Mr. Speaker, for the 50th anniversary of the Official Languages Act, the commissioner wants a modernized OLA. It is going to take a lot more than a mere modernization because the OLA is based on an ineffective minority language protection model and a gross distortion of reality, which perpetuates the assimilation of francophones.
The OLA supposedly puts French and English on equal footing, but bilingualism is not at risk in Canada, French is. For 50 years, instead of changing the criteria in order to make more French-language services available in Canada, the government has been changing the linguistic indicators to conceal the decline of French.
Instead of making French the common language in the regions where there is a critical mass of francophones, the government reinforces English in Quebec and is stingy about providing services in French in the rest of Canada.
Short of a complete overhaul, the only way forward for French is to make Quebec a country that can better support francophones and Acadians.