Official Languages Committee on Feb. 10th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I'll now call the meeting to order.

We are starting the meeting a little late owing to some technical difficulties.

Welcome to the 49th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, May 30, 2022, the committee resumed consideration of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

Pursuant to our routine motion, I am informing the committee that all members have carried out the connection tests required prior to the meeting.

We are today resuming our clause-by-clause study of Bill C-13.

I would once again like to thank the officials who have come to support the committee by answering technical questions. Their presence is extremely helpful to us. I therefore welcome Ms. Julie Boyer, Mr. Marcel Fallu and Ms. Chantal Terrien, from the Department of Canadian Heritage, as well as Mr. Carsten Quell, from the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Mr. Warren Newman, from the Department of Justice.

We will therefore resume the clause-by-clause study of the bill.

(Clause 11)

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We had got to consideration of clause 11. I believe that at the end of our last meeting, we adopted amendment LIB-11, which was about clause 11 of the bill and had completed our study of this clause.

I'm now going to call for a vote on clause 11 as amended.

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

I request a recorded division, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Fine.

Before voting, I'd like to point out that we are talking about clause 11 in its entirety. All amendments concerning this clause have been presented, debated and voted upon. We are now voting on clause 11 of Bill C-13 as amended.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Chair, we normally don't hold a recorded division on an entire clause. We simply proceed by unanimous consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Yes, but there is no unanimous consent in this instance. That's what Mr. Beaulieu was insinuating.

We are experiencing some technical difficulties here in the room, which is preventing us from voting. I must therefore suspend the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I am now calling the meeting back to order.

I apologize for the interruption. There were technical difficulties in the room.

We were about to vote on clause 11 as amended.

Mr. Godin, you have the floor.

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

Mr. Chair, it's important to remember that the party in power limited our debate to eight meetings. Will the time lost this morning and in previous meetings be taken into consideration at some point so that we can have at least the equivalent of eight full meetings to complete our work.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Without wishing to contradict you, Mr. Vice-Chair, I would like to point out that the number of meetings was unanimously adopted by all members of the committee. It was not limited to eight meetings by the government.

I have also checked with our team, and it would be possible to make up for the time lost. We would have to agree on the amount of time at issue. We could extend today's meeting, even though it would be impossible for me to stay any longer. I have to leave at 10:45 a.m. on the dot because I have another committee meeting. In any event, the answer as to whether we can make up for the lost time is yes. We could discuss it outside of the meetings to avoid causing any delays in our work today, and come to an agreement on how to do so. Do we want to extend a future meeting or add another meeting? We can discuss it later. I think the committee members would really like to make up for the time that was lost.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You are absolutely right about the number of meetings. It hurts us to say so, but yes, it was indeed a unanimous decision.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, Oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

As the chair, I'm unable to determine how people feel, but I was well aware of the fact that all of the political parties had agreed to these eight meetings.

Let's start over with the vote on clause 11 as amended.

(Clause 11 as amended carried: yeas 6; nays 5)

(Clause 12)

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

That brings us to clause 12.

We have got to amendment BQ-8, which is on page 34 of the amendments package.

Mr. Beaulieu, before giving you the floor, I'd like to point out to the committee members that the differences in the wording of the French and English versions of amendment BQ-8, are consistent with the rules of legislative writing. The legislative clerk has already checked with the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, which drafted the amendment, that the French and English versions are correct and equivalent. If the amendment is adopted, the final outcome will be the same in both languages. In other words, if there was any confusion or doubt about this, I can assure you that it has already been checked by our legislative clerk and everything is okay.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor.

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

Basically, the amendment proposes that clause 12 of Bill C-13 be amended to include the following:

(2) A decision, order or judgment issued by a federal court, including any reasons given for it, shall be issued first in one of the official languages and then, at the earliest possible time, in the other official language, with each version to be effective from the time the first version is effective, if...the court is of the opinion that the obligation under subsection (1) would occasion a delay prejudicial to the public interest or resulting in injustice or hardship to any party to the proceedings leading to its issuance.

The proposed amendment also includes adding the following to the bill:

(2.1) No costs related to the obligation set out in subsection (1) are to be charged to any party to the proceedings

The purpose is to ensure that francophones subject to trial have access to all jurisprudence, and not only jurisprudence available in French, as is currently the case.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Are there any questions about amendment BQ-8? I don't see anyone.

We will therefore vote on the amendment.

(The amendment is defeated: nays 6; yeas 5) [See minutes]

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I would just like to make a comment about something I intended to mention at the beginning of the meeting.

Mr. Beaulieu, thank you for having read your previous amendment to the committee. We are not required to read the amendments as such, because we have the documents in front of us, but some people listening to us asked whether it might be possible to do so. I just wanted to mention that to you in passing.

Let's return to clause 12.

Is there unanimous consent to adopt it as is?

Mr. Godin, you have the floor.

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

Could you repeat your question, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Amendment BQ-8, which proposed an amendment to clause 12 of Bill C-13, has been defeated, and there are no further amendments to clause 12.

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

Am I correct in saying that the new clause 12.1 that we want to propose is not part of clause 12.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We had a similar situation at the last meeting, with respect to the new clause 10.1 being proposed.

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

We would therefore like to have a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

M. Beaulieu says that he is in agreement to adopt clause 12, but we are going to have a recorded division for greater clarity.

(Clause 12 is carried: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We will now proceed to the study of amendment CPC-11, which proposes the addition of clause 12.1 to Bill C-13.

Mr. Godin, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have heard the witnesses and would like to properly represent those organizations that informed us of their concerns. I would like to mention that amendment CPC-11 was suggested by the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada.

The amendment proposes that Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 12 on page 8 the following new clause:

12.1 Subsection 23(1) of the Act is replaced by the following: 23 (1) For greater certainty, in addition to the duty set out in section 22, every federal institution that provides services or makes them available to the travelling public has the duty to ensure that any member of the travelling public can communicate with and obtain those services in either official language from any office or facility of the institution in Canada or elsewhere where there is significant demand for those services in that language.

I don't believe that there is a need to present any arguments for this amendment. It's only logical, insofar as we wish to be consistent and make sure that our citizens can be served in both official languages

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Serré.