I would say that the Government of Quebec is asking that positive measures of the Official Languages Act—and this is different from post-secondary funding—not be implemented in Quebec unilaterally, but that they be agreed to by Quebec, and that they consider the real needs of the anglophone community in Quebec as well. The federal government must work with the Government of Quebec.
I think it is the same thing and that we could accomplish that. We must speak out against what is currently happening. Francophone Acadian communities have to fight every day and are forced to start over every time. We see it at the Standing Committee on Official Languages. People cannot get over the fact that although the Official Languages Act has been in place for 50 years, French has fallen by the wayside with the arrival of the pandemic.
The federal government must work with the provinces. At some point, the government will have to acknowledge reality. It has now started to do so and it must stay the course. It must realize that this makes no sense. Ontario officially apologized for Regulation 17, but it then went back to its old ways. It is as though there was no awareness of Canada's history of assimilation. More than 75% of francophones outside Quebec were assimilated, since they did not have access to French-language schools.
I knew a union member who left for Alberta with his family. There were no French kindergarten classes and so they started one. Then they fought for primary education. They did what they could. Finally, his growing family moved back to Quebec because they could not keep up the fight. Some people do continue to fight and I respect them for it. I believe we should give them maximum support. Quebeckers should work with them to change the Official Languages Act, which is not meaningful and puts us at loggerheads. I think we can do it.