Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take part in the debate on the Bloc Québécois opposition day motion moved by the member for Joliette, which reads:
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.
Everybody in the House knows I am fluently bilingual and that normally when I take part in debate I make a point of doing a good part, if not the majority, of my speech in French but, as a member of the linguistic anglophone minority in Quebec, I think it is important that my thoughts on this motion be registered in English.
If we look at the question of official languages and the history of our country, our country came together under the British North American Act, our Confederation, and Quebec was part of that. Our Constitution clearly set out what was federal jurisdiction and what was provincial jurisdiction. It is clear that the language of enterprises and federal agencies comes under federal jurisdiction.
I find it interesting that a party that has made its brand attacking successive federal governments for allegedly overlapping into provincial jurisdiction would now, under the guise of the recognition by this House of the nation of Quebec people, as an excuse to enter into federal jurisdiction.
We have two official languages in Canada and those languages are French and English. Anyone who attempts to say that by having and promoting both official languages somehow opens the door to other languages is making a spurious argument. That is the first thing.
Second, anybody who sits in the House, in my view, has a duty to ensure that linguistic minority rights are protected, and that means anglophones in Quebec and francophones outside of Quebec.
I have a great deal of respect for many of the Bloc MPs but with this motion they are ensuring that the linguistic minority rights of anglophones living within the borders of the province of Quebec will be unprotected. As it stands now, when one looks at the report of the Official Languages Commissioner, anglophones in Quebec are not adequately represented in federal institutions. I will not even talk about provincial institutions.
The Government of Quebec has had an equity employment program for cultural communities and the linguistic minority anglophones and yet anglophones comprise, I believe, possibly 1% of the provincial civil service, and federally, notwithstanding the fact of our presence in Quebec since the very first days, we do not comprise more than 8% of the federal public service in Quebec.
The Official Languages Commissioner has, time and time again, been forced to investigate complaints about the roughshod treatment that the English-speaking minority in Quebec has suffered within federal institutions and now the province would like to see the workplace language of enterprises under federal jurisdiction be French only.
When the Bloc Québécois first tabled its private member's bill, which is where this motion comes from, the Official Languages Commissioner already had concerns about the English-speaking minority in Quebec having equal access to health services, which is provincial jurisdiction, in their mother tongue.
Educationally, an article appeared recently in the paper about how the English-speaking school boards, the teachers and the unions were demanding that the Government of Quebec not institute its pedagogical educational reform. Do members know why? It is because the textbooks that the children need to use to learn the subject matter and from which their final exams will be based on are not yet available.
Therefore, we know there are already difficulties both provincially and federally. Neither government has clean hands when we talk about the English-speaking minority in Quebec and ensuring the protection of our linguistic rights and our rights to services in our language. The Bloc Québécois, which states that it defends all Quebeckers, is not defending my rights in Quebec nor is it defending the rights of my community in Quebec. It is not defending the rights of the other English-speaking minority in Quebec.
I will not even begin to speak about the French-speaking minority outside of Quebec because, Lord knows, should this motion be adopted, the Bloc and anyone in the House who votes in favour of this motion will have opened the door for provincial governments outside of Quebec to suddenly decide that the only official language will be English and forget about the French-speaking minority outside of Quebec.
I do not understand the lack of shame on the part of that party. I am a Quebecker. I just heard one of the Bloc members say that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Status of Women is a Quebecker, notwithstanding the fact that she is a federalist. I too am a federalist and, according to the definition that the Bloc member of Parliament just gave, I am a member of the Quebec nation.
In that case, if the Bloc wants to claim that it defends the rights of Quebeckers I expect to see it defending my rights in Quebec as the English-speaking minority within Quebec. I am a strong supporter and advocate of bill 101. One of the good effects of that was that my community began to freely choose to send their children to French language schools. They wanted their children to be bilingual so they could work for the provincial government or for private enterprise which come under provincial rule. However, surprise, surprise, we cannot get jobs there even though we speak French.
In this case, the Bloc is not defending my rights as the English-speaking minority in Quebec. It is not defending the rights of my community within Quebec because the only place where we are able to find jobs, notwithstanding the fact that we are bilingual, is in federal institutions. Even there we are not represented as much as we should be, but at least that door is partly open.
I would like to see the Bloc members get up and defend my minority language rights. I would like to see the Bloc members get up and talk about the fact that textbooks that are required in our schools in Quebec are not available in English and that our children are being forced to use photocopies. It is ridiculous. The textbooks are not available because they have not been translated by the government.