Madam Speaker, I have listened with much interest to the speech by our colleague from Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam. I would like to ask him a question. First, he says quite clearly that his party will be supporting Bill C-47. Now, that bill stipulates:
This enactment extends the application of the Official Languages Act to certain affiliates of Air Canada and deems the articles of ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. to include provisions respecting the location of its head office and the right of persons to communicate with that corporation in both official languages.
In my view, this is the important part of the bill. For some time, Air Canada was owned by the Canadian taxpayers. In 1988, when the Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney was in power, Air Canada was privatized.
As I listened to his speech, I noticed that he had done a lot of research. That was interesting. He spoke to us about Air Canada and almost all the airports in the world. He is indeed very familiar with this issue.
However, in all of the research that he passed on to us, I heard no complaint about Air Canada’s failure to respect the official languages. A published report mentions the ten institutions—including departments and other institutions—that are most often cited, that is, those that receive the most complaints. The company that heads the list is Air Canada. It is curious that his speech made no mention of the complaints about Air Canada and its failure to comply with the Official Languages Act, and its continuing failure to comply. Yet it is a Canadian company which is obliged to operate under the Official Languages Act.
I agree with my colleague when he says that the Conservative Party respects the official languages and will be supporting Bill C-47.
In his speech he spoke of how badly the government is behaving in this regard. Naturally I am not taking the government’s side on this subject. He also said that the government wants to interfere with Air Canada. Yet he said nothing about how Air Canada has not respected and continues not to respect the official languages. That is why it is so important to be in favour of Bill C-47. For it is Air Canada that most contravenes the provisions of the Official Languages Act in Canada. It is the company that receives the most complaints, and does so continually.
So I would like to hear his opinion on this.