Official Languages Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2026

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Perhaps a Liberal member could let me answer the question, because it is very important—

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

No, Minister, let me stop you there.

You said earlier that you didn't want people to politicize the debate. Are you politicizing it?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Not at all.

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

Oh, really? Okay.

I would also like to know which government official can take responsibility for ensuring that the Prime Minister…. Which official can impose concrete measures on the department to improve the situation of French as described in the article? Who in the government can impose this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

You have 35 seconds left.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

What is the question? Do you want me to impose something on the Prime Minister?

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

No. Listen to me carefully, Minister. I'm not talking about you. You are supposed to be the expert on the issue of official languages, along with Treasury Board. At least, that's how it should be.

Who in the government can impose rules and concrete actions on the Prime Minister and the departments to achieve results, to slow the decline of French, and to protect and promote both official languages?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Excuse me. Your time is up.

Minister, I will give you the opportunity to respond.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I will respond very briefly.

You should know that. It is the act itself.

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

So there is no individual, no minister to do it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Your time is up, Mr. Godin. I'm sorry.

I now give the floor to Mr. Villeneuve for five minutes.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I want to go back to what you said at the outset about people having a knack for languages or not. Since I arrived here in Ottawa, I have also started learning English. I don't have a knack for languages. I'm one of those people. However, I'm very surprised and really happy to see that a number of my colleagues from across Canada approach me and ask me to speak to them in French. They take French courses and do French immersion. I really feel that they want to learn French.

I'm telling you about my personal experience. As a government, you said that we need to improve things. I don't think things are perfect all the time. However, when there is a will to change things, they will change.

By extension, I am inspired by local media. Through local media, we can get information in French from one end of the country to the other. It contributes to the vitality of the language in the public sphere.

Can you tell us about the efforts our government has made to strengthen the capacity of local media and community radio stations? It's extremely important for the francophone community.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

First, I would like to commend all members for their efforts to learn the other official language, with the goal of eventually mastering it. It's very difficult. People can feel very insecure, especially as adults, learning a second language, but it's important to our country's identity. I would like to acknowledge every member who makes the effort. I was lucky in that I didn't have to, but I deeply respect people who are outside their comfort zone. I commend you, Mr. Villeneuve, for that.

Local media outlets are extremely important because they are the ones who provide local information. I am very aware that they have been struggling for a number of structural reasons that are not necessarily the responsibility of the federal government, but we need to support them. We want to not only strengthen local media outlets, which are often newspapers, but also help them thrive, particularly through $21 million in funding until 2028. The funding comes partly from the local journalism initiative, which is managed by my department. I also think that, across the country, the government could make additional efforts to inject funds into local initiatives. It's not my department's responsibility, but that's my opinion.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you. It matters to me, because I come from the regions and I see that. I think it's very important.

As part of the action plan, our government has also invested in strengthening the education continuum by supporting the provinces and territories in minority-language education. What mechanisms are in place for the funds to be used effectively? It's important to support French-language education outside Quebec in order to truly meet the needs of francophone communities.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Money is important. As you know very well, by entering into bilateral agreements, we invested more than $1.4 billion to give organizations, educational centres, schools and so on the money to do what they need to do to teach the second language. Each bilateral agreement includes an annual accountability mechanism to justify the way the funds are used.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Minister, I have one last question for you. You sit in caucus with the other ministers. Do you feel there is a direction set to improve French throughout the administration?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I can answer the previous question from the Conservative member. I wasn't making an actual objection. I simply wanted the federal government to assume its role of defending the French language and not abdicate it in favour of a provincial government.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

The minister will be here for another five minutes, so we have time for one more round. There will be two minutes for the Conservatives, two minutes for the Liberals and one minute for the Bloc Québécois.

I'm going to pass the floor to Mr. Dalton for two minutes.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you.

Minister, after Trump stated his desire to make Canada a 51st state, Elon Musk tweeted that Canada isn't a real country. Why don't you take a stand for Canada's history, heritage and distinctiveness, including French? There seems to be a real feebleness in this.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Mr. Deschênes‑Thériault has a point of order.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

What do tweets from an American have to do with the use of French in government communications and federal institutions?

I just want to make sure there's an actual connection to the subject at hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Mr. Godin, you have the floor on the point of order.

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

Mr. Chair, I think we've been very lenient. I understood what my colleagues said. I understood and accepted it. Also, I didn't raise a point of order when Mr. Villeneuve spoke on a completely different subject. Let's let my colleague continue. Then we will determine whether it was related to the subject.