Official Languages Committee on Jan. 31st, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Serré, the floor is yours.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As Ms. Ashton said earlier, I would like to briefly point out that paragraphs 1 and 3 are acceptable.

Mr. Beaulieu, I also want to be clear with you and the Bloc Québécois. In the amendment you're proposing, you are once again taking away the rights of francophones outside Quebec, who are in a minority situation. You do this repeatedly, and it's not acceptable in any section of the bill. To me, a Franco-Ontarian, it's completely unacceptable. You need to respect francophones, and we're not going to deprive minorities in this country of their rights. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor.

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

The intent was to weaken the rights of francophones outside Quebec. We can change the wording or move things around, but the fact remains that francophones outside Quebec and those in Quebec share the same cause, in my view.

I'd like to remind you that the federal government is elected by the anglophone majority and it has greater power to legislate than Quebec does. To me, all we need to say is that we respect Quebec and its freedom to ensure the future of its language.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

If there are no further questions, we will go to a vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We will now move on to amendment BQ‑1.1.

Before I go any further, I'd like to ask members to concentrate, because I will be referring to several clauses and talking about several proposed amendments.

According to House Procedure and Practice, Third Edition: Amendments must be proposed following the order of the text to be amended. Once a line of a clause has been amended by the committee, it cannot be further amended by a subsequent amendment as a given line may be amended only once.

If amendment BQ‑1.1 passes, amendments CPC‑2, LIB‑1, LIB‑2, NDP‑1, CPC‑3, LIB‑3 and LIB‑4 can't be moved due to line conflicts. Once a line is amended, we cannot go back.

Mr. Beaulieu, would you like to say something about your proposed amendment?

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

I will present it, but I believe the Conservatives want to move a subamendment.

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

Absolutely.

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

So I will take the floor after that.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

How would you like to do this?

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

I will speak to the subamendment I am moving before we speak to the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Okay.

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

We move that amendment BQ‑1.1 be amended (a) in paragraph (b), replacing the words “lines 25 to 35” with the following: “lines 31 to 35”, and (b) in paragraph (f), by replacing the words “lines 16 to 29” with the following: “lines 16 to 20”.

This would cover what Ms. Boyer mentioned earlier. It would re-establish the Indigenous provisions and emergency provisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Perhaps it would be wise to suspend the meeting so we can study these amendments.

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

Would you like me to repeat them, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

No. I believe everyone has them in writing.

Is that correct, Madam Clerk?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Michelle Legault]

Yes. We also have a digital copy.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We now have the paper copy and we will soon have the digital copy.

Let's take a few moments to familiarize ourselves with the subamendment and then we'll come back to it in a few minutes.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We are back.

After checking, I'd like to clarify that this subamendment doesn't change amendment BQ‑1.1's impact on the subsequent amendments I listed earlier. All committee members should bear that in mind.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

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

We therefore move that the amendment BQ‑1.1 be amended:(a) in paragraph (b), by replacing the words “lines 25 to 35” with the following:“lines 31 to 35”(b) in paragraph (f), by replacing the words “lines 16 to 29” with the following:“lines 16 to 20”

This would keep everything involving Indigenous people and emergency situations in the bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Are there any questions or queries?

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor.

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

This motion takes a differentiated approach as well and leaves in everything involving francophones outside Quebec. I will now introduce our amendment.

In item (a) of our amendment, rather than saying that every person has the opportunity to learn a second language, we move that the federal government recognize “the duty to provide opportunities for everyone” to learn a second language. In Quebec, it's mandatory to learn English. We believe that the same thing should be true in Canada and that everyone should be able to learn French.

Next, with respect to item (b), lines 23 to 30 are covered later on, as you will see. The part that remains to be removed concerns the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, whose mandate is to serve the francophone minorities across the country, among others.

In item (c) of our amendment, we move to replace the following passage in the bill:AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of the contribution of francophone immigration to enhancing the vitality of French linguistic minority communities and that immigration is one of the factors that contributes to maintaining or increasing the demographic weight of those communities;

with

AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of remedying the decline in the demographic weight of French linguistic minority communities, including by fostering the re-establishment and growth of their demographic weight; AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of francophone immigration in enhancing the vitality of French linguistic minority communities, including by fostering the re-establishment and growth of their demographic weight;

The two lines removed from item (d) in our amendments, “AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the presence of English or French linguistic minority communities in each province and territory”, are repeated later. Clause 2 of the bill would therefore continue with the following:

AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the diversity of the provincial and territorial language regimes that contribute to the advancement of the equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society, including that the Constitution of Canada provides every person with the right to use English or French in the debates of the Houses of the Legislature of Quebec and those of the Legislature of Manitoba and the right to use English or French in any pleading or process in or from the courts...

In item (e) of our amendment, we propose to rephrase the sentence that the Quebec Charter of the French Language provides that French is the official language of Quebec by adding “and common” after the word “official”. This would make French a common language that help all people to communicate with each other, an essential factor for social cohesion, in my view.

In item (f) of our amendment, we move to replace the three final paragraphs of subsection 2(3) of the bill with the following:

AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the presence of English or French linguistic minority communities in each province and territory and that Quebec's anglophone minority and the francophone minorities in the other provinces and territories have different needs; AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes that the existence of a majority-French society in a Quebec where the future of French is assured is a legitimate objective and a fundamental principle of the Canadian official languages regime;

So we kind of return to what we were saying earlier. If French doesn't survive and flourish in Quebec, that would affect the entire Francophonie in Canada and North America and, essentially, all linguistic diversity. I feel it's important to recognize that.

There you have it, that summarizes our amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

This would be followed by the paragraph re-established by Mr. Généreux's proposed subamendment, right?

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

Yes, I agree with that subamendment, and we maintain the rest.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

The re-established paragraph would read as follows:

AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of preserving and enhancing the use of other languages and reclaiming, revitalizing and strengthening the Indigenous languages while strengthening the status and use of the official languages;

Did I get that right?