Thank you for that question.
I've taken a detailed look at the outstanding work that's been done to illustrate very specific amendments in real terms. As you can see, I really agree with these amendments. If I picture myself sitting on a parliamentary committee, I can understand that it has limited time to make a certain number of amendments. However, it has to set priorities. I can agree that there's a somewhat repetitive aspect to certain amendments, but all of them are, in a way, important. The idea is to take the intent expressed in the preamble to the act and ensure it is reflected in the rest of it in every instance where, for example, powers are delegated to the executive branch, particularly the power to make regulations and take certain actions. On that point, if we categorized those amendments, we would see that many of them are designed simply to ensure that the federal government's recognition of the fact that it must cooperate and stop the decline of French in Quebec is reflected in the rest of the act. It also has to be acknowledged that the province in which French is the official and common language, in a manner respectful of anglophones' rights, is a precious value for Canada. So I see one group of amendments concerning that.
I also think another group of amendments is very important. The federal government can indeed enter into administrative agreements with Quebec, but why not include an obligation to enter into such agreements in the act? The legislator must signal that we want to cooperate on these agreements and that we want to do so in such a way that the application of federal language policy in Quebec won't be perfectly symmetrical or identical to what it will be in the rest of Canada.
From my understanding of the enormous amount of work that's been done on the proposed amendments, the simplest thing would be to group them together by objective. I really see two major groups of measures concerning the types of agreements, the fate of language clauses in Quebec, a framework agreement and how the federal power is exercised. In my mind, all that constitutes the cooperation and agreements component.
I think the other component is the recognition of the decline of French—the shift formalized by the act—which the federal government also wants to do in order to contribute to stopping it.