between 1962 and 1968, my father said that we were doing good work in Parliament, in Ottawa. We weren't having fun talking about all kinds of things, but we were focused on establishing a bilingualism act. That act was going to assign certain powers. That's where my comments are related to the amendment I moved to Mr. Beaulieu's motion: The goal was to move forward and make progress.
Before I tell you what the Liberals did in 1969 under the leadership of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, I'd like to acknowledge the excellent work of Lester B. Pearson, who supported much of the work that resulted in the Official Languages Act. To my mind, that completely changed the situation on the ground in Nova Scotia. I also think I can safely say it also changed the situation across Canada, especially outside Quebec. It also supported the good work that Quebec was doing and that it's still doing in order to be the master of its own house. We know that those were hard years in Quebec too.
So that was a major step forward. Nova Scotia, which, without that, would probably be a unilingual anglophone province today, is still increasing its influence, growing and becoming established thanks to its strong institutions, by which I of course mean its universities. Mr. Beaulieu has tabled a very important motion on post-secondary educational institutions. The Université Sainte-Anne has been an extremely important institution for Acadians, being the only francophone institution in Nova Scotia. That's why I say my colleague Mr. Beaulieu's motion is so important. This takes me back to the time when Acadians supported the idea of having the Université Sainte-Anne in Clare. I don't know if you're aware of it, but anglophones wanted to move the Université Sainte-Anne in Clare to Yarmouth. There was a big fight to prevent it, but we managed to make our case and to ensure that the university would stay in the community, then and for the future. This is important. Post-secondary education is an issue that my colleague Mr. Beaulieu had proposed as a topic for study. I'd like the committee to complete that study and then address the continuum issue as a whole.
We managed to ensure that the only francophone institution in Nova Scotia remained in Clare, but that's not what happened on Isle Madame. I'm going to tell you that story because I imagine most of you don't know it.
This is the story of St. Francis Xavier University, where, incidentally, Brian Mulroney studied. I imagine you know that since people have often talked about it. Before St. F.X. became the post-secondary institution it is today, it was Arichat College. So St. Francis Xavier University started out on Isle Madame. I don't know if Mr. Godin was aware of it, but St. F.X. was founded in Arichat on ISLE Madame. I went there and was very disappointed—