Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak on this bill, which I will be voting against.
History is repeating itself in this House. In 2008, the Bloc Québécois introduced a motion in this House, which read as follows:
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.
That was in 2008. Now we have Bill C-307, which is far broader than the motion I have just read. As a federalist, a Canadian and a friend of the Official Languages Act, I am opposed to many aspects of Bill C-307.
There are four major points in this bill that are of great concern to me. First, it implies that the French language is in decline in Quebec. Second, there is the matter of what goes on in federally regulated institutions in Quebec. Third, are they thinking about the anglophone minority population of Quebec? Fourth, and most important to me as a representative of the Acadian people, of the French speaking people in a country with linguistic duality, there is the Official Languages Act.
Should this bill become the law of the land, what would happen to the francophone minority Acadian populations in New Brunswick, in Nova Scotia, in Prince Edward Island? What will happen to the French speaking minority populations in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, for instance? To the francophones on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River? To the people who attend the Collège Saint-Jean d'Edmonton in Alberta? What will happen to the people of Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan?
When I sat on this Parliament's Standing Committee on Official Languages, I was amazed to learn that there were 50,000 francophones in Vancouver, B.C. What would happen to them if Bill C-307 were adopted? This worries me somewhat.
In her speech, my friend and colleague from LaSalle—Émard said that the Bloc clearly lacked solidarity with the Canadian Francophonie, and in this case, that is true. It is true because this bill would be very problematic for Acadians, for example.
If all federal institutions were to be subject to Quebec's Charter of the French Language, then why not have a Charter of the English Language in other provinces with minority francophone populations?
Why could we not then have an English language charter in a province where there is a francophone minority? What if, in the province of New Brunswick, a government said that the province shall have an English language charter and that English shall be the language of all federal institutions in the province of New Brunswick?
In the history of New Brunswick, there have been riots over political events, hockey victories and defeats, and over quotas for fisheries in parts of our province. One would never see a riot such as there would be if such a law were brought into the province of New Brunswick. It is because I live in a country that respects two languages, two languages under the Official Languages Act that are of equal value and merit, that I so strongly oppose this bill.
The Bloc has falsely stated that the French language is undergoing a catastrophic decline in Quebec. However, the 2006 census and the report of the Office québécois de la langue française, both published in 2008, suggest otherwise. It is not true that the French language is undergoing a catastrophic decline in Quebec. In Quebec, the French language is alive and well, and Quebec's culture is alive and well, thanks in part to the presence of federal institutions that protect the country's two official languages.
It is important to note that Statistics Canada says that the number of people who speak French as their mother tongue increased 1.6% between 2001 and 2006. There have been other increases in the quality and number of French speakers throughout this country. Evidence that bilingualism is one of Canada's core values is so evident in surveys conducted on Canadians by Canadians. It is the very essence of what we are as Canadians.
I want to move on to the question of what happens to federal companies and institutions that are situated in the province of Quebec. In the past, words have been used against the Official Languages Act. The real meaning of what a federal institution is or what a federal company is has come into play throughout this debate. The bill's main result would see that the Canada Labour Code would be amended so that companies operating in Quebec but under federal jurisdiction would be subject to la Charte de la langue française, a provincial charter.
The Bloc is trying to impose la Charte de la langue française on companies under federal jurisdiction under what it would call a regulatory vacuum. Clause 34 in part 5 of the Official Languages Act states:
English and French are the languages of work in all federal institutions, and officers and employees of all federal institutions have the right to use either official language in accordance with this Part.
What is meant by that is that Canada is a bilingual country. We have the protection of the Official Languages Act. The party on this side has always stood for the core value that we are a bilingual country protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Official Languages Act. It has not always been the case that all parties in this place have thought of the country this way. We think it is a core value and we think it is worth fighting for.
We must stop this bill so that we will not see any riots in any parts of New Brunswick or other provinces in Canada over something as fundamental as taking away the guarantee of bilingual rights in our great country.