Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for this question which allows me to make it very clear that we are talking about private businesses that are covered by the Canada Labour Code and not about the entire federal public service. There is separate legislation covering that aspect. However, we are not dealing with that act, but rather with private businesses that are under federal jurisdiction, a sector that includes 275,000 workers in areas like airports, banks, interprovincial transportation and telecommunications.
We must understand that what we are giving here is only a right to work in French. It is not a matter of forcing all workers to work in French. This has to be very clear. Since the majority of the Quebec population is French speaking, the French language should of course be the language used at work. We are however talking about rights and not about obligations regarding the Charter of the French Language.
As far as the Commissioner of Official Languages' comments are concerned, I would say that he had misread the bill introduced by the Bloc Québecois, that again only deals with private businesses under federal jurisdiction.