Madam Speaker, I rise today as the Bloc Quebecois critic for amateur sport to address Bill C-54, an act to promote physical activity and sport.
Since the beginning, the Bloc Quebecois has been supportive of the principles that underlie this bill, provided that it includes a specific provision to comply with the Official Languages Act. We believe that athletes, coaches and the whole population will benefit from the objectives of this bill, which are laudable and long overdue.
The Bloc Quebecois has always made athletes and coaches a key element of its demands and it will continue to do so at every opportunity, as long as this is necessary.
Bill C-54 is a step in the right direction. It remains to be seen whether these specific measures will meet the numerous expectations of the sports community and of the general public. It is important to remember that this bill is as much about sports as it is about physical activity.
Discussions during the sittings of the subcommittee on sport were lively, but we always kept in mind that we should be working in the best interests of athletes and coaches, because this is a non-partisan issue. Based on the comments that we heard, it appears that our work was appreciated.
The objectives on both sides of the table were basically the same, namely to increase resources for our athletes and coaches, to develop an awareness of the fact that sport facilities and infrastructures are in urgent need of investments, and to implement practical measures to increase public participation.
As a member of parliament, the Bloc Quebecois critic for amateur sport and a member of the subcommittee on sport, I have stressed the need to have a specific provision on respecting official languages. Today, we see that our efforts have paid off. During the sittings of the subcommittee, we insisted on the need to put in place mechanisms to monitor and implement the use of official languages, based on the recommendations made by the Commissioner of Official Languages in the report she tabled in 2000.
Subcommittee members unanimously expressed a desire to soon have a true department of sport and physical activity. We believe that the creation of such a department would officialize the implementation of the objectives of Bill C-54.
Members of the subcommittee would also like to see a strengthening of the preamble to Bill C-54. We need more than empty words to meet the expectations of our athletes and trainers. It is incumbent upon the government to officially act on this preamble as soon as possible.
We hope that this bill will put athletes and trainers at the heart of this government's actions, as the Bloc Quebecois has been recommending since the very beginning.
We also hope that the government will act quickly to make the resources available to meet the objectives of excellence and that the appropriate transfers will be made to Quebec, the provinces and the territories so that athletes can have, right from the start, all the tools they need to succeed.
Our athletes and trainers are our pride, and we need to show that to them. They have been listening to empty words for too long. The time has come to take action so that we never again have to talk about a lost generation.
The Bloc Quebecois hopes that the government will take its inspiration from community physical activity programs such as Kino-Québec. We are still wondering about the relevance of abolishing the ParticipAction program.
It is the government's intention to encourage physical activity for the public at large, but it did abolish a program that would have helped us move along toward that goal.
The Bloc Quebecois is in favour of this bill inasmuch as there is total respect for Quebec's jurisdiction, to avoid any form of encroachment. We encourage the federal government to open a dialogue of co-operation with its counterparts in Quebec, the provinces and the territories.
With respect to the creation of the dispute resolution centre, the Bloc Quebecois reiterates its desire that this extrajudicial resolution centre operate on a purely voluntary basis in connection with athletes and that Sports Canada be required to respect athletes' wishes. It would also be appropriate to implement arbitration award consultation mechanisms, thus creating sport case law which would be available to the sport community.
The Bloc Quebecois feels that the rules of application for the mediation and arbitration process should follow the example of the rules of procedure in use in Quebec. The amendments to this effect were rejected by the subcommittee on sport during clause-by-clause study.
Finally, we see in the specific affirmation of respect for the official languages an intention of goodwill, and we hope that Quebec's athletes and trainers will finally be able to participate fully in the international sport community.
In 1999, the Bloc Quebecois filed a complaint with the official languages commissioner asking her to look into the difficulties faced by francophone athletes. The commissioner felt that our allegations were well founded. In 2000, she submitted a detailed report containing 16 recommendations.
In her report, the Commissioner of Official Languages referred to the results of an indepth investigation of the use of French and English in the Canadian sports system. Her conclusion was that not only did the process of selecting Canadian teams represent a major obstacle to francophone athletes, but that the problem existed far earlier than the final team selection process. It is a problem that has been around for some time and it is time steps were taken to ensure respect of the rights of francophone athletes to receive services and coaching in the language of their choice.
The Bloc Quebecois has been calling for a long time for implementation of the 16 recommendations made by the Commissioner of Official Languages. Her report is already two years old. We are still demanding their immediate application. In fact, acknowledgment of the francophone athlete issue is the central point of our demands, as it has been from the start, both in the House of Commons and in the sports subcommittee.
The Commissioner of Official Languages makes it clear: French and English are far from equal in status as far as Canadian sport is concerned.
With the introduction of Bill C-54, the Bloc is entitled to call for proper implementation of the recommendations by the Commissioner of Official Languages, and particularly the explicit entrenchment of these recommendations in the bill itself. The Bloc Quebecois therefore calls for legislative acknowledgment of the formal application of the Official Languages Act.
How many francophone athletes have been training for years and have not managed to get to international level competitions because of the language barrier? Unfortunately, far too many.
The Bloc Quebecois has been constantly demanding from the very start that the government respect francophone athletes and coaches, who are being forced to master English as well as the demands of their sport.
As I have only two and one half pages more to read, I would ask for unanimous consent of the House to finish my speech.