It's always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Iacono. Thank you for that question.
I was appointed Minister of Official Languages about five months ago. From the start of my mandate, I've been privileged to meet many of my colleagues who are around this table, members of the opposition parties, senators and many stakeholders. I wanted to hear their comments on Bill C‑32 and find out what they'd like to see in its new version.
I've met many national and provincial groups. I met with the Société de l'Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick, or SANB, because it's in my riding. I met with the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the FCFA, the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario, or AFO, the Quebec Community Groups Network, the QCGN, and others. All those conversations gave me a lot of food for thought, and my thoughts were included in Bill C‑13, which we introduced three weeks ago.
I heard a number of people say that Bill C‑13 didn't include all the aspects that were in Bill C‑32. I want to state clearly that that's absolutely false. All the elements that were in Bill C‑32 are in Bill C‑13. However, we've gone even further. Stakeholders told me they wanted a more robust bill, and that's exactly what we introduced. I'd like to say I've met the expectations expressed in the comments we received from stakeholders. Here are a few examples.
I'd like to address the matter of the Commissioner of Official Languages. The Commissioner asked us for more powers and tools to do his job. We all acknowledge that the Commissioner of Official Languages, Raymond Théberge, is doing extremely important work to protect our official languages. However, the only power Mr. Théberge currently has is the power to conduct investigations and issue reports. So he wanted better tools to do his job, and that's precisely what we've given him.
We added tools in Bill C‑32, and, in Bill C‑13, we've also added administrative monetary penalties, which could be imposed on some federal institutions. In short, we want to ensure that our bill has teeth. We wanted to create a central agency, as was mentioned, since many stakeholders I spoke to raised the issue. That's precisely what we've done.
I genuinely hope we can work closely together to adopt Bill C‑13 as soon as possible since I'm really looking forward to continuing work on the regulatory framework. We definitely want to forge ahead.