On April 13 last, I had the opportunity to put two questions to the Prime Minister concerning bilingualism.
Part of his response to one of the questions was as follows, and I quote:
It seeks to protect its rights.
The Prime Minister was referring to Canada's francophone and Acadian community.
However, it also deplores the fact that some francophones like the Parti Quebecois and Bloc Quebecois members are the ones who create the most serious problems for it.
Mr. Speaker, statements like this call for an apology or, at the very least, some serious explanations. Here is how I see these statements and why I find them exceedingly disagreeable. To begin with, the rights of Canada's francophone and Acadian communities are not dependent on Quebec. These communities enjoy them outright. They enjoy these rights because of what they are. Moreover, these rights are entrenched in the Constitution and in the Charter.
Whether Quebec is or is not part of the Canadian confederation does not take anything away from the fact that these rights are legitimately theirs. The Prime Minister seemed to be saying that, if Quebec were no longer around, either the Liberal government could not be counted on to ensure compliance with the Constitution or the Charter, or Canadians would not normally be inclined to uphold their Constitution and Charter.
Are we to understand then that the government wants to hold Quebec accountable for the future to which Canada's francophone and Acadian communities are entitled? Are we to understand that the government wants to hold Quebec accountable for the way in which other Canadians from coast to coast will treat their francophone and Acadian communities?
I hope that this was not what the Prime Minister was hinting at. Therefore, I think some explanations are in order. In short, either the Prime Minister, as Leader of the Liberal government, has no intention, in Quebec's absence, of ensuring compliance with the Constitution or, the Prime Minister believes that, in Quebec's absence, Canadians from coast to coast will not have the will, determination or sense of fair-play to ensure compliance with the Constitution and the Charter.
Which is it? Or should these words never have been spoken in the first place?
Not only am I waiting for an answer, Mr. Speaker, so too, I have no doubt, are tens of thousands of other people. There are 900,000 anglophones in Quebec and that province has never once said that it would treat them any other way but very fairly. There are 960,000 francophones in the rest of the country, 60,000 more than there are anglophones in Quebec, and they are waiting for an answer now.