Official Languages Committee on Feb. 10th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You are not presenting it?

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

No, we are withdrawing it from presentation.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I would like to offer a clarification. If an amendment that is in the bundle of amendments is not presented, it does not need to be withdrawn. However, if it is presented, then it needs the unanimous consent of the committee to withdraw it, as was the case earlier.

So amendment BA-13 is not being presented.

That brings us to amendment CPC-15, which is found at page 44 of our bundle of amendments. If amendment CPC-15 is adopted, amendment BQ-14 may not be moved, because its content is similar.

Mr. Godin, the floor is yours concerning amendment CPC-15.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You are going to see that we are sometimes consistent in the Conservative Party of Canada.

Amendment CPC-15 proposes that clause 13 of Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 26, page 8 the following:

(2) Section 33 of the Act is renumbered as subsection 33(1) and is amended by adding the following: (2) In exercising its powers and performing its duties and functions, the Governor in Council shall take into account the minority situation of French in Canada due to the predominant use of English and the linguistic specificity of Quebec.

That's it, Mr. Chair. I think it would be redundant to offer the same arguments.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Are there any questions?

Mr. Serré, the floor is yours.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know whether this was a request from the province of Quebec. I have a question to ask the people around the table.

With respect to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution of Canada, is there a problem with presenting this issue this way? Is it contrary to the Charter and the Constitution?

[Julie Boyer]

Thank you for the question.

As we discussed earlier, the subject here is the Governor in Council making regulations. The effect of the amendment would be to require that the Governor in Council take into account the minority situation of French in Canada. As my colleague Mr. Quelle said, we therefore have to ask ourselves whether the consequence of this would be that fewer services were offered to anglophones in minority communities, since the unique situation of French in North America is taken into account.

For example, under the current regulations, if there is a minority language school near federal offices that offer services, the services must be offered in both official languages. The wording proposed here says that the minority situation of French would have to be taken into account. So would bilingual services have to be offered automatically near anglophone minority schools? That could lead to a differentiated approach.

As we have said, what the provisions of Part IV of the Official Languages Act and the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms say is that services must be offered in both official languages to members of minority language communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Beaulieu, the floor is yours.

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

That is what we want. This amendment was requested by the Government of Quebec.

I can give the example of a case that would take into account the minority situation of French: signage. Instead of signage being strictly bilingual, French might predominate. The measures would always have to take into account, in the services, of the importance of the minority situation of French. Bilingualism applied uniformly from one end of the country to another results in the decline of minority languages like French.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Généreux, the floor is yours.

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

I'm trying to understand your reasoning when it comes to adding these sections to the Official Languages Act. You seem to be assuming that its effect might be that fewer services would be offered to anglophones in Quebec, for example.

Earlier, reference was made to post offices. Obviously, it isn't necessary to have bilingual employees in every post office in the country. It is not necessary to have them where there is no demand.

Are you making the same comparison here?

If so, why?

[Carsten Quell]

We have to imagine, in the concrete cases where a service is offered, how the government would take these new provisions into account. We are being asked to take the minority situation of French and the predominant use of English into account.

What would the consequences be? The purpose of the act already provides that we are sensitive to the situation in Quebec. Signage might be a concrete example. There is a rule that in federal offices in Quebec, French takes precedence over English, but the size of the letters, for example, is the same in English and French.

Would these new provisions mean that we would reduce the size of the letters in French?

These may be simplistic examples, but, as Ms. Boyer said about services offered in minority language schools, the services offered to the anglophone minority population in minority language communities have to be treated differently. We don't have the choice of taking this into account in the regulations.

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

My question is for Mr. Quell or Mr. Newman.

Are the existing laws—both in Quebec, like Bill 101, Bill 96, and in Canada, including the bill we are now debating—not already specific enough?

I agree with Mr. Beaulieu, and we have talked about this on several occasions during the analysis and the design of this bill: the decline of French is a reality that no longer needs to be proved. We have to do everything in our power to halt that decline and improve the presence of French in North America, particularly in Quebec, but also everywhere in Canada where French is in the minority.

You talked about signage laws in Quebec. To my knowledge, they are quite clear, and even if we add this section, its objective is to halt the decline of French and take into account certain factors specific to Quebec.

I would refer to what we experienced last week. I don't want to start the debate over again, but Mr. Housefather and Mr. Garneau raised points that I considered to be legitimate and very interesting. Essentially, however, if we all say that French is in danger, we have to adopt provisions like that in the Official Languages Act to make sure that the decline of French is taken into account and the deterioration if French is stopped.

[Carsten Quell]

The government has committed to promoting and protecting French. There is a consensus in Bill C-13 on this point. We are talking about federal services here. We are not talking about provincial services. As I said, this is about post offices and Service Canada centres, for example.

In those cases, in Quebec, all federal services are already offered in French. All federal offices in Quebec offer service in French automatically. Here, the issue is how to guarantee comparable treatment for the anglophone minority in Quebec. There are certain rules associated with that.

In the current act, the two communities are treated the same way. When a federal office is located near a minority language school, it has to offer service in that language. Whether in Quebec or outside Quebec, the service is offered in both languages when there is a minority community.

That is the basis of the treatment. That being said, we have to remember that the federal government offers all its services in French within Quebec at all times. Offering services in English as well is an another plus.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Quell.

Mr. Housefather, the floor is yours.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I had just a couple of questions for the officials, if it's okay.

My understanding is, again, that this is an asymmetrical treatment that is not the original purpose of Bill C-13, but I wanted to understand the effects.

Can you confirm that this change will not add any new French services in Quebec but could indeed cause English services in Quebec to be reduced, and that nobody would know what the court's interpretation of this clause would actually mean?

[Julie Boyer]

To the first part of your question, yes, you are correct.

On the second part, I'm not sure how the courts would interpret it.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay. Thank you.

Basically, this serves only to reduce, potentially, English services in Quebec. That's all I wanted to clarify.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Ms. Ashton, the floor is yours.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

I would like to ask the experts a question.

I would like to ask the officials whether the Governor in Council is not already required to take into account the minority situation of French and whether it is already taken into account.

[Warren Newman]

I am going to try to answer the question.

First, as you well know, we have interpretation provisions set out at the beginning of the act. By the amendment that was adopted the other day, we have added that the provisions of the act are to be interpreted by taking into account that French is in a minority situation in Canada and North America due to the predominant use of English. They must also be interpreted in such a way as to take into account the different needs of the English linguistic minority community in Quebec and the French linguistic minority communities in the other provinces and territories.

In terms of implementing the regulations made under Part IV, which deal with services in English and French, the specificity of the communities may be taken into account. That has been in the act since 1988. The regulations also take that specificity into account.

It does not seem to us to be necessary to go beyond that, when the purpose of Part IV of the Official Languages Act is to implement a constitutional guarantee set out in black and white in section 20 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you.

Mr. Beaulieu, the floor is yours.

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

Essentially, that represents the difference between the two systems.

In the rest of Canada, all services are virtually exclusively in English, and they are supposed to be offered in French only where numbers justify or there is significant demand. Often, when there is significant demand, there are insufficient services in French. Newcomers therefore have no choice: they join the English side. In fact, 99 per cent of language transfers are to English.

Quebec is the only francophone state in North America, the only place where newcomers can really be integrated in French, and that is what we see.

Now let's look at the interpretation of certain provisions when it comes to institutional bilingualism or the equality of the two languages, for a newcomer arriving in Quebec. If there is active offer in bilingual signage, they are given the message that they can choose English and that French is not necessarily the common language. Newcomers are not being sufficiently francized.

That is why it is important to include this factor and for it to be possible for federal services to be adapted in order to demonstrate that, ideally, French is the common language in Quebec and maybe, even, that it is predominant. Perfect symmetry does not allow for francizing newcomers and securing the future of French in Quebec.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Godin, we're listening.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just heard, in reply to a question asked by my colleague Mr. Housefather, that anglophones in Quebec would be hurt as a result of this amendment. That is what I understood.

I am finding it hard to understand how they could be hurt.

I will reread amendment CPC-15, which would add this to section 33 of the act:

(2) In exercising its powers and performing its duties and functions, the Governor in Council shall take into account the minority situation of French in Canada due to the predominant use of English and the linguistic specificity of Quebec.

That is a real thing. That is an observation.

In this amendment, we are asking that the Governor in Council take into account the minority situation of French; it is not an obligation. We are not trying to use this amendment to disadvantage anglophones in Quebec. The purpose of this amendment is to protect French in Quebec and elsewhere. However, we understand that the content proposed in this amendment is more specific to Quebec.

Could you explain what you said earlier about the repercussions of this amendment for anglophones and anglophone minorities in Quebec? I don't understand your remarks.