Madam Speaker, to continue on the general trend, in fact it is worse than that.
The member who just spoke actually summarized it very well.
There are a couple of things I would like to point out to the government side.
First, what the government is trying to do, and we all know it, is to try to save the reputation of a Liberal member who did a royal botch-up in committee. That is what we are debating today. There was a royal botch-up. It should not have happened. The minister came forward with four and a half pages saying “Whatever you do, don't do this”. Now we are in the House at report stage trying to amend a royal botch-up in order to save the face of the member who brought the original amendment into committee.
The amendment should never have been brought in. The members opposite say for greater clarity they want to make sure the Official Languages Act applies to this agency. Why did they not say for greater clarity in the case of first degree murder that might occur in this park area we had better have a clause saying the Criminal Code applies? It would be greater clarity just to make sure everyone is not confused about that, so that people walking around do not say this is a new park, maybe they could murder somebody and get away with it. It is just silly.
Clauses are not put in for greater clarity when the other legislation already encompasses agencies under the federal jurisdiction. It is not needed. It is redundant. It is a waste of time. It is a face saving measure to try to save the political reputation of someone who should never have brought it into committee to begin with. That is what that is.
I can think of a case that was as silly as this in the last parliament. The chairman of the official languages committee, Patrick Gagnon, was defeated in the last election. He brought forward the proposal that we have an investigation to see why there were not more French signs on Sparks Street in Ottawa. It was an excellent job for a committee of the House of Commons to determine why there was not more French on Sparks Street.
Even the Liberals said to Mr. Gagnon in a not so roundabout way what kind of bonehead idea is this. It is not the job of the committee to look at that. That was another silly, frivolous type of investigation. Are we going to bring the language police on to Sparks Street?
It was a silly thing and of course he lost his chairmanship of that committee, and he subsequently lost the election. It was an example of a Liberal member's bringing something forward that their own colleagues said was unnecessary, overkill and should be deleted. Unfortunately there was a big row about it until the Liberals killed the idea. That is of course what they are trying to do with this amendment today.
I would like to respond a bit to Bloc members' assertion about Reform's language policy. They do not like it but that can be taken for what it is worth. There is an anomaly that points out a bit of hypocrisy on their part.
The Reform Party has always advocated from the beginning of our party that where numbers warrant and where it makes obvious sense we should have bilingualism absolutely in place.
One of the places where we have always said this should be in place is in the House of Commons. There is no doubt about it that both French and English are spoken here in large numbers. The staff, the researchers, the proximity to Quebec, for all those reasons this place needs to be bilingual. That is why we have translators. That is why we have interpreters. That is why motions are put in both languages and so on. It is necessary because this is a bilingual institution, as the Reform Party has always said it should be. This is typical of a place that should be and is bilingual. It is bilingual so let us treat it that way and make sure it is handled that way.
But a strange thing happened. When the Reform Party became the official opposition a shuffling of offices took place within the centre block building. We moved from the fifth floor to the fourth which are the offices occupied by the official opposition. When we did that we made some subtle and some not so subtle changes. We put the Canadian flag outside the leader's office because it is the office of the leader of the official opposition of Canada.
There were other changes, not least of which was an attitudinal change. An interesting thing structurally happened on the fifth floor where the Bloc Quebecois entrenched itself as the third party, our old suites upstairs.
When the Reform Party was there the signs on all our doors were bilingual. This being a bilingual institution, we always made sure all the signs were in both official languages because that is the way we believe it should be. But when the Bloc Quebecois took over, it took down the bilingual signs on the doors of the fifth floor and put up French only signs. Why would it do that in a bilingual institution like parliament? Why would the leader of the third party take down the bilingual signs and put up French only signs in a bilingual institution?
That has been changed on the whole floor on which the Bloc Quebecois is currently ensconced. I find that disappointing. Bloc members say in the House that we must have respect for both languages, which I also believe. It is disappointing when they get to a floor they call their own, although it is a part of this institution and we all must deal with things on that floor, that they take down the bilingual signs which the leader of the Reform Party had in place and put French only signs up. Why did they do that? Why would they try to put one language only? I would not do that in this institution. This is a bilingual institution. But they did it.
Bloc members are in favour of this Liberal amendment. However, their complaints ring pretty hollow when they say that they would like to see more French in our national parks. It is ironic that 90% of our national parks are in western Canada. I have seen that we provide services in many languages as need requires. I have seen tour guides speaking Japanese and Chinese. We host the nation in these parts. But when it comes to our own national institution, the House of Commons, they put French only on the doors, the one structural thing they have control of. That is too bad.
It is a sad commentary when we should be promoting and encouraging bilingualism and celebrating that diversity in this institution. It is a sad commentary where numbers warrant and where it is a national institution that they choose to go the other way. That is unfortunate. I hope they take the opportunity in the next few days to change that, to show that they respect the spirit of bilingualism in this kind of institution in their own offices. I hope they will but I will not hold my breath. Although they talk a good line for the national parks in my region, they will not practice what they preach even here in our national parliament, and that is too bad.
This is an amendment to fix a botched up amendment which the justice minister gave a four and a half page tongue lashing about, saying that it should never have been there. This tries to fix it in a poor management style in terms of legislation. Fixing bad amendments by amending them further is the worst way to create good legislation.
I am worried they are setting a precedent. What are we going to have? Is the Minister of National Revenue who is contemplating a national tax collection agency going to have to put this clause in his bill? It should never have been there. What about all the bills that do not include it because the Official Languages Act already covers it?
Here we have a bad amendment made worse, a precedent setting one at that, by including it in an agency development bill. As the government goes to other agencies, this amendment will now have to be pushed through on every one of them. That is too bad and unfortunate.
The government would be wiser to cut its losses and to cut this clause. It is unnecessary, vexatious and strictly a political statement that tries to cover up a very bad mistake made in committee.