Mr. Speaker, the educational rights of francophones outside Quebec are clearly recognized in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rights were clarified by two Supreme Court decisions: the Mahé case in 1990 and the Manitoba reference in 1993.
Most provinces and territories have school legislation consistent with Section 23 of the Charter. School governance has been granted or soon will be.
Education is under provincial jurisdiction. The role of the federal government is to assist the provinces to meet their constitutional obligations.
For almost 25 years the federal government has helped the provincial and territorial governments to provide members of the French minority community with the opportunity to be educated in their own language.
Since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect in 1982, statistics show that more and more young francophones are educated in their own language.
The federal government recognizes that francophone minority groups still face difficulties, but it is working to address these deficiencies.
French minority language education remains a high priority for the federal government and for the Department of Canadian Heritage. That is why the special initiatives on school governance and post-secondary education in French have been exempted from the latest budgetary restrictions. It is expected that federal-provincial agreements negotiated under these initiatives will result in significant improvements for the francophone communities in these provinces.