Official Languages Committee on March 10th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 53 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to our routine motion, I want to let you know that all members and all witnesses did the necessary connection tests before the meeting.

Pursuant to the order of reference adopted on Monday, May 30, 2022, the committee is resuming its examination 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.

Welcome to the officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, who are here to support the committee on technical issues.

From the Department of Canadian Heritage, we again have with us Ms. Boyer, Mr. Fallu and Ms. Terrien.

From the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, we have Mr. Saint-Germain, who will be joining us shortly by videoconference.

From Treasury Board Secretariat, we again have Mr. Quell with us.

Before beginning, I would like to give you a few updates.

Mr. Beaulieu, are you wanting to speak to the agenda?

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

I would like to move a motion for us to go immediately to the part of the meeting dealing with committee business, to discuss and clarify the situation. If all goes well, it will go quickly. If there is debate, the time will not be deducted from the time devoted to the clause‑by‑clause consideration of the bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

What are you proposing, exactly?

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

I am proposing that we go immediately to committee business to discuss the motion and clarify the situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Are you talking about motions we have received or the one we talked about on Tuesday?

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

An amendment was adopted, and now we have to vote on Mr. Godin's amended motion. If all goes well, we will come back right away to the clause‑by‑clause study of the bill. It's so we avoid wasting too much time.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think you wanted to give an update on all that. We are going to vote against Mr. Beaulieu's proposal, but we should let you give your update.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Just a moment, please.

If I understand correctly, Mr. Beaulieu is moving a motion for us to go to committee business. It's a dilatory motion, so there is no debate and we have to vote on it immediately, agreed?

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

Wait, Mr. Chair. Before proceeding to the vote, I want to understand.

If we go to committee business, are we coming back to the motions that were before us and the proposed amendment to the motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

That is what Mr. Beaulieu is proposing, that is, that we go to committee business and do exactly that.

Have I understood correctly, Mr. Beaulieu?

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

Yes.

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

Fine.

We can vote now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Drouin, you have the floor.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I just want to clarify something.

The fact that we are in clause‑by‑clause study of a bill doesn't mean that a member may not present a motion. I am talking about a motion like the one we discussed last time. There is nothing to prevent Mr. Beaulieu from presenting it now, is that not right?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

That is correct.

If I may, Mr. Beaulieu, before we come back to that, I'm going to finish what I was going to say before beginning the meeting. You have moved a motion and we are going to vote on it, unless you withdraw it if you think it is not necessary.

I was going to tell you that there was a lot of confusion on Tuesday. Among other things, there were some technical difficulties that cut into the meeting considerably.

So, first, I would like to tell you that I have decided that the last meeting would not be considered to be the eighth meeting. So today we are starting the eighth of the eight meetings provided for by the first motion.

The second thing I wanted to tell you concerns the motion we were debating, but before talking about that, it has to be moved. I will talk about it at that point.

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

I would like us to proceed with the vote. If it doesn't pass, oh well; if all goes well, as I think, we will start consideration of the bill again five minutes later.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

That's fine, but, as Mr. Drouin said, there is nothing to prevent you coming back to it while we are doing the clause‑by‑clause study, even if we are not in the part of the meeting devoted to committee business.

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

Yes, exactly.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

So the dilatory motion has been moved, and we will proceed to a roll-call vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 10; yeas: 1)

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

So we will resume the clause‑by‑clause study of the bill.

Mr. Godin, I believe you wanted to say something.

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

In fact, Mr. Chair, I asked questions and we were ridiculed, but we were proved right this morning.

At the last meeting, Ms. Ashton proposed an amendment to part of my motion. We are now going to debate my amended motion.

May I read it, Mr. Chair? How do you want me to proceed?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

On that subject, also, I have made a decision I would like to inform the committee of. You can correct me if I am mistaken.

At the last meeting, before the end of the sitting, a motion was moved by Mr. Godin, to which Ms. Ashton proposed an amendment, which was agreed to by the committee. Words like "leaves out" and "stricken out" were used, and that might have made the effect of the amendment on the main motion ambiguous.

The decision I have made is this. The committee can tell me quickly, by unanimous consent, whether it approves it or not.

The first point in Mr. Godin's motion asked that "the committee proceed with clause‑by‑clause consideration of the Bill for a duration of four supplemental meetings, at a frequency of two meetings per week." Ms. Ashton's amendment, adopted by the committee, asked specifically that it instead be "6.5 hours of meeting". I think that was clearly understood by everyone.

The second point in Mr. Godin's motion proposed that "consideration of clause 54 of Bill C‑13 be postponed to the end of clause‑by‑clause consideration and be subject to debate." I am making the decision to retain the second point of the motion in full. After listening to the meeting again and rereading the unrevised transcript several times, I realized that there really was confusion. Given that ambiguity, I prefer to have the amendment alter the main motion as little as possible.

I want to be sure we all understand this clearly. To summarize, Mr. Godin's amended motion refers to "6.5 hours of meeting", in accordance with the amendment adopted earlier that was clearly understood by everyone. The second point of the motion remains intact.

Does the committee unanimously consent to this decision?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Good.

We will now come back to Mr. Godin's motion as amended by Ms. Ashton's amendment.

You have the floor, Mr. Godin.

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

I just want to make my argument to try to persuade all my colleagues around the table to support this motion.

Clause 54 of the bill is very important, because it has symbolic value. Everyone around the table has seen that French is in decline everywhere in Canada. The purpose of this clause is to show that Quebec is the fortress of French. That is why it is important that we be able to discuss clause 54, which deals with subjects that include the obligation of federally regulated private businesses to apply the Charter of the French Language. This is a very meaningful element that sends an important signal. As I have said many times, if the federal government does not take concrete action to protect French, who will do it?

I think it is important to debate this clause so that people understand its importance. That is why I have moved this motion.