Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister of Veterans Affairs for his comments. He spoke about how proud he is of New Brunswick, which he feels offers suitable legal services in French. I am happy to see how proud he is of his province.
I urge him to extend that pride to the other maritime provinces, particularly Nova Scotia. There were three bilingual Federal Court judges in that province. Two of them are retiring: Justice Boudreau and Justice Batiot. They will be replaced by anglophones. For the entire province of Nova Scotia, from Cape Breton to southwestern Nova Scotia, including the provincial capital, there will be only one bilingual judge. That is completely unacceptable. It is unthinkable that we would move down to one judge from three.
Of the judges I mentioned, Justice Boudreau was appointed by Mr. Mulroney some time ago. Mr. Chrétien appointed a number of bilingual judges in Nova Scotia. Now, this government is replacing two francophones with two anglophones. In just two years of this government, French-language legal services in Nova Scotia have dropped by 66%.
The minister spoke about his pride in the bilingual legal services in the Maritimes, but will he extend that pride to the Acadians and francophones of Nova Scotia?