Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. This bill is quite simple. It deals with the traditions that have existed at the Supreme Court of Canada for a long time. The Conservatives say that they will oppose the bill introduced by my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, which puts in place something that is already a tradition in this country.
Why? It is quite simple. A Supreme Court justice is not fully competent unless he understands both common law in English and the civil code in French. This is the minimum qualification for becoming a Supreme Court justice. However, the Conservative government refuses to accept the facts. It is precisely because it is incapable of understanding the qualifications required in the Supreme Court of Canada that Bill C-232 was introduced by the member for Acadie—Bathurst.
We have just been told that the Conservative government does not think that British Columbians can speak French. That just goes to show how out of touch the Conservative government is with the people, particularly the people of British Columbia. In the past, the Minister of Finance has even said that his Canada starts at the Atlantic Ocean and ends at the Rocky Mountains. He left out British Columbia entirely. It is clear that the Conservative government does not understand that British Columbia is one of the provinces in which the francophone population is growing in absolute numbers.
When I was a child, there were only two francophone schools. Now there are dozens of them. We have sixty or so in British Columbia because we have francophones from all over. We have a whole rainbow of francophones from Africa, Asia, Europe, Quebec of course, Acadia and western Canada. They all speak French as their first language, and that is changing British Columbia tremendously.
That is not all. More students attend immersion schools in British Columbia than anywhere else in Canada. Our schools are packed. Sometimes parents wait in line all weekend long to register their kids at these schools.
For the Conservative government to suggest that British Columbians cannot speak French is insulting. It is simply not true. It is insulting to the people of British Columbia and to people elsewhere in Canada.
With respect to qualifications, it is clear that people are going to immersion schools and even to management schools. These people understand French well, can speak it, and are studying law. At some point in time, they will meet the minimum requirements for the Supreme Court: they will understand common law in English and the civil code in French.
I certainly do not understand this drive by the Conservatives to lower standards. We have seen it in a whole variety of things, such as air safety, transportation safety, and food safety.
The Conservative government always seems to want to push for lower qualifications. There are two basic qualifications for a Supreme Court judge: the ability to understand the civil code in French and the ability to understand common law in English. Those are simple and important requirements only at the Supreme Court level. The Conservatives do not seem to understand that and that is why we have the bill that is before us today.
The idea that higher standards and stronger qualifications are not taken into consideration is something that I find objectionable. That we need a lower standard of service, that we do not need the qualifications that have served us well in the past seems, in many areas, to be the objective of the Conservative government.
That is why the Conservatives are opposing this simple but important private member's bill put forward by the member for Acadie—Bathurst. The bill would reinforce those qualifications and standards to ensure that every Supreme Court judge understands the civil code in French as well as common law in English. I would be equally opposed if the Conservatives appointed unilingual Francophones who do not understand common law in English because the function of the Supreme Court is too important to do that.
However, that is not what the Conservatives are saying. They seem to be saying they are just going to choose whatever standards they want. We have seen what that has meant in a whole variety of areas. We have seen poor financial management from the government. Those qualifications are unfortunate, but that is the net result. We have seen a whole variety of lower safety standards. We see this drive from the government that does not make sense.
I do not accept lower qualifications and I do not think any member of Parliament should. We should set a higher bar and this legislation would set the bar to what traditionally we all understood, that a Supreme Court justice needs to understand common law in English and the civil code in French. It is very simple. Nothing has to go through translation, nothing has to go through interpretation. Supreme Court judges must be able to function adequately in the two official languages, so that they can pass through the two legal codes that are often written in two different languages.
That is the issue that is before us. We hope that the Liberal Party of Canada will support this bill. We know that the Bloc Québécois said it would support the bill and that the NDP has always been consistent when it comes to the issue of official languages. It is not just the member for Acadie—Bathurst who is fighting a pitched battle to win respect for the official languages in Canada. The entire New Democratic Party has done so since it was formed, and not just at the federal level, but in all the provinces, including mine, British Columbia. It is the NDP that has brought about these changes to respect linguistic duality in Canada.
In British Columbia, a French-language school system was created under an NDP government, as in Saskatchewan. In Manitoba, the official languages bill was introduced and implemented by an NDP government. In Alberta, it was Léo Piquette, an NDP MLA, who pushed for respect for the official languages. In the Yukon, it was an NDP government that introduced the bill to respect French and English. In Ontario, the college system was put in place by an NDP government, and in the Atlantic provinces, NDP MLAs were among those who pushed hardest for language rights.
We are not two-faced. When a New Democrat talks about official languages in British Columbia, Manitoba or the Atlantic provinces, he or she pushes for mutual respect and linguistic duality. We do not act like certain other parties that may say they are in favour of the official languages in this House, but who start attacking the official languages as soon as they leave Ottawa.
We have seen this with the Conservative Party, with the Reform Party and, sadly, with the Liberal Party in western Canada. Outside Ottawa, the Liberal Party has always attacked francophones at the provincial level. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party has a sad history of saying one thing in Manitoba, British Columbia or Saskatchewan, but another thing in Ottawa.
We are consistent. We are the only party in the history of the country that has always been consistent on the issue of official languages. That is why we fully support this bill. That is also why we support the principle that a judge should have the qualifications to become a Supreme Court justice. In other words, judges must be able to understand common law in English and the civil code in French. That is why we will vote for this bill.