I listened to you, Madam, so try to listen to me while I speak. Thank you.
In summary, what the deputy minister, cultural development tells us is that the Canadian identity includes the Quebec identity. He said in committee that their general vision is that the Quebec identity is a fundamental component of the Canadian identity.
This vision, which would wipe out Quebecois culture as if it did not exist by itself but was only an integral part of Canadian culture, was denounced by many groups that appeared before the Committee on Canadian Heritage during the marathon hearings which, by using dilatory procedural tactics, we were able to force the government to hold.
François Rocher, a political scientist at Carleton University, said that what the government was doing was part of an incomplete process of nation-building, based on a denial of the national realities that already exist in Canada. Establishing a heritage department is part of a much broader plan to refashion the way that Canada's identity is to be understood and expressed. Mr. Rocher thus shares the idea expressed by his colleague, Mr. Monière, who said that the heritage department was really a propaganda department.
In fact, what the government is doing is, first, to deny the social and historic reality of an existing Quebec culture and nation; second, to imagine a fictitious Canadian national community to hide the lack of a common sense of Canadian identity; third, the government wishes to promote this made-up identity and even impose it on all communities in Canada.
It is quite obvious that this is intended particularly to counter Quebec nationalism. To oppose the growing demands for particular identities, the government proposes a homogenizing national vision. However, building a national identity on the denial of already existing identities that are strong and politically articulate can only exacerbate the tensions that exist in Canada.
It must be pointed out that all the efforts of this department consisted and from now on will consist in denying the existence of a culture other than the Canadian one and furthermore in using our taxes to promote this Canadian culture on Quebec territory. Why do the Bloc Quebecois and most of the witnesses who appeared before the heritage committee so strongly denounce this denial of Quebec culture by the federal government? Quite simply, because failing to mention it in the bill means denying its existence.
Mr. Rocher said that three conditions are essential for a culture to exist. First, it must be able to express itself; that is, it must be rich and flourishing. Second, it must be able to fulfil itself, that is, be used and valued in economic, social and political activities. Finally, it must be recognized, that is, accepted and taken into consideration by other communities close by.
The right to exist is part of one's identity. The identity must represent something, not only for the individuals which make up a community, but also for the other communities which recognize the legitimacy of that identity.
Let us now come to the second reason why the Bloc Quebecois will oppose this bill, namely the failure of the federal government's official languages policy.
This legislation provides no major change regarding federal policies on bilingualism, as was confirmed to us, in committee, by the responsible deputy minister at the Department of Canadian Heritage. According to paragraph 4(2)( g ) of the bill, the minister is responsible for, and I quote: g ) the advancement of the equality of status and use of English and French and the enhancement and development of the English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada;
Also, clauses 23 and 24 of the bill amend the Official Languages Act to confirm that the Minister of Canadian Heritage will be the one responsible for the implementation of sections 41 and 42, Part VII, of the Official Languages Act, which relate to the co-ordination and the implementation of linguistic policies within federal departments.
So, there is nothing new under the sun. Yet, the government should really have brought major changes to its linguistic policy. It should have clearly indicated its intention to salvage what can still be salvaged.
Let us take a look at some figures, 25 years after the Official Languages Act took effect. First, the percentage of Canadians whose first language is French is dropping drastically, and the official languages policy implemented in 1969 has done nothing to stop that trend.
According to Statistics Canada's latest census, 6.5 million Canadians, or 23.8 per cent of the population, have French as their mother tongue. In 1951, that proportion was 29 per cent.
Let us look at the assimilation rate, which is the ratio between the number of those who say French is their mother tongue and the number of those who actually use French at home. According to the latest census, the average assimilation rate in Canada, excluding Quebec, was 35.9 per cent, which represents an increase of 4.5 per cent over the 1986 figure.
British Columbia is the undisputed champion with an assimilation rate of 75.2 per cent. Saskatchewan is in second place with a rate of 69.6 per cent, followed by Alberta with 66.9 per cent. Even New Brunswick, which is the only constitutionally bilingual province and which prides itself in giving special treatment to French, has an assimilation rate of 8.7 per cent.
Some say that Quebec has the most racist linguistic policy. Yet, its English-speaking community is growing.
In the 1991 census, 9.2 per cent of Quebecers said that English was their mother tongue, while 11.2 per cent stated that they spoke English at home. Instead of hiding its head in the sand, Canada should look at what is being done in Quebec.
Let us now turn to how the federal government implements its policy on bilingualism in its own Public Service. Take Foreign Affairs, a sector that is crucial when representing Canada abroad and helping business people from Quebec, for instance.
Recent reports released by the department indicated that only 42 per cent of Canadian diplomats were bilingual and that 23 per cent were francophones, of whom more than 95 per cent were bilingual. We can therefore conclude that only 25 per cent of English Canadian diplomats speak French, which is totally unacceptable in their position as representatives of a country that calls itself officially bilingual.
The consequences of the lack of bilingual Canadian representatives abroad are well known. A unilingual francophone client abroad, whether he is a businessman or a citizen in distress, is unable to communicate with about 60 per cent of departmental officers. He cannot read unclassified documents drafted in English only and can only communicate with a minority of the diplomats in Canadian embassies abroad.
With this many of our diplomats being unilingual English, the problem is compounded when the embassy is a small one.
And what impression do foreigners get when they find that the Canadian ambassador, a career diplomat, does not speak French? That Canada is a unilingual, English-speaking country.
Turning to the Department of National Defence, 48.1 per cent of the total francophone establishment, both civilian and military, is bilingual, while only 6.9 per cent of the anglophone establishment is bilingual. Furthermore, 23.4 per cent of francophones are in English-speaking units and only 1.7 per cent of anglophones are in French-speaking units. There is no good reason for this. What makes these statistics even more depressing today is the closing of the Collège militaire de Saint-Jean. Both departments are, in fact, a microcosm of the situation in the federal Public Service.
In its latest report on the language situation in the federal Public Service, Treasury Board said that in Quebec, to serve a minority group that represents 10 per cent of the population, the federal government had an establishment that was of 52.7 per cent bilingual, or 15,945 positions out of a total of 30,234.
If we apply this ratio to the rest of Canada, the number of bilingual positions should be 30,666 instead of 7,465, which is the case today. So there is a crying need for 23,000 bilingual positions, which is not being met. After the Yukon, the francophone minority least well served by the federal government is in New Brunswick, where the percentage of francophones is 33 per cent and the percentage of bilingual positions in the federal Public Service is only 39.4 per cent. Applying the same ratio we applied to Quebec, the entire federal Public Service in this province should be bilingual.
It is obvious to me that the view in Ottawa is that a francophone is not worth as much as an anglophone, because when it comes to being served in one's own language, the anglophone gets the service, while the francophone has to speak English. Studies have repeatedly shown that the inability to obtain services in one's own language is a factor that contributes generally to assimilation.
If the federal government really wanted to put the status and use of French and English on an equal footing in this country, it would invest in this principle, in other words, when awarding bursaries for language training, it would give preference to anglophones in Canada with a very poor knowledge of French instead of to francophones, who generally have a fairly good knowledge of English. But no, the Department of Canadian Heritage does the opposite. On page 13 of his report, the official languages commissioner notes that of the 7,301 bursaries awarded in 1992-1993 for summer language courses, 3,150 went to Quebecers. What this program, like many others, is designed to do is anglicize Quebec, not to make Canada bilingual.
Here, I cannot help pointing out the difference in the treatment of the English and French networks of the CBC. While the CBC spends an average of $18,390 per production hour on its French network, it spends twice that amount, or $37,496, on its English network, and it does so with the blessing of the federal government, the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
In this regard, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation continues to be a clear example of what the federal government has in store for French in Canada and of the collusion of Canadian institutions in the implementation of this unequal status.
I could not close this chapter on the failure of 25 years of bilingualism policies without sharing with you some information that appeared in the summer issue of Language and Society , a magazine put out by the Commissioner of Official Languages. This particular issue looked at the accessibility of health services in the language of the minority. It contained the following lines: ``The government of British Columbia has instituted a program of access to multilingual services. French is not included, however, even though francophones form the fifth largest ethnic group in that province. Language assistance is offered in Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Punjabi, Spanish,
Somali and Vietnamese, even though Vietnamese is only the sixteenth largest ethnic group in the province".
Surely British Columbia holds the gold medal for assimilation, since it does not offer any health services in French to its French-speaking population.
The spokesperson for the provincial Department of Health, Mrs. Susan Gee, explains the situation this way, and I quote: "There are not enough Francophones in British Columbia". Yet, there are more Francophones than Vietnamese. "They are not considered immigrants and they are expected to be bilingual since they are Canadians". In other words, they are expected to speak English.
Other provinces have no policy regarding the provision of health services in the minority language. As one witness told the committee: "Call 911 just to see if you can get service in French". When you think about everything the federal government said against user fees and its refusal to do anything to provide health services in French, there is only one conclusion to be drawn.
The third reason why we oppose this bill is that it gives the Minister of Heritage the power to legislate with regard to copyright. Let me remind the House that we have been waiting now for almost nine years for the Copyright Act to be amended. Let me also remind the House that the legislation was supposed to be amended under the previous government and that the current Minister of Heritage, when he was appointed, appeared before the Committee on Canadian Heritage, that was last April, and told us that the reform of the legislation was one of his priorities. At that time, he said it was only a matter of weeks before he could table the bill. However, creative artists will not even see the legislation before Christmas.
Why? Because the Copyright Act is essentially the responsibility of the Department of Industry. Every creative artists' group has demanded that the act be transferred to the Department of Heritage. All those who came before the committee indicated that the Department of Industry is in a conflict of interests in this matter. Indeed, the department must protect the interests of consumers and corporations, which are in direct contradiction with the rights and interests of the artists.
Before the election, even the Liberal Party had recognized that this was inappropriate. In response to questions by the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Liberals wrote: "The Liberal Party will have as a priority to review the Copyright Act. We will make sure that, above all, the writers reap the fruit of their labours, while easing the access to copyrighted material. Liberals understand how important copyrights are. That is why we will review the Conservative decision to share this jurisdiction between two departments, when reorganizing the administration."
This at least is one case where the Liberal Party has not kept its word and that is most unfortunate. In an almost unprecedented effort of manipulation, the chairman of the heritage committee did his best to make us and the witnesses believe that his government had, in fact, proceeded to review the Conservative decision but had finally decided that it was more logical to leave the responsibility of the Copyright Act with the Department of Industry.
His attempt to save face failed. Indeed, senior officials from the Department of Industry, who drafted Bill C-46 establishing this department, said before the industry committee that all they did was put into legislative terms Ms. Cambell's reform. This evidence was corroborated by Heritage Canada officials who, during the briefing session given to our staff, stated that Bill C-53 was just a housekeeping bill whose sole purpose was to put into legislative terms the Campbell reform, and not to correct its flaws.
Officials from the Department of Industry went even further. When questioned by the committee chairman, they stated that it would not help to add a reference to copyright in the Heritage Canada legislation. They said that if we had to add this kind of reference every time the interests of two departments overlapped, we would never see the end of it. By saying this, these officials confirmed what many had told us in committee, that the government amendment to Bill C-53 regarding copyright does not give the minister any new powers.
As my colleague for Richelieu said in committee, since the legislative power with regard to copyright rests with the Department of Industry, the protection of the rights of creative artists comes down to a matter of credibility and the strength of individual ministers.
Given the clout and credibility of the present Minister of Canadian Heritage, creative artists have good reason to be pessimistic, and they have the whole-hearted sympathy of the official opposition.
By its refusal to give copyright legislation to the Department of Canadian Heritage, the government has shown that it could not care less about creative artists. It sends an alarming signal to the artistic community and cultural industries. We all remember the decision made in the Ginn transaction, and we all know how that sorry saga ended.
I cannot conclude without saying a word on our last two reasons for voting against this bill. Against all logic, as far as the defence of our cultural industries is concerned, the Canadian government maintained another decision made by Ms. Campbell, splitting broadcasting and telecommunications.
At a time when convergence is critical to the activities of our cultural industries, it was important to rescind the decision separating two things that, by nature, belong together: telecommunications and broadcasting. The message this government sends to people in the communications business is that financial interests will take precedence over cultural interests in Canada and Quebec. That is a very serious problem because the value to be gained from the information highway will not be the physical network itself, but rather the information travelling through that network.
I would also like to say that today, we are witnessing another shift toward the industry department. Indeed, as for copyrights, the federal government chose to leave to the Department of Industry jurisdiction over foreign investments in cultural industries, thus giving to the Department of Canadian Heritage only the power to develop cultural policies. The former Department of Communications had that power. It used it to develop a publishing policy which the government light-heartily violated in the Ginn case and in the Maxwell-McMillan versus Prentice-Hall case, as well.
I am getting to the conclusion, which is simple: this government, with its Bill C-53, once again simply lacks vision.
At the dawn of this crucial year for our collective future, the Canadian government had a unique opportunity to send clear messages to the citizens of this country, whom the Department of Canadian Heritage has a mandate to protect. As a member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, this saddens me. But as a sovereignist, I am very happy that the government did exactly the opposite of what Canadians were expecting, but exactly what Quebecers were hoping for.
It simply denied the existence of our nation. It does not suggest any move to frenchify English Canada and to stop the bilingualization of Quebec. On the contrary, in our opinion, clause 4(2)( g ), which provides for the advancement of the equality of status and use of French and English, is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Finally, the government has not lived up to the expectations it had instilled in creative artists and an important part of the tools it could use to defend culture and creators is now in the hands of the Department of Industry. The government has just officially placed an important part of the Canadian Heritage under its administrative supervision.
For all those reasons, the Bloc Quebecois will oppose this bill. It is narrow-minded, dangerous for the Canadian nation and disrespectful towards creative artists. There is only one hope for Quebecers, which is to choose to have their own country. Only then will they be able to express their own culture and have it recognized for the best of our collective future.