Mr. Speaker, Canada's 150th anniversary is an important opportunity to celebrate Canada's linguistic duality as a key aspect of our collective identity and as a gift for future generations.
Despite long wait lists for French immersion programs in Vancouver, the Christy Clark Liberal government and its school board appointee are cutting French immersion enrolment for kindergarten students by one-quarter next year. This will result in 135 fewer spaces, and five schools will lose one class each.
Many parents who want to register their children in this very popular program will be upset about this, and even more children will be deprived of the opportunity to be bilingual.
I urge the federal government to defend bilingualism and our official languages across the country in order to ensure that all Canadian students have access to education in French and in English.