Mr. Speaker, it has been four long months since I first rose in the House last October to draw attention to the fact that the RCMP was engaged in the blatantly illegal practice of issuing unilingual, French only parking tickets within the boundaries of the national capital region.
This practice was then, and still is today, a violation of section 22 of the Official Languages Act which requires that:
Every federal institution has the duty to ensure that any member of the public can communicate with and obtain available services from its head or central office in either official language, and has the same duty with respect to any of its other offices or facilities
(a) within the National Capital Region.
Since that time I have had the chance to confirm the accuracy of my interpretation of the law with the Commissioner of Official Languages. She stated in committee hearings of the House of Commons that the issuing of unilingual traffic tickets within the Quebec part of the national capital region was as illegal as it would be on the Ontario side.
As well, on December 2 the Standing Committee on Official Languages heard confirmation that the decision on the part of the government to break Canada's language laws in order to enforce the mandatory unilingualism of the Quebec government, was imposed on Canada by the current Liberal government.
Mr. Marc Tremblay, the director of the official languages law group at the Department of Justice, informed the committee that, under previous governments, infractions had been issued in the Quebec part of the national capital region in a bilingual format, as they have been and continue to be on the Ontario side of the national capital region.
Specifically, an agreement was signed in 1996 between the federal government and the Parti Québécois government under the authority of section 65 of the Contraventions Act. It was this agreement that substituted the unilingual tickets required by bill 101 for the bilingual tickets required by the Official Languages Act.
It is that agreement that the Solicitor General of Canada hides behind when time after time he responds to my questions on this issue, as he did on November 1 when he said:
The RCMP complies with provincial legislation regarding the issuance of tickets.
However the fact is that such agreements are of no force and effect when they violate federal law, and this particular agreement is an egregious violation of the Official Languages Act.
Therefore, when the Solicitor General insists, as he repeatedly does in the House, that his government's agreement with the Parti Québécois supercedes its obligations under the Official Languages Act, he is incorrect. That just is not so.
Section 82 of the Official Languages Act makes this clear. It states:
In the event of any inconsistency between the following Parts and any other Act of Parliament or regulation thereunder, the following Parts prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.
That cannot be overcome unless the federal government wants to pass a separate law saying that it will change the rules so that it would no longer require federal services to be provided in a bilingual format in the national capital region.
Tickets still are being issued in one language only in part of the national capital region. This is against the law and it continues to be against the law. Will this practice stop or does the Solicitor General plan to introduce legislation to allow for unilingual infractions in the national capital region?