Mr. Speaker, the government is introducing for second reading Bill C-53, an Act to establish the Department of Canadian Heritage and to amend and repeal certain other Acts.
The purpose of this bill is to give legal form to proposals of the previous Conservative government to merge several departments. This exercise is presented as a political and economic measure, that of reducing the size of the Cabinet.
At first glance, one might agree with the economic arguments for this operation. By merging a number of governmental responsibilities and activities, with a view to streamlining operations, we could achieve some savings. However, to do that, the government would have had to limit itself to the mere merging, in one single department, of services scattered in different departments. The government would have had to take this opportunity to do the necessary house cleaning and to streamline its operations while looking for duplication of responsibilities with the provinces.
It did not do that. In this bill, much praised for its economic virtues, streamlining takes a back seat compared to the reaffirmed will to occupy fields of jurisdiction which constitutionally belong to the provinces.
In the area of culture, in particular, the government had a good opportunity to satisfy its stated economic interest while giving Quebec something it had been claiming for years under the Constitution. Unfortunately, it does nothing of the kind, and instead, maintains duplication and overlapping with programs the objectives of which are short-circuiting those of similar provincial programs.
All this at a time when neither Quebec society nor Canadian society can afford such counterproductive and expensive interventions. This operation, which could have been economically rational, is anything but. It perpetuates one of the economic flaws of federalism through continued spending in a field of jurisdiction which is not federal.
With respect to this bill, had the government not wanted to listen to economic reason, it could at least have listened to its own Constitution. In 1867, the Canadian Constitution gave authority to the provinces in the areas of communications and cultural matters. The Constitutional Act of 1867 gave the provinces jurisdiction over all private and local matters and recognized Quebec civil law. Education, which is closely connected with culture, was recognized as a provincial field of jurisdiction.
Section 40 of the Constitution, which was unilaterally patriated in 1982, states that when an amendment is made regarding education or other cultural matters, Canada shall provide reasonable compensation to any province to which the amendment does not apply.
In fact, the constitutional acts are clear and give the provinces exclusive legislative powers over cultural matters. Had it not been for the spending power of the federal government, we would not be witnessing today this futile fight, the main victim of which is the specific cultural identity of Quebec.
With this bill, once again, the federal government fails to recognize the cultural reality of Quebec as a distinct society having, as its main characteristic, its language, which it inherited from one of the two founding nations of Canada.
Instead of recognizing Quebec's cultural reality and taking appropriate action, this bill reflects a pan-Canadian cultural identity based on the theory of a bilingual and multicultural society. The federal government is feeding utopian views which pose a real threat to Quebec from a cultural and linguistic point of view. Bilingualism, in particular, is utopian.
Every report, every study has come to the same conclusion: the use of French in Canada has not improved, quite the opposite. As a journalist, Michel Vastel, so rightly put it, the use of French in everyday life never spread even here in Ottawa, the capital of an officially bilingual country. Twenty-five years after the Official Languages Act was passed, we are still waiting for French to take its place in the sun, beyond mere use in legislation, whether it be in day care centres, at school board meetings, in movie theatres, in hospitals, or in banks.
Sixteen years after moving here, in an article published in the magazine L'Actualité , Michel Vastel sums up his experience of bilingualism in the nation's capital, by stating: ``In Ottawa, only in public buildings will you find the illusion that the two languages are equal. Beyond this facade, Ottawa is like any small, unilingual city in Ontario. Here, people leave French at home''.
This is just one testimony among many that will certainly leave many of my colleagues sceptical. Unfortunately, all the reports tabled by the Commissioner of Official Languages are packed full of such examples which tend to indicate, if one were to read between the lines, that outside our main institutions, bilingualism is still sheer utopianism.
The province of Quebec has realized that bilingualism does not help to preserve and promote its cultural identity. However, Quebec still provides, in many areas, exemplary services to its English-speaking minority. As a French society completely surrounded by the English culture, Quebec has the duty and the historical responsibility to preserve its cultural identity, its distinct identity.
Why not stop beating around the bush and provide the province of Quebec with what the Fathers of Confederation set aside for this province in 1867? Why does the federal government show such sterile and costly stubbornness when it comes to historical demands unanimously approved by every successive Quebec government for decades now, regardless of their political allegiance? For what economic or social reason has the government refused, during constitutional negotiations and again today in this bill, to give Quebec complete jurisdiction over cultural matters?
Mr. Speaker, will you let me finish my speech? It will take me perhaps five more minutes.