Mr. Speaker, let me start by restating the motion before us today, for the benefit of those who are watching us: As the Official Languages Act is 26 years old, it deem it important that the government thoroughly assess the way the act is applied in the country by appointing someone to carry out a detailed and balanced review of the work done so far and reaffirm Parliament's commitment to a just and adequate policy on official languages.
The Bloc Quebecois will have no difficulty voting for this motion. In fact, I requested almost exactly the same thing in a speech I made in this House on October 3. Let us look at where the need for this assessment comes from.
The Official Languages Act stems from the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism set up by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in 1963. The act was ultimately passed in 1969 by the Trudeau government in response to the sense of urgency felt at the time.
We will recall that the early 1960s were marked by the first manifestations of the FLQ, which were symptoms of profound discontent within Canada.
In fact, in a preliminary report issued in February 1965, the B and B Commission, as it was nicknamed in those days, stated that measures were urgently required as Canada was undergoing a major crisis.
According to a booklet published by the federal government and entitled Official Languages Act in Brief , the objectives of the act are as follows: first, to ensure respect for English and French as the official languages of Canada, and equal status, rights and privileges for these languages in federal institutions. Second, to support the development of English and French language minority communities and to encourage the acceptance and use of both English and French in Canadian society. Third, to set out the powers and duties of federal institutions in the area of official languages.
The document also points out that the provisions of the Official Languages Act stem from the linguistic rights guaranteed by the Constitution. So, the Official Languages Act provides that Parliament and the federal courts must work in both official languages; that the federal government must provide its
services in both official languages, based on certain conditions, and that it is committed to achieving full and equal participation of the two official linguistic groups. Since it was reviewed in 1988, the act also provides that the Minister of Heritage is committed to enhancing the vitality of linguistic minority communities, while also being responsible for co-ordinating the efforts of the various departments toward the fulfilment of that objective.
It is also important to take a look at the preamble of the Official Languages Act. It says that the Constitution provides that English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament. It also provides that the public can communicate with these federal institutions in either official language; that public servants should have equal opportunities to use the official language of their choice while working; that English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians should, without regard to their ethnic origin or first language learned, have equal opportunities to obtain employment in the institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada; and, finally, that the federal government is committed to enhancing the vitality of linguistic minority communities.
Given all these good intentions, what is the situation, after more than 25 years under the Official Languages Act? There are a number of criteria that can help us determine the positive or negative impact of this legislation, including assimilation rate, education, income, availability of federal services in the minority language and, finally, language of work of federal employees.
The situation in Canada's francophone and Acadian communities is certainly not as rosy as the official line would have us believe. In fact, there is every indication that the francophone community outside Quebec is being assimilated, is losing ground where education is concerned, is getting poorer and generally does not have access to the federal services to which it is entitled in its own language. Furthermore, most francophones in the federal public service have to work in English. Warnings come regularly from spokespersons for these communities and the Commissioner of Official Languages. Apparently, to no avail.
Let us take a closer look at some of those criteria. First, the assimilation rate. To calculate the assimilation rate, we take the total number of persons who say their mother tongue is French and subtract the number of persons who tell the census taker that French is still the language spoken in the home.
According to information provided by Statistics Canada, between 1971, the year of the first census that included questions on language, and 1991, the year of the latest census, the assimilation rate of francophones outside Quebec rose from 27 per cent to 34.8 per cent.
French is losing ground across the country, including in New Brunswick, the only bilingual province, where the assimilation rate is still 8.4 per cent.
Of course, the trend is more dramatic in communities in western Canada. In British Columbia, for instance, it was 71.8 per cent in the 1991 census; in Alberta, 64.4 per cent; in Ontario, although the province has the largest francophone minority, the assimilation rate was 36.7 per cent, an increase of ten points over 1971.
In other words, English is spoken in the home by 71 per cent of francophones living in British Columbia; 64 per cent in Alberta; and 36.7 per cent of francophones in Ontario. It should therefore come as no surprise that Bob Rae, the present Premier of Ontario, said on CBC radio that, unfortunately, there were not enough francophones in Ontario for the province to become officially bilingual. Naturally, every effort was made to assimilate them-we can see the results 26 years later.
Statistics on the level of education in francophone communities are also alarming. Thirty per cent of the francophone minority outside Quebec is considered illiterate. In Ontario, the group for development stated recently that the level of illiteracy among the province's francophones was 31 per cent, compared with the figure of 17 per cent for its anglophones. We should, however, perhaps not be surprised by these figures, when all Canadian provinces officially prohibited teaching in French for decades and when, despite the present constitution, the many decisions by the Supreme Court and the many battles waged by the country's francophones, the right to education in French-