Mr. Speaker, 40 years after the adoption of the Official Languages Act, 143 years after the creation of the Dominion of Canada, after more than four centuries of the French presence in America, the Canadian federal government is as disdainful as ever of the French fact in Quebec, in Acadie and in Canada. A new example of this: the preparations for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Once again, the French fact is merely being given lip service.
For the Canadian federal state, bent as it is on assimilation, the concept of two official languages is just that: a concept,with no real commitment behind it. Ministers are not even obliged to be bilingual, nor Supreme Court justices, nor ambassadors, nor deputy ministers, nor even the Prime Minister. Even a number of public service positions that are designated bilingual are staffed by unilingual anglophones. When the higher echelons of a G8 country like Canada do not even require their representatives to be able to function in one of its official languages, namely French, one cannot help but conclude that Canada is most certainly not preaching by example. Canada is a country that is, in fact , promoting the gradual disappearance of the French fact. The rate of assimilation proves this.
VANOC, the acronym for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Games, is yet another example. Subsidized by the federal government, VANOC has made a mockery of the francophone cultural component of the games. At the countdown ceremony on February 12 of this year, the only francophone representation was a single musician who admitted that he had likely been chosen at the last minute because of his French name.
The francophone component of the pre-Olympic concert events is non-existent. VANOC has defended itself by saying that there will be performances by Beast, a group from Quebec that sings in English, Bell Orchestre, a Quebec instrumental group whose website is in English only, and Manitoba Metis Music and Dance, which does not sing in French. In continued attempts to justify the unjustifiable, VANOC pointed out that one of the choreographers was a francophone. However, French is a language, not a dance step.
In light of this situation, on March 31 at the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I asked Ms. Marie-Geneviève Mounier, the Assistant Deputy Minister, International and Intergovernmental Affairs and Sport, if the federal government could cut VANOC funding for failing to provide adequate French programming for the cultural component. Ms. Mounier replied, and I quote: “We can do that. If the contribution agreement conditions are not complied with— ”
Therefore, it is evident that the minister responsible for the Vancouver Games and, furthermore, the Minster of Official Languages, is attempting to cover up VANOC's lack of respect for the French fact rather than taking it to task right here, in the House of Commons. Furthermore, he is not taking concrete action to ensure that VANOC remedies the situation. That is shameful but so representative of the federal contempt and indifference towards the French fact.