Mr. Speaker, sometimes I find it hard to keep calm when I hear some of the comments being made across the floor.
First of all, the hon. member claimed that, according to the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Official Languages Act was not working. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure all Canadians watching the House of Commons on television today know the Commissioner of Official Languages is an ombudsman. It is his role to point out any shortcomings, which there always will be, in any society. It is his role to identify them. Not in order to condemn this government or the previous government or anyone at all, but to improve the system.
Similarly, the hon. member opposite raises questions during Question Period not, I hope, to say that the people sitting on these benches are a terrible bunch, but to improve the system and make this Parliament more effective. Well, the Commissioner of Official Languages does the same thing, to improve the act and not to condemn it.
Second, I wish the hon. member opposite would explain his calculations. First of all, he chose to discount public servants working in the National Capital Region as far as minority language services are concerned. Does he not know that in addition to the national role played by public servants in the National Capital area, these people also administer regional programs? For instance, half of all francophones in Ontario, perhaps as many as 150,000, live within a radius of about 100 kilometres of this city outside Quebec. They are not served by regional offices in other locations, they are served by offices here in Ottawa. When the hon. member artificially excludes people who work in Ottawa, does he realize that he is skewing the figures?
Finally, with respect to the future of francophones outside Quebec, one does not have to be a lawyer from Baie-Comeau to realize that there is more to this than protecting the rights of francophones, important though this may be. What has kept us alive as a group in this country is critical mass. I am a Franco-Ontarian, and personally I believe that in my country, Quebec has played a major role in helping my language survive. We must be realistic and look at the facts.
The United States has no Quebec with its critical mass. Did the francophones there survive? No. The French fact is mere nostalgia in Louisiana and nothing at all in the rest of the United States, although originally there were more francophones in the United States than in Canada. Why? Because they did not have the critical mass or percentage. And that is what the Prime Minister means when he says that the francophones in Quebec are important to the survival of us all in Canada. Francophones in Quebec have helped to differentiate us from the Americans. We owe them that. We are a different country largely because of them. And anyone who says that we can take this out of Canada and everything will remain the same is wrong. Never mind about being politically correct. The truth is right there.