Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has supported both official languages since 1969.
During the Laurendeau-Dunton commission hearings, the importance of French was made abundantly clear, and the commission made good recommendations. At the time, it was actually Pierre Elliott Trudeau who established institutional bilingualism in our entire public service, ensuring that all Quebeckers and francophones across the country would have access to services in French.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and we are now at a point where we need to do more to protect French, a minority language in Canada and North America.
This is the first time the government has recognized the situation, which is why are going to take action.