Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today because I asked a question last week about the energy east pipeline that TransCanada wants to run from western Canada to eastern Canada.
My question was as follows:
Mr. Speaker, francophones are being treated like second-class citizens in the energy east pipeline debate. It is unacceptable that the National Energy Board is not being required to provide all documents in both official languages. The issues are too important and the people must have their say. The documents must be available in both official languages and have the same authority. Will the government finally put its foot down and require the board to respect francophones?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources replied:
Mr. Speaker, the National Energy Board has fulfilled its requirements under the Official Languages Act. Any documents produced by the National Energy Board must be published in both official languages. Questions related to documents filed by the applicant should be directed to the project proponent.
I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources is very familiar with this file. We know that TransCanada submitted 30,000 pages of documents to the National Energy Board concerning the energy east project. A complaint was filed and TransCanada agreed to have the documents translated. However, the National Energy Board said it would not accept that and the only documents that it would accept and that would have authority were the ones in English. The only legal documents were to be the English ones. This is déjà vu.
As members may remember, we had a debate on documents about soldiers in Afghanistan. The documents were tabled in English or French, but not all of them had been translated into the other language. A complaint was made to the Commissioner of Official Languages. Even Parliament has to follow that rule. It has to produce its documents in both official languages. They were obliged to do the translation so that the documents would be legal. We are not second-class citizens. The people of Quebec whom I talk to, including farmers around Quebec City, are concerned. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage certainly knows that. These people have the right to see the documents and to use them just as anglophones do. This is completely unacceptable and it is against the law.
In her answer, the minister said:
Mr. Speaker, the National Energy Board has fulfilled its requirements under the Official Languages Act. Any documents produced by the National Energy Board must be published in both official languages.
She admitted that it has to be in both official languages. Once again this evening, my question is this: will they admit that the law was broken? Will francophone citizens across Canada have the same opportunity as anglophones to see the document in both official languages? In our country, the law on official languages is very clear.