Mr. Chair, I have two amendments to move.
The first has to do with prioritization. We know that French is under threat in Quebec more than ever, as it is across Canada. All language indicators show that French is in decline. Even Statistics Canada's predictive study indicates that in Quebec, the percentage of French as the language used at home will decrease from 81.6% in 2011 to 73.6% by 2036. It was 83.1% in 2001. In the last census—the 2021 census—it was 79.1%. What's more, those forecasts were made in a context of lower immigration than observed in recent years, and they are probably overly optimistic. Over the past few years, several Liberal ministers recognized from the outset that the use of French is in decline, that French is under threat from all sides and that there are 8 million francophones surrounded by 360 million anglophones in Canada and North America.
These factors were partially reflected in the new Official Languages Act, even though there was a setback. Rather than promoting only French in Quebec, we've reverted to the old notion of parallelism in order to defend anglophones in Quebec as a minority.
Finally, we looked at the Action Plan for Official Languages 2023-2028: Protection-Promotion-Collaboration, and there is nothing new for French. Everything is about promoting English within Quebec. I looked at the Canada Public Accounts for 2024 and it's the same thing: I didn't see anything for French in Quebec, or practically nothing—$100 million a year. If we go back a bit to what has been done since the Official Languages Act began, we are now at over $3.6 billion that has contributed to anglicizing Quebec. In constant dollars, it's over $5.5 billion.
So I think that the study on measures to promote French—we want to see what's coming—should be prioritized and done first. I so move and I would like to know if my colleagues agree.
I also have a second amendment to move, but I don't know if you want me to move it right away, Mr. Chair.