Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond on behalf of the New Democratic Party to the statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I would like to add my own best wishes to the francophones in Canada and around the world on the occasion of this Journée internationale de la Francophonie.
In the new world order, or more accurately the new world disorder, feelings of solidarity, of shared roots, of world citizenship have given way to relationships that are purely commercial. In that context it is most timely to celebrate international ties between cultural and linguistic communities such as those developed by the French speaking countries and communities. In our market driven world, we should cultivate communities, and the francophone world community helps us in that vital task.
Like the Commonwealth, the francophonie can and does play an important role not only in the cultural development of member states but also in their political development. Canadians look to the francophonie, like they do to the Commonwealth, as an agency that can play a creative and positive role in the challenging task of building an international community in which basic human and democratic rights are respected everywhere.
However, the francophonie has a way to go before it fulfils that kind of role in the way the Commonwealth has in the past, for instance with respect to South Africa. I share the urgings of a previous speaker that the francophonie needs to take a stronger stand with respect to human rights in its member states.
The minister mentioned Louis Riel. As a Manitoban I second his sentiments that a francophone was the founder of our province. The francophone parish, the parish of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, was a founding element of the community I come from, Transcona.
In 1911 it was francophones from St. Boniface and from Quebec who came to Transcona and helped found the community. They are a vital part of it today. Their school formed the nucleus around which a very successful French immersion program was built in Transcona. It created an opportunity to learn French and also the French culture because it was an institution that grew out of the French speaking community in Transcona.
Allow me to again express my best wishes to all of the francophones of Canada, the francophones of Quebec, the Acadians, the Franco-Manitobans in my own riding of Winnipeg, and all other French speaking Canadians.