Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate today's motion. From the outset I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
I will reread the motion:
That, in the opinion of the House, following the recognition of the Quebec nation by this House, the government should move from words to deeds and propose measures to solidify that recognition, including compliance with the language of labour relations of Quebec’s Charter of the French language regarding enterprises under federal jurisdiction located in Quebec.
In November 2006, this government presented the following motion, which was adopted by the House of Commons:
That this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.
This recognition is a victory for the Bloc. The government was pressured into presenting that motion because the Bloc Québécois, at the time, forced the government's hand by presenting its own motion recognizing the Quebec nation. As a result, Canada recognized our existence as a national community for the first time.
The dictionary defines nation as a group of people, generally large, characterized by awareness of its unity and a desire to live together. The nation is the community we belong to, the group we identify with, the group we talk with in order to make decisions that concern the organization of our society.
It is also a favoured place for making decisions of a political nature, and to recognize a nation is to finally recognize the existence of a political body equipped with legitimate rights and political aspirations.
By recognizing the Quebec nation, the House of Commons has recognized Quebeckers' right to control their own social, economic and cultural development within Quebec.
The House has also recognized the legitimacy of Quebec's repeated requests to give Quebeckers the power and necessary resources to develop their own society.
Nonetheless, the recognition of a nation has to be much more than symbolic—which it is right now. Nations have rights and the one right they have in particular is the right to self determination, in other words, to determine their own development themselves. And if Quebeckers form a nation, it is not up to Canadians to dictate how that nation should organize its society.
That said, a consensus is building in Quebec on the fact that the Quebeckers form a nation and, what is more, have done so for a very long time. Back in the early days after the conquest, Lord Durham referred to two nations in conflict within the same state. Then we had Maurice Duplessis, who spoke of it in 1946; Jean Lesage in 1963, Daniel Johnson in 1968, and René Lévesque's reference to Canada's being composed of two nations each equal to the other. I could name a number of other instances as well.
On October 30, 2003, the Quebec National Assembly passed the following motion unanimously:
That the National Assembly reaffirm that the people of Quebec form a nation.
The motion does not say that the people of Quebec form a nation if Canada remains as it is, or that Quebec is a nation if it opts for sovereignty. It says that the people of Quebec form a nation, period.
We can conclude from this that Quebeckers form a nation regardless of the choices they make in future. Canada has recognized that the people of Quebec form a nation and it must act accordingly from here on in.
This takes me back to the French fact. The last census in 2006 presents some worrisome findings on the status of French outside Quebec, as well as within Quebec, Montreal in particular.
French has lost ground everywhere in Canada, including Quebec, even though more immigrants than ever are speaking it in the home. The last Statistics Canada census revealed some very worrisome figures indeed. Even though the number of persons with French as their mother tongue increased between 2001 and 2006, their relative weight decreased and they represent only 22% of the population.
As for the language in predominant use in the home, the relative share of French is constantly dropping, from 26% in 1971 to 21% in 2006. This is a source of concern to francophone communities outside Quebec. In all territories and provinces outside Quebec, unlike the figures for English, the number of those using French predominantly in the home is lower than the number of those with French as their mother tongue. According to the 2006 census, 4.1% of the population outside Quebec report French as their mother tongue, a drop from the 4.4% of the 2001 census. This is a continuation of a trend that has prevailed for more than half a century.
In Quebec, the number of persons speaking English most often in the home rose by 40,000 between 2001 and 2006. The rate of increase in the population reporting English as most used in the home was 5.5% over 2001, or twice the figure for French in the home.
On the island of Montreal, the percentage of those reporting French as their mother tongue in 2006 dropped to below half of the population. It is said that the increase in English as language of use is eight times that of French. These are not my figures, they come from Statistics Canada.
This is a cause for considerable concern. They say that the gains the francophone group can hope to make because of increased mobility toward French will still be neutralized by the effects of international immigration. I have already mentioned Lord Durham, who was sent out from England after the troubles of 1837. He said that the primary and firm intent of the British government of the day was to introduce an English population into this province and the only way to accomplish that was through immigration.
Many have turned to immigration to supposedly alleviate labour shortages. However, most immigrants to Quebec are anglophone. That is why it is extremely important for immigrants coming to Quebec to understand that they are coming to a province whose official language is French.
Currently, we have to deal with Canada's multiculturalism policy. What is the difference between multiculturalism and Quebec's interculturalism? Basically, Canadian multiculturalism arises from the Canadian belief that all citizens are equal. It enables all Canadians to preserve their identity, be proud of their origins and feel a sense of belonging, whereas in Quebec, interculturalism allows people to be proud to live within the Quebec nation.
There are numerous problems with the Canada Multiculturalism Act. People do not want to speak French. When they come to Canada, they are told that they are part of a multicultural continent. Quebec's approach—asking them to learn French—does not appeal to them much. Newcomers can easily become confused, because Quebec portrays itself as a French-language state, but it is in a bilingual country that promotes bilingualism.
People arriving in Quebec are getting conflicting messages. And who can blame them? We have to make every effort to integrate them into francophone society. That is why we have our francophone society charter. I would note that the purpose of the charter is to define the linguistic rights of all Quebeckers, the right to speak French, the language of the majority.