Mr. Speaker, what the parliamentary secretary is not saying is that 89% of francophones speak English and that only 11% of anglophones speak French. It is therefore not proportional.
Now the government is saying that it plans to ignore the law until 2012—another six years. The Conservatives say that their government is committed to protecting the country's two official languages, yet they are taking away the court challenges program. How can this government call itself committed?
The Minister for la Francophonie and Official Languages says, “The plan is new and clear with specific objectives and activities whose effectiveness is measurable”. The Conservatives have decided not to comply with the law and not to make people learn French until 2012 but, instead, to put together an easy plan and to do the bare minimum.
How can the government protect our country's two official languages if that is how they think?