Official Languages Committee on May 28th, 2026

[Jim Belanger, Conservative, Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to come back to a comment Mr. Côté made about parallel regimes.

I see that the numerical criteria do not adequately reflect reality. Something occurred to me while you were speaking. Perhaps it would be better if the francophone federations and associations in the regions determined which regions need services. What do you think about that?

[Jules Chiasson]

I think that would be an excellent idea. I think we're well positioned to do so, and we experience this every day. We work with organizations in the regions and really see the work on the ground and what we need.

We're currently conducting a study on the state of the francophonie in Nova Scotia and it will be released next fall. We have a lot of work to do, but we're on the ground to do it.

[Jim Belanger, Conservative, Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, ON]

I agree. You are in a better position than anyone else to decide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Thank you, Mr. Bélanger. Your time is up.

I now give the floor to Mr. d'Entremont for five minutes.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

After three meetings, I finally have the chance to speak about Nova Scotia, with the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, my key partner on matters pertaining to the francophonie and Acadians in Nova Scotia. Hello, Jules and hello, Denise.

I've been working on francophone issues in Nova Scotia for 25 years. We're really trying to designate different regions across Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia's history means we're far apart, but language and culture bring us together.

Mr. Chiasson, can you say a few words about the distance between the regions across the province and the challenge of providing services in French within the government and in the private sector?

[Jules Chiasson]

I'm going to give a little historical background. When the Acadians came back to Nova Scotia after the expulsion, the English-speaking government made sure that they were scattered all over the province so that they would not have any political heft. That is exactly what happened. Today, Acadians can be found from one end of the province—in Baie Sainte-Marie, in Argyle—to the other—in Cheticamp and Richmond. There's even an Acadian community in Sydney. We are really scattered. The image we use is that we keep the province afloat on the sea because we are at both ends. It's an eight- or nine-hour drive from one end of the island to the other. We are very far removed from each other.

In terms of communications, some regions have no cellphone service. If you are travelling around Tor Bay, for example—a new Acadian community—you will get completely lost if you rely on your GPS, because it disappears halfway. You have to know where you are going. So communication service has to be improved.

In terms of education and provincial and federal services, things are difficult because it's not about one community, it's about 12 communities.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

Nova Scotia's French-language Services Act really tries to identify the various regions.

Now we find ourselves up against a real difficulty: the largest francophone region in Nova Scotia at the moment is Dartmouth, across from Halifax. How can French-language services be provided there currently?

[Jules Chiasson]

First, Halifax is a major city for national and international gatherings. Some of those gatherings are bilingual because national or international institutions take part. There's also a whole community, with 15,000 or 20,000 people and eight schools. We are scattered all over the place. So many activities are now happening in French that I cannot attend them all. There are 14 organizations there.

As for private businesses, we are in the process of bringing those 14 organizations together in a work space in downtown Halifax. It's being done in stages. Eventually, the campus of the Université Sainte-Anne will be located there. We also would like the companies setting up shop in the Maritime Centre to be able to provide services in French. Actually, that would be an ideal opportunity to enact this bill.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

The other problem I see at the moment is services in those regions. As Ms. Comeau-Desautels knows, there are not many federally regulated businesses around Argyle or Clare. Those regions do have some banks.

What type of services would we like to have in those regions? I have to include the Annapolis Valley because of the military base at Greenwood.

[Jules Chiasson]

The Greenwood area may well be starting to grow, given that the armed forces are expanding. Halifax is a major city, one of the biggest in Canada, certainly one of the biggest in eastern Canada. We clearly have to provide services in French in very specific locations so that the community can access them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Thank you very much, Mr. d'Entremont.

The floor now goes to Mr. Beaulieu for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question goes to my friends from Droits collectifs Québec.

The new act, quite reasonably, requires French to be promoted in Quebec. Were you consulted about the draft regulations? To your knowledge, did anyone reach out to any organizations in Quebec?

[François Côté]

We were not consulted before these current meetings. To our knowledge, no civil society organization was consulted. Generally speaking, in the light of the studies and research we have conducted, we found no cases in which the federal government or any of its departments has held any consultations with civil society, despite the requirement to that effect in the new version of the Official Languages Act. In a word, the answer is no.

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

Another issue is that the whole process, not of francization per se but of fostering French under the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, does not fall to the Commissioner of Official Languages, but to the minister. The minister applies the act and can issue certificates for fostering French and so on.

What do you think about that? Does that not open politicians up to conflicts of interest when they directly steer the process?

[François Côté]

Yes, it does open the door to conflicts of interest, but it mostly opens the door to fragmentation and division of effort, which could run the risk of plunging the act's effectiveness into insignificance. By that, we mean that if the process involves having to play ping-pong from one institution to another before anything happens, months, perhaps even years could go by before the draft regulations have any real effect.

Once again, we feel that the project would be better off if it were closely revised in terms of internal consistency. In any event, it should not just apply to Quebec.

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

Excellent.

Mr. Chiasson, we have talked a lot about all the details and the need for it all to be strengthened. When we look at the history of the Acadians in Nova Scotia and such, we do not hear nearly enough about all the laws that prohibited education in French. So francophones voluntarily assimilated in Nova Scotia.

What do you think?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Mr. Beaulieu, your time is up. Unfortunately, I have to interrupt you.

Mr. Chiasson, I am therefore asking you for an answer in one sentence.

[Jules Chiasson]

Historically, we had to fight, even to go to court, for our language rights. However, we have made a lot of progress in the last 10 years. Currently, I feel that we are on a positive track in terms of developing the community, the language and the culture.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Dalton, the floor is yours for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Chiasson, let me thank you personally and your organization, the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle‑Écosse, for the struggle, the battle, you are leading and for the success you are having. It's a major challenge and we can see the progress.

Can you talk a little about immigration and its impact on the francophone community? Do you have any figures on it?

[Jules Chiasson]

In the last year, francophone immigration improved nationally. I think that the target of 9% francophone immigration was attained nationally, meaning in communities outside Quebec. However, in 2025, only 0.9% of French-speaking immigrants came to settle in Nova Scotia.

We are having difficulty recruiting them, in part because we really don't have the support of the province in doing so. We work with the provincial government on it.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada are supposed to be helping us to recruit and, above all, to retain French-speaking immigrants, but the help is still modest. In the Atlantic provinces, the retention rate is 73%, but in Ontario, I think that the figure is around 90%.

So we have problems of retention and of recruitment.

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

Thank you very much.

I am going to give the rest of my time to my colleague, Joël Godin.

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

Thank you, my dear colleague.

Mr. Côté, I have a question for you.

You said earlier that Quebec should be left alone to do its job. I agree with you completely.

Now, if you have been following this matter closely, you know that, when it was worked on a while ago, the position of the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois was clear. The position was that, in Quebec, all federally regulated businesses must be subject to the Office québécois de la langue française. Then, a minute before midnight, Jean‑François Roberge, Quebec's minister at the time, came to an agreement with the federal government, a Liberal government at the time, to allow two programs.

Do you find that appropriate?

If you have any doubts about what I am saying, you can check with people from the New Democratic Party, people from the Bloc Québécois and ourselves. It got a lot of coverage in the papers. I would like to know what you think about it.

[François Côté]

You are asking for an opinion that is essentially political. So I will yield to my CEO.

As I understand it, I believe the Trudeau government basically forced the minister's hand. Did Minister Roberge really have any choice? The federal act was going to be passed anyway. Don't they say that “the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on”? How much freedom of action can we say the government of Quebec really has?

I will hold my comments and yield the floor to my CEO.

[Etienne-Alexis Boucher]

I don't have a lot to add. We simply feel that the draft regulations will not result in any improvement in the status of French in federally regulated private businesses. This is because they already comply with more stringent regulations. As a result, French has not declined in Quebec as it has in the rest of Canada.