Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief even though the issue of French is so important that we could talk about it at length.
Fifty years ago, Canada brought in the Official Languages Act. They said they would permanently protect French and English until the end of time. Fifty years later, we are still here this evening to hold an emergency debate because a francophone community in Ontario is under threat.
According to Statistics Canada, the demographic weight of francophones outside Quebec was 3.8% in 2011. According to the projections, that percentage will be 2.7% in 2036. In 2021, is it not time to admit that the Official Languages Act has been a failure and that we need to move on to something else?