Mr. Speaker, let me reassure my hon. colleague from Louis-Hébert. I did devote part of my life to this cause, but I still have some strength left to go on.
On a more serious note, it is true that if we want to lead by example in Canada, members of the cabinet should be bilingual. The minister responsible for enforcing all or part of the Official Languages Act should set the example. I understand that the current President of the Treasury Board is working on that.
What I find rather amusing is precisely this responsibility the Official Languages Act. I may be mistaken, but I think that, pursuant to section 42 or 43 of the legislation, the Canadian heritage minister is responsible for implementing the Official Languages Act. Further down, the responsibility for enforcing the Official Languages Act within the public service is given to the President of the Treasury Board.
If we look at what the government is doing here, we see that a minister has been made responsible for the Official Languages Act, who is neither the Minister of Heritage or the President of the Treasury Board. In this case it is the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier, the minister responsible for official languages. There is no reference to this title in the Official Languages Act, because the co-ordinating responsibilities of the minister responsible for official languages are not recognized. That role is considered instead to belong to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. So, in the House of Commons, a question to the heritage minister will not be answered by her but by another person.
So, who is responsible? Everyone and no one. Who is answerable? Everyone and no one. Why, in the report she tabled last week, did the Commissioner of Official Languages say that little progress has been made in the application of the Official Languages Act after 35 years? This is somewhat contrary to what we read at the Treasury Board Secretariat site. She is not celebrating the progress made, far from it, because everyone is responsible for a part of the Official Languages Act, but according to this government, no one is.
For the benefit of the member for Louis—Hébert, with his great interest in official language issues, I will point out that further along in that web site may be found the form required for all reports on the respect of official languages. Never, under any minister, has there been any follow-up on these reports. So here we have, in Bill C-8, a continuation of what we have been seeing for 35 years as far as the Official Languages Act is concerned, particularly within the Public Service.