Mr. Speaker, a court once again sided with Franco-Ontarians when it ruled that the Montfort Hospital would remain open because it is essential to the development of francophone communities.
With this ruling, the Ontario divisional court taught a great lesson to all of Canada. A fundamental distinction must be made between token bilingual services that have no impact on the erosion of communities and a linguistic duality that requires the existence of French language institutions to ensure the development of francophone communities.
The Bloc Quebecois congratulates the whole S.O.S. Montfort team for this great victory, and particularly Gisèle Lalonde.
The Bloc Quebecois hopes that predominantly English speaking provinces will get the message and will immediately take action to provide their French speaking communities with the institutions that they need. If Canada is a country where the expression linguistic duality means something, then predominantly English speaking provinces will act quickly and will spare their francophone communities costly legal battles that they will lose in any case.