moved for leave to introduce Bill C-286, an act to amend the Official Languages Act (provision of bilingual services).
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the enactment is to redefine the criteria set out in the Official Languages Act so as to avoid unnecessary expense. In setting criteria for significant demand, the act states that 25% of the population of an area must speak an official language in order to warrant service in the language.
I would point out that in addition to restoring sanity to the language debate and to the language laws of our country, the amendment would end the current effort by the federal government to force the newly amalgamated city of Ottawa to be officially bilingual.
The amendment would result in a rational approach to bilingualism in which regions whose numbers did not warrant it would not incur unnecessary expense and unilingual Canadians would not be denied fair access to jobs in the public service.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)