Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise today to speak on Bill C-53, a reorganization bill.
I would like to follow up on what my colleagues on this side of the House have been saying and relate it back to the election of one year ago when I ran successfully against a Liberal. I heard the words of the Liberals during that election campaign, things like: "This government, a Liberal government, will be different than a Conservative government. It will be more accountable". They said they would be more accountable.
Today the headline reads "Minister aids radio licence bid at CRTC". That is what we see today in our headlines. An apology from the minister is not good enough. The minister says that all he did was act as a member of Parliament. A minister of the crown is not an ordinary member of Parliament.
In March he wrote a letter to Keith Spicer asking him to give due consideration to an application for a 24-hour Greek language radio station. Also, which he did not mention this morning in his statement, he asked Mr. Spicer to keep him abreast of developments, adding: "Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information".
If this is not interference, I do not know what is. This is blatant interference. I would also like to mention that the letter sent back to the minister from the commission's secretary general said: "Thank you for your letter of support".
One thing everyone in this business should learn is perception. Perception is everything. If the perception at the CRTC was that this minister was supporting and if the general public and the people of Canada also feel strongly that the minister was supporting then the minister has an obligation to do the honourable thing.
Tomorrow in the House we will be debating Bill C-210, a recall bill. If this minister and government do not bring accountability to the House, members on this side will certainly try to bring accountability here by introducing such legislation as recall. We know that we will receive some support from that side of the House. I have talked to members on that side who are very supportive of this. I hope the minister will do the honourable thing.
With regard to the bill, I have a few comments I would like to make, in particular about bilingualism and official languages. I get a little frustrated when I find out that the reason governments, including the government, sometimes spend money is to promote particular groups or particular people in this country. I know the member is very interested in this subject.
I am going to talk about the Department of National Defence in the province of Quebec for a couple of moments. The Department of National Defence feels it is very important to encourage francophones to join the Canadian Armed Forces, in the navy. In order to do that the government felt it was important to build a fleet school in Quebec City. It spent millions and millions of dollars on a fleet school. The reason for this, and officials from the Department of National Defence have been quite open, is that it wants more francophones in the Canadian Armed Forces. Why spend millions and millions of dollars on that item? Not only is it building a fleet school there, but four of the twelve new coastal patrol vessels will be in Quebec City.
We have the largest coastline in the world to protect and we are going to have four of our coastal patrol vessels, on which we are again spending millions of dollars, in Quebec City with a fleet school.
Why do we not promote people from the province of Alberta? How about farmers in Alberta? Maybe we should promote them being in the navy. Why not build a fleet school on the Bow River? Maybe that is a good idea. Maybe we should do that in order to encourage Alberta farmers to join the navy.
I get laughs from all sides of the House. They are right. It is absolutely ridiculous that we are doing that. People in Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and across the country have the opportunity to join the Canadian Armed Forces, and in particular the navy if they want to, but we spend millions and millions of dollars to build a fleet school in Quebec City.
I might point out that the citizens of Quebec City do not even support it. The mayor of Quebec City at one time said that it did not even fit in with the landscape of the city. That is absolutely absurd. The people of Canada will not put up with this nonsense any more.
Official languages in the country, yes. There should be freedom of speech. There is no question about it. It should be respected in the House of Commons and the other place as well. However, we are spending millions and billions. We cannot even get the actual figures for bilingualism. It is said to be $310 million a year. That is absolutely absurd. It is probably closer to a billion or more dollars per year that is spent on bilingualism in the country. It has been proven it does not work. It creates walls and it divides people. It has not worked and it will not work. We have to move toward something new, a new approach, a new way of doing things to respect freedom of speech.
Multiculturalism is something that I feel was created with all the best intentions in the world. They wanted to bring people from other countries into Canada in the hope that it would bring people closer together.
It has put people in separate little rooms of the country. It has separated us all. It has divided us and split us.