Mr. Speaker, I will continue my speech on the part of the bill concerning the application of the Charter of the French Language to private-sector businesses under federal jurisdiction.
We have seen that the Official Languages Act, Canada's blueprint for linguistic development, is at odds with Quebec's blueprint, the Charter of the French Language. The Official Languages Act is designed to ensure access to services in both official languages where numbers warrant. It is a model based on the principle of institutional bilingualism founded on individual rights. In every other country in the world that uses this model, the minority languages are being assimilated. That is what is happening in all of the anglophone provinces of Canada, where the assimilation of francophones continues to grow with each passing year.
The only way to ensure the future of a language is to make it the common public language in a given geographic area. For instance, here in Ottawa, two people with different linguistic or cultural backgrounds will naturally communicate in English, because English is the common language in most of Canada. What is not accepted here in English Canada, and does not seem to be accepted by any Quebec MP from a national party, is the idea that French could be the common public language in Quebec, meaning people with different linguistic backgrounds would communicate in French in the workplace. The Charter of the French Language was created to guarantee the right to work in French and to make French the common language at work.
We saw how the member who chairs the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights reacted to that. He got very upset and said the Bloc Québécois wants anglophones in Quebec to have fewer rights than other Canadians. From our perspective, that is astounding. I think what he meant to say was that he thinks anglophones in Quebec should have the right to speak only English, just like other Canadians. Only 9% of anglophones in English Canada can speak French, so the only way to ensure the survival of French in Quebec is to make it the common tongue. Sadly, not even federalist parties are on board with that idea.
Another member told us about a 2013 Government of Canada study on language of work in federally regulated businesses. According to the study, some 170,000 employees work in federally regulated workplaces—about 35,000 of them in Crown corporations and 135,000 in private businesses. Those workers have no recourse under the Official Languages Act or the Charter of the French Language. They have fewer rights than other Quebeckers when it comes to working in French. We have shared stats about this.
The other problem is that since the Official Languages Act seeks to provide services in French where numbers warrant, which does not work, the shift to English has been steadily growing in every province—even in Quebec, in some places. The data is therefore being misrepresented. Linguistic indicators are being created because they are supposedly more inclusive. We see that in the reform proposed by the Minister of Official Languages. The indicators are being changed in order to make it appear as though there are more francophones than there really are.
Naturally, there will be no complaints from the francophone and Acadian communities, because they have the numbers that warrant services in French. However, instead of changing the very principle in the legislation that jeopardizes the future of French in Canada and Quebec, the government is changing the linguistic indicators, which paints a far rosier picture. The study before us concludes that a majority of Quebeckers can work in French. That is not at all what common language is about.
Various indicators show that the use of French increased as the common language in the workplace and as the primary language of work, specifically after Bill 101 passed and until sometime in the 1980s. It was then that the Charter of the French Language was weakened considerably, and the federal government was the main culprit, since it funded lobby groups that sought to weaken the Charter of the French Language.
In private sector businesses across Quebec, the percentage of the labour force working generally in French was 70.8% in 1989 and 59.7% in 2010. On the island of Montreal, it was 45.3% in 1989 and 32.1% in 2010.
If all the data presented in the study are analyzed properly, it is clear that French is definitely not the common language in Quebec workplaces. The federal government is one of the main obstacles, if not the primary obstacle, to ensuring that French is the language of work, the common language in the workplace. We in the Bloc Québécois have been fighting for that since day one of our party's existence.
I see this as absolutely essential and I can think of a number of examples. I meet people in my riding who work for government bodies or private sector companies and who cannot work in French.
We will see how open the members here are to this. Since French does not appear to be all that important, and if this bill does not pass, we will turn to the Quebec government and suggest that it try to ensure that all federally regulated companies are subject to Bill 101.