Mr. Speaker, since 1982, when the Constitution was patriated, section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees French-speaking and English-speaking minorities the right to their own school and to manage them as well, wherever numbers warrant it. This is the problem.
In Canada, there are 260,000 francophones-theses numbers are not coming from mean separatists-and only 160,000 have access to education in French. But there still is a 100,000 gap. The common denominator for all francophone communities is that none of them have the right to collect their own school taxes. Therefore,
they are all dependant on English school boards or the provinces, which usually do not recognize the particular needs of francophone communities, leaving them without enough resources to manage their schools.
I am told that this is not so. This compels me to mention a few facts. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada. However, it does not respect section 23 of the charter since, on March 1, it abolished the French and English school board to replace it with advisory parents'committees. From now on, all the school structures are under the direct authority of the education ministry, in other words public servants. This reform is deemed unconstitutional by parents, who have applied for financial support under the Court Challenge Program. When their application is approved, they will be able to embark on preliminary research and ask for legal advice to confirm that this reform is indeed unconstitutional.
I am told that is not the case, Mr. Speaker. The Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador has been waging a 10-year fight for the right to manage their own schools. In 1988-89, this federation filed its first lawsuit against the Province of Newfoundland to obtain the right to manage their own schools under section 23.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for not informing you earlier. I am dividing my time into two ten-minute periods so that one of my colleagues could speak.
The Fédération des parents francophones issued a press release, and I quote: "This right is conferred to them under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the province still refuses to implement it. The province's francophones are therefore asking the federal government to intervene on their behalf when the proposed amendment is tabled". I should point out that there are no Bloc MPs in Newfoundland and I understand that the premier there is a Liberal.
This situation is totally unacceptable to Michel Cayouette, the president of the Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador. There is an inconsistency in all this. On the one hand, clause 23 of the charter requires the provinces to recognize minority language educational rights and, on the other hand, Parliament is about to adopt a major constitutional amendment affecting the way these schools are managed.
So we have two provinces, other than Quebec and Ontario, which do not comply with that clause. Furthermore, eight out of ten provinces, all English-speaking, are finding legal, administrative, financial and other ways to contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by not providing the educational services provided for in section 23. As a result, only one in two eligible children in Ontario, one in five in Manitoba, and one in sixty in Saskatchewan, goes to French school. There is more undereducation among francophones outside Quebec than among anglophones.
In 1994, 45.2 per cent of anglophones had graduated from high school compared to 37.4 per cent of francophones. And, as we know, education is the future.
I have just been talking about education, but for these children education is their future, knowing in which language they will grow up and eventually be working.
I am going to answer a question put to me by my colleague for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso who wanted to know if it could be proven that the French fact had been strengthened or not throughout Canada.
In 1951, 40 years ago, outside Quebec, in the other Canadian provinces, 7.3 per cent of the population spoke French. And 40 years later, despite the Official Languages Act, only 4.8 per cent of the population speaks French, a drop of nearly 50 per cent.
What about the mother tongue spoken at home? In Canada, 20 years ago, 25.7 per cent of the population spoke French at home, this has now dropped by 2,4 per cent throughout all provinces, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, this proportion has dropped sharply from 1.7 per cent to 0.7 per cent over 20 years.
Statistics Canada does not give any indication that the French fact has been strengthened in any province over the past 20 or 40 years.
If the Liberal Party of Canada and the Reform Party agree with these statistics, then the situation is urgent. If they do not agree, they are turning a blind eye and are putting their heads in the sand when they wrongly accuse the separatists.