Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to respond to my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable.
For our government, our two official languages are the greatest expression of our values as a country, our values of collaboration, openness and respect.
It is precisely because of this central role of French and English in our common identity that our government has always taken the necessary measures to support our communities. It is also for these reasons that we have committed to modernizing and strengthening the Official Languages Act so that it may better serve Canadians.
I would remind my colleague that we made historic investments in official languages through our action plan for official languages 2018-2023 entitled “Investing in Our Future”. We revised the official languages regulations that govern the delivery of federal services in order to better serve Canadians in the official language of their choice. We also brought back the long form census and added linguistic questions to the 2021 census that will help better enumerate those who are entitled to an education in the minority language.
Our commitment to better serve Canadians in the official language of their choice has been crystal clear since 2015. We showed this commitment by making it a priority to review the official languages regulations governing the Government of Canada’s communications with and services to the public. In doing so, we created the ideal conditions to better serve Canadians in the language of their choice. In the early days of this pandemic, we made sure that critical information was available to Canadians in the official language of their choice, and we are continuing to do so.
We have addressed every situation that could impede information on issues affecting the health of Canadians, and we have taken swift action to support the arts and culture sectors so that our organizations in linguistic minority communities do not suffer too much in this pandemic.
We have received broad support for the assistance we have provided, which even the Commissioner of Official Languages has acknowledged. I might add that, thanks to this emergency support fund for arts and culture, about $10 million has been directly invested in nearly 500 organizations in official language minority communities.
We agree with the Commissioner of Official Languages. The COVID-19 crisis has shown the importance of communication with the public and the delivery of services to Canadians. That is precisely why we are investing heavily to train our public servants, amend our laws, create the right conditions to support the health and vitality of our official language communities and support official language learning.