Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member for Carleton-Gloucester. It is good to hear that he has settled down, at least I sense that his speech came from his heart.
I would just like to present a few statistics from the 1991 census for the member and ask for a response to a question.
My riding is quite different from his riding. Perhaps in his riding official bilingualism, as we practise it and it is legislated, fits. However, Kindersley-Lloydminster has a population of 63,871 people. English is spoken by 61,325 and French by 35. Then there are some non-official languages, such as Chinese, 130; Spanish, 40; German, the largest after English 1,130.
Another interesting statistic is English only: English as the only spoken language 61,645; French as the only language is zero according to this census.
I want to turn back a few pages to another riding in the province of Quebec, the riding of Saint-Maurice, which is represented by the Prime Minister. There are some very interesting statistics: the total population is 75,185; English is the home language if 555 residents; French 73,370. There are very few non-official languages, 10 Spanish, 60 German and a few others. Those able to communicate only in English is 45 people; those able to communicate in French only is 61,405 people.
Carleton-Gloucester is not actually representative of all of Canada. In Kindersley-Lloydminster because of lack of funding, school are being closed, education services are being restricted. Several hospitals in my constituency have been closed for lack of funds.
I wonder if the hon. member understands the feelings of people who see services that are very important to them close down partly because of services provided to people of which there is not one person in my constituency. No one in my constituency relies on services in one of the official languages. To the north of me are the native people who were here before the anglophones and francophones but they have no official status whatsoever.
It all seems very unfair and just does not seem relevant to a Canada which is about to go into the 21st century. That is why we need to move forward. I would like to see the minister get in step with that and prepare Canada for the next century, not looking back to the 19th century.