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.