Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-232, introduced by my colleague, the member for Acadie—Bathurst.
I was expecting this bill would be passed unanimously in Parliament. I read through the past debates in Hansard and was surprised to find that members of the Conservative Party were very reluctant to proceed, especially when they should be open-minded enough on principle to vote in favour of the bill at second reading and get the bill to committee. If they had any concerns or amendments, they could present them at committee and we could proceed from there.
I believe the Liberals are onside on this bill. The Bloc certainly indicated support. The NDP caucus is solidly onside. I also read with interest the speeches of other members of our caucus, the member for Outremont and the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. I would like to echo their sentiments on this bill.
The bill puts in a new requirement for judges of the Supreme Court to understand English and French without the assistance of an interpreter. That is all it does. That should not be difficult. When appointing judges at that level, we are dealing with extremely competent, qualified people who have considerable education and can understand concepts. Language training should not be a problem for people at that level.
Once again, I am a bit taken aback that Conservative members would present the view that they have.
My wife speaks Spanish and French. Members of her family have sent their children to French immersion schools in Manitoba for the last number of years. As other members have indicated, there is no shortage of French immersion schools in Manitoba. As a matter of fact, the number of people who go to French immersion is rising. That part of the school system is expanding and people are interested in sending their kids to French immersion schools.
My home province of Manitoba has had difficulties over the years. In terms of the province itself, I get questions about Manitoba politics. I was involved provincially for a number of years. There was an issue back in the 1970s which had its roots in 1890 when Manitoba passed the Official Languages Act, which rendered the province unilingual. In 1975 a unilingual parking ticket was issued to Georges Forest. That case and the Bilodeau cases targeted the 1890 Official Languages Act and they won. The province had to deal with the issue.
Rather than translate 100 years of old statutes, the NDP government of the day, of which I was a part, after negotiations with Société franco-manitobaine and the federal government, arrived at an agreement for a constitutional amendment which would have led to the expansion of French language services in Manitoba. We had an agreement. Société franco-manitobaine was in favour of all the new services that it wanted. The provincial government was in favour. The federal government was in favour.
Everything was proceeding as it should, but it was the Conservative opposition of the day that decided to make hay on the issue. It led to acrimony in the legislature, bell ringing, a virtual shutdown of the legislature and a virtual destruction of the government. The government at the end of the day backed down and said it would translate the laws, and that is what happened. What we did not want to happen, to spend millions and millions of dollars to translate 100-year-old laws, happened.
Having said all that, since that time French language services have expanded in Manitoba, so we translated the laws and now we have very good services. As a matter of fact our current premier, Greg Selinger, who is bilingual, who speaks French, has been personally in charge of French language services for the last 10 years, ever since he was the finance minister in 1999 when Gary Doer formed the government. I know he has attended francophonie conferences. He is very active on that file. I have certainly heard him in caucus enough on the issue. I think if we checked, we would find that French language services have expanded in Manitoba under the NDP, under Mr. Selinger, to the extent that there has not been a complaint, a story or any acrimony over the last 10 years. No one has complained that they are not able to get services in the French language.
Our solution at the end of the day has all worked out favourably, while it certainly caused a lot of political problems in the province, caused us to have a bad reputation across the country for a while partly because of some misunderstandings. I do not think there is or should be a role for parties to say one thing at one level in one place and then the opposite on the campaign trail, an election situation or another venue. That is what happened in Manitoba. The opposition basically took an issue and twisted it and tried to make political hay out of the situation.
At the end of the day, guess what? The opposition was successful in causing the government to back down, but the government was re-elected anyway. So the proof is in the pudding, and the proof is that playing angles that should not be played in issues like language, because they can be divisive, does not necessarily get the results we think we should be getting in the long run.
I thought I would deal with that issue because I read Hansard on this issue. Also, I do want to correct an error I might have made at the beginning of my speech when I indicated the Conservatives should support the bill at second reading. My whip, and the author of the bill, points out that we are at third reading right now. Having said that, my intention is still to encourage the Conservatives to come on side. We do have the majority now with all three parties supporting the bill. It makes sense to me that members opposite join the coalition, as they put it, to make this a unanimous bill rather than trying to find ways to slow it down and thwart what is essentially an excellent idea from the member. The member has already gone through a lot with the bill, given that the Prime Minister prorogued the House a few months ago and then we had to start over again when we just spoke on the bill a few months ago.
I am very pleased to have my time on the bill and I know the member wants to make his closing arguments.