Debates of April 14th, 2021

Laurentian University in Sudbury

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert. We have time for a 30-second question and, I hope, a 30-second answer.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are not going to fix the whole issue with French in 30 seconds.

I find it pretty pathetic to hear the Liberals and Conservatives passing the buck over the French language. There is just one language at risk in Canada, and that is French.

Three per cent of North Americans speak French. We do not need a policy on the two official languages. We need a policy for one dominant language and one language at risk. So long as the government does not officially acknowledge that French is at risk in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and all across Canada, we will not get any policies to specifically address this serious issue. A culture is in the process of dying.

Does my colleague agree that there is one dominant language and one language at risk in Canada? Could this become a policy?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier has 30 seconds to answer the question.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.

We are in a country called Canada. There are two official languages. We are here in Ottawa this evening in the Parliament of Canada as part of an emergency debate on the French language in Ontario and on Laurentian University. Yes, we need to protect the two official languages across Canada, from coast to coast, to ensure that we remain a bilingual country. Some substantial work is needed to address the French fact specifically.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I wish to express our complete solidarity with Franco-Ontarians and their ongoing struggle to preserve their language. I think that the young people of the sizable francophone community of northeastern Ontario deserve quality services without having to move as far away as Ottawa or Quebec.

Laurentian University, in Sudbury, is about to slash some 60 programs to avoid bankruptcy. We have learned that programs for francophones were especially hard hit. This always seems to be the case.

The president of the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario, Carol Jolin, said there had already been cutbacks in French-language programs for years. He also pointed out that the board of governors of Laurentian University was predominantly anglophone. Historically, whenever an anglophone majority has made decisions for francophones, the outcome has not been positive.

That is why there is the principle of “by and for francophones”. We even learned today in a Radio-Canada article that there was a confidential meeting between several leaders of bilingual universities, including the University of Ottawa, which tolerates Quebec bashing, but that is another issue.

These leaders met with the new Government of Ontario, which had just come into power, so funding for the Université de l'Ontario français had already been secured. They worked hard and made all sorts of proposals to allow the bilingual universities to conduct their programs in French. Three weeks later, we find out to everyone's surprise that the province cut the Université de l'Ontario français and the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner. People joined forces. I admire the francophone and Acadian communities. It is often said that they are experiencing a growing rate of assimilation. That is true, but these people fight for French every single day. We saw that with the Montfort Hospital and the Université de l'Ontario français and we are seeing that yet again with Laurentian University.

The University of Sudbury intends to become a francophone university. I think it is very important to strengthen French in Ontario. The francophone and Acadian communities are saying, and we have seen it, that immersion schools are actually assimilation schools. The francophones who attend those schools get assimilated. That is why I am very concerned to see that, in her official languages reform bill, the Minister of Official Languages plans to increase funding for immersion schools, but she says nothing about schools that are run by and for francophones.

I think that, before increasing funding for immersion schools, the government should ensure that francophones outside Quebec have access to French-language schools. A very large proportion of francophones do not have access to elementary and high schools because of the infamous “where numbers warrant” principle, which is completely shameful. I will come back to that. They do not currently have access to French-language schools, so they end up going to immersion schools and getting assimilated, when all they really want is to go to a French-language school. I think we need to work hard to change the very principle of the Official Languages Act.

When Ms. Risbud, from the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, appeared before the Standing Committee on Official Languages, she talked about how serious the situation is in Alberta. The whole issue of Campus Saint-Jean does not make any sense, particularly since the Government of Alberta recently announced a $98-million commitment to improve the infrastructure of post-secondary institutions. However, not a single penny of that money was allocated to Campus Saint-Jean.

We also learned that the Government of Alberta repeatedly refused to sign federal-provincial agreements which would have resulted in federal funding. The Government of Alberta refused to provide any money for Campus Saint-Jean. Many people ignore or pretend to ignore the fact that all provincial governments that today are primarily English-speaking created laws or regulations prohibiting French-language instruction for francophones. This led to the assimilation of francophones. They were truly ethnocidal laws. That is not too strong a term.

There was a certain rallying of the Estates General of French Canada. We heard about the Laurendeau-Dunton commission. We were told that André Laurendeau himself asked for this commission.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I must interrupt the hon. member for a moment. The technical support officers are telling me that another microphone, not the member's headset, is connected. We want to ensure that we understand and hear everything the member has to say. Please ensure that the headset is connected.

We will resume debate and determine whether the sound is working properly.

The member for La Pointe-de-l'Île.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to slow down, because the interpreters tell us that the faster we talk, the more difficult their work is.

My point is that the language issue has been brushed aside for too long. Up until very recently, we were told that everything was great and that Canada stood as a model in terms of treatment of linguistic minorities. Meanwhile, assimilation rates of francophone populations increased everywhere and the proportion of people who spoke French at home, for example, declined. Nevertheless, everyone kept saying that everything was fine, including in Quebec.

Now that an election is looming, suddenly there is a recognition that French is declining and we have emergency debates. That is great, I am very happy about it, but I think a fundamental change is in order. The Official Languages Act does not work.

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the Laurendeau-Dunton commission, considered more territorial models, like in Switzerland and Belgium. They are the only models that work. Unless there is a common language in a given territory, the survival and vitality of that language cannot be ensured.

In Canada, outside Quebec, we see that English is clearly the common language. In spite of the immigration levels being quite high in Canada, about 99% of language transfers among newcomers favour English. Therefore, English is not threatened in Canada.

We have seen laws against the French language being adopted everywhere. At the time of the Dunton-Laurendeau commission and the Estates General of French Canada, things started moving in Quebec, and the independence movement was born. That was the time when people started waking up. I believe Mr. Pearson had good intentions, but when Mr. Trudeau came, he refused to allow anything to be called into question and did not want to grant any collective rights to Quebeckers or to francophones. He established a model of institutional bilingualism based on individual rights which would be exercised conditionally, in accordance with the famous “where numbers warrant” rule. That model does not work.

Wherever such a system of institutional bilingualism is used in the world, with the same rights applying everywhere, it invariably leads to the assimilation of minority languages. Conversely, systems of territorial bilingualism do work.

In Flemish Belgium, the public service operates in Dutch. That does not stop people from learning four or five second languages easily. Dutch, which is not widely spoken in the rest of the world, is not in danger in Flemish Belgium. The same is true in Wallonia, the francophone region. We need a system that looks like that.

A people's right to self-determination includes the right to secure the future of its national language and culture. That is not what the government opted for. “Where the number warrants” is ludicrous. It means that, if French is in decline somewhere, services in French are cut. That is a bit like having a law to promote employment and fight unemployment that cuts job-finding services wherever employment rates drop. It makes no sense. It is an absolutely ludicrous principle.

The other ludicrous principle was the official language minority rule, which separated French Quebec from francophones in the rest of Canada.

It just so happened that, in Quebec, anglophones were considered to be minority language speakers even though anglophones had school and university systems that received vastly more funding than francophone systems.

According to the rule, anglophones were a minority. Well, they would be if Quebec were independent.

Anyway, they received loads of funding. I just want to quote a study about university funding across Canada. Oddly enough, the study is virtually impossible to find. It was carried out by Frédéric Lacroix and Patrick Sabourin some time ago, in 2005.

They looked at the share of funding for universities based on language.

At that time in Quebec, the Government of Quebec and the federal government jointly provided 27.7% of funding. However, the Government of Quebec is exemplary in its treatment of its linguistic minority as primary and secondary schools as well as CEGEPs and English universities are overfunded. You will find English schools and services for anglophones almost everywhere in Quebec. Where there are very few anglophones, the means are found for English services. Universities have more equitable funding. In the case of Quebec, the funding is not equitable and English universities and education are overfunded.

Approximately 33% of New Brunswick's population was French. Funding for the Université de Moncton and for French-language university services was 26%. That was pretty good. In Ontario, funding was 3% for 5.9% of francophones. In Nova Scotia, it was 1.6% for 4% of francophones. In Alberta, it was 0.2% for 2.5% of francophones. The percentages keep dropping—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am going to interrupt the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île because of a point of order.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear my colleague say that the francophone population in Ontario was 3%. In northern Ontario, is is 50%, and 70% in northeastern Ontario.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I will let the member continue.

The hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I may have misspoken. I meant to say that the proportion of funding that goes to university services in French in Ontario is 3%. I was not talking about Franco-Ontarians. I think that the percentage of Franco-Ontarians whose mother tongue is French is 5.9%.

There is a serious underfunding of post-secondary institutions, including French-language ones, across Canada and Quebec. There is not a lot of research on these institutions, but the Commission nationale des parents francophones conducted a study in 1996 on primary and secondary schools entitled Où sont passés les milliards? or where did the billions go? That study showed that only 28.5% of the funding for the official languages program had been allocated to francophones outside Quebec for education in their mother tongue, while anglophone schools in Quebec received 47.7% of the subsidies.

When the Official Languages Act was brought in, English-language institutions in Quebec were already over-funded. Every Quebecker agrees that anglophones have the right to have English-language institutions by virtue of their historic minority status. That being said, the more a linguistic community has strong and well-funded institutions, the more powerful their language becomes.

The French language is at risk in Quebec because language transfers are too low. About 55% of language transfers go towards French, but 90% is needed to maintain the demographic weight of francophones. In Canada, 99% of these transfers go towards English. That is way off, and if the government wants to get back on track, it has to fund post-secondary institutions and health care. This is important, because it is directly connected to the attraction power of French. French-language institutions need to receive equal funding in the rest of Canada, as in Quebec.

This really needs to be reconsidered. To my friends who are advocating for francophone universities outside Quebec, I suggest that they use the example of funding for Quebec's post-secondary education system. In 2015-16, 33.5% of federal funding for post-secondary education went to the English-language system. In 2018-19, that figure was 32%.

We need a complete overhaul of the Official Languages Act. We need to get our heads out of the sand. The government took the first step when it admitted to the decline of French in Quebec, as in the rest of Canada. Now it needs to walk the talk.

Quebeckers get worried every time that French-language elementary and high schools or universities outside Quebec get funding, because education is normally a provincial jurisdiction. It is rather absurd that the federal government is required to provide this funding to the other provinces to ensure a minimum number of French-language institutions. There are not enough of them, though, and there is a lot of catching up to do. Assimilation progresses as time goes on. My compatriots in francophone and Acadian communities are fighting like the devil. This is laudable, and I think they are an inspiration to Quebeckers.

We need to join forces, and for that to happen, the Official Languages Act needs to be amended. We need to work on it together to reverse the decline of the French language.

Everyone has good intentions and is saying all the right things. When election time comes around, everyone makes lofty promises. After the election, as a certain singer once put it, “The day before the election he called you his son; the very next day, of course he forgot your name.” This is all talk and no action.

If nothing is done, the situation will be untenable in Quebec. We will not accept this decline of French. Things are very difficult in the greater Montreal area. Francophone students are in the minority in French-language schools. Francophones, people whose mother tongue is French and who speak French at home, are becoming a minority. All indicators are pointing in that direction, unless there is a big shift, a fundamental change.

What we heard from the minister yesterday at the Standing Committee on Official Languages was not at all reassuring. Nobody other than the Bloc Québécois has conveyed Quebec's demands on the modernization of the Official Languages Act. We do have some allies, I do not want to point fingers at everyone.

What we want is for Quebec to be its own master when it comes to language policy and language management, and for the federal government to recognize that Quebec is part of the francophone minority in North America. We are surrounded by 350 million anglophones.

It is only natural for newcomers who settle somewhere to lean towards the majority. Everyone is like that. Whether in Quebec or anywhere else in Canada, the majority is anglophone. The majority on the continent is even more so. That is why French must remain the common language in Quebec.

In my view, if the government really wants to ensure the future of French outside Quebec, then there should be territories. I think Acadians were or are demanding community governance in some places. It came very late. The first public high schools in Ontario—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am going to interrupt the hon. member. His time is up. Questions and comments.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec)]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech this evening and for the request for emergency debate, which enables us to discuss this important issue.

Obviously, we support the French language. Before I became an MP, I earned a living working with French. It is part of my identity, my history and my daily life. I will therefore do everything I can to defend it.

With regard to Laurentian University, it is vital to have strong institutions, particularly in francophone minority communities in other parts of Canada. Our government is there. We are present. We encourage the provinces and territories to provide their communities with a quality French-language or bilingual education and support them in doing so. The government has been supporting education in the minority language for over 50 years. We will continue to do that with investments of $150 million per year and an additional amount of over $15 million per year from 2019 to 2023.

Unlike the official opposition, which denies the fact that education is a provincial jurisdiction, I would like my colleague to tell me what action the government can take within our areas of jurisdiction.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

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.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, with his usual passion, has shown that tonight's emergency debate on the elimination of French-language programs at Laurentian University is just the tip of the iceberg, and that it is really the decline of the French language in Canada that is extremely worrisome.

I would like to bring the debate back to the situation at Laurentian University. Apart from what he said in his speech, I would like to know whether he agrees that this is a bilingual university in an anglophone setting and, as the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario, or AFO, has said, the solution must be to create a francophone institution, eventually with an indigenous component, but with francophones.

Does the member think we need to rethink the governance model and, of course, come up with a temporary solution that I am sure the minister will look into?

I would like to hear the member's thoughts on the governance model he favours for breaking Laurentian University's current impasse.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague gave me the answer in his question. I would also like to thank him for being an ally at the official languages committee and helping to launch the first ever study on French within Quebec, as well as French outside Quebec.

I agree that we need to focus as much as possible on the idea of “by” and “for” francophones. In partnership with the Association des enseignantes et enseignants franco-ontariens, the University of Sudbury has announced that it intends to become a francophone university. I think we should give this initiative all our support. The French programs at Laurentian University need to be maintained, but we also need to move more towards models “by” and “for” francophones. Earlier I was looking at my list and the percentage of funding that went to universities. For Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, the funding is zero dollars.

Alberta has Campus Saint-Jean, and we need to try to preserve it and ensure its development. We need to move towards models “by” and “for” francophones as much as possible.

With diminishing support for post-secondary education in French, where will the professors come from if there are no more francophone universities and no more French programs? This is crucial. The Francophone and Acadian communities cannot afford to lose these French programs. Personally, I think there should be a lot more than there are now.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from La Pointe-de-l'Île for his speech.

His comments are sometimes a bit confused and unclear. He throws a lot of numbers around. He even said that in Quebec, francophone students are the minority in French schools. I did not quite understand what he was trying to say. That said, I share his passion for defending the Francophonie and the French fact throughout Quebec and North America.

I have a very simple question for him. Does he believe the federal government has a role to play in defending francophone rights and that it is therefore the role of the federal government to support the French fact in Quebec and across Canada?

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what I said earlier was that students in Montreal are in the minority in French schools. I will send him the numbers, and we can debate them at the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

I do not think what I said was confusing. Everyone who defends French in Quebec supports the territorial model of bilingualism. If the member were more accustomed to listening to them, I think he would understand what I am saying more easily.

As was mentioned, the federal government's role in Quebec is to negotiate agreements and not impose unilateral measures. Quebec already allocates too much funding to anglophone institutions. We do not need measures shoved down our throats by the federal government. That is a fundamental principle of self-determination.

When I shared Quebec's demand with Ms. Joly yesterday, she said that her government was acting in accordance with the Constitution. However, this Constitution was foisted on Quebec. No Quebec government has signed it, because it is primarily designed to dismantle Bill 101.

The federal government needs to respect provincial jurisdictions, and this is done through agreements. It needs to get its head out of the sand. It doles out funding in the rest of Canada and then acts as though it is doing a good job and everything is fine, but meanwhile French is on the decline everywhere. There is something wrong there.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before we move on, I want to remind members that they cannot use other members' names. They can refer to ridings or to the member's title in the House. Debates can sometimes get heated, and I know that it is easy to forget this rule. I just wanted to give a reminder.

Resuming debate, the hon. Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to see you and all my colleagues this evening. I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague, the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance.

The reason we are gathered here this evening is a sad one. Laurentian University is an institution that makes a tremendous contribution to the region's economic development, but it is also a flagship institution for official languages because it offers courses in French to northern Ontario's francophone population as well as programs for the indigenous community, as some members have mentioned. As such, we are gathered here this evening out of a sense of solidarity, and I want to thank my colleagues for taking the time to share their perspectives, contribute to the debate and, ultimately, find solutions to this problem.

My government and I are extremely concerned about the cuts at Laurentian University. It breaks our hearts, and it breaks my heart, to hear about the professors and researchers who have lost their jobs and the students who will not be able to finish their degrees because their programs were cancelled. We have to be cognizant of their reality, we have to be there for them and we have to work with them to find solutions.

Of course, I am extremely saddened by the stories we have all heard about students, French-speaking students and English-speaking students, who have lost a lot of opportunities to continue to study in their region of northern Ontario.

The situation calls for clear direction and problem solving.

Since coming to power in 2015, our government has taken several measures to rebuild bridges with francophone communities across the country and to protect the linguistic rights of people who are fighting every day to be able to speak French.

For instance, there was the historic $2.7-billion investment to help our communities, as well as the funding to build the Place des Arts in Sudbury, which I had the opportunity to announce with my colleague, the member for Sudbury.

There are many more examples that demonstrate how proactive we have been when it comes to official languages. Ontario's French-language university, the first university by and for francophones, is one example. Let us not forget the cuts made by Radio-Canada in Windsor and at other French-language stations in Ontario. We were able to reverse those cuts and invest $175 million. Let us not forget the census issue either, or the changes made to part IV of the Official Languages Act to increase services offered in French by federal institutions. We have been extremely proactive.

In order to keep our official language communities strong and enable them to continue speaking French, both now and generations from now, we know that they need strong institutions. The very existence of these communities is at stake, along with their survival and, of course, their future prosperity. That is why we decided to go above and beyond investments, to get to the very heart of the system that protects our language rights in Canada, and to modernize the Official Languages Act.

Over 50 years ago, Canada came up with a way to protect our language rights. All members know that we have agreements with the provinces and territories regarding education. Through these agreements, we help the French and French-as-a-second-language education systems. During our time in office, we have increased the funding transferred to the provinces. In 2018, we increased funding by $60 million.

We want to go even further because we know that education does not just involve elementary and secondary school. We need to recognize that children whose parents want to ensure that they can continue to speak the minority language must also be able to go to day care in the minority language, which is French in this case, and that, of course, the education continuum then needs to continue through elementary school, high school and post-secondary studies.

That is why our reform recognizes the importance of the education continuum. We need to protect the institutions and recognize the education continuum. We need to work with the provinces to do that because we are operating within a federal system that provides for two things.

First, the Constitution provides for linguistic rights based on our two official languages, and the federal government is responsible for protecting those rights. It also provides for a division of powers. Education is a provincial jurisdiction. The Supreme Court had many opportunities to establish a clear precedent in that regard. Just last summer, with the British Columbia school boards, the Supreme Court stated that both official languages had to be truly equal and that provinces had to play their part in financing their education system in the minority language, in this case French.

Whether it is Campus Saint-Jean or Laurentian University, provinces need to be at the table and find concrete solutions to make sure that the francophone minority and francophiles have access to high quality post-secondary education in their region, like every citizen should.

Regarding Laurentian University, which is the subject of tonight's debate, I had a chance to talk with the Ontario minister of education and the Ontario minister of francophone affairs. It goes without saying that they have to play their part in finding a solution to protect a French-language post-secondary institution in northern Ontario. I am prepared to have many conversations with them. At the end of the day, they have to be able to come up with a solution, and we will be there at the table to help them financially. We will be there because we believe, as the federal government, that we have to protect the linguistic rights that fall under our jurisdiction in accordance with the Constitution. However, the groundwork has to be done at the provincial level.

The province is facing a major language crisis. It must acknowledge that and take action. It should be able to find solutions. It is not normal to find ourselves in a situation where a public university has to go to court when there are management problems. In those circumstances, we will certainly be there to help the community find solutions and to make sure that funding is available. For our education system to work, we must also make sure that provinces are accountable.

What is happening now is especially dramatic because some programs were abolished, namely the midwife program. Such a cut has devastating effects on a whole generation of francophones because the program offered by the Laurentian University was the only public health education program offered outside Quebec. It was a key program for women’s health, especially in Canada's Far North. As we can see, it has a very real impact. We must be able to work with the province and with the community to fund education programs in that field.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the really important quality work which the members for Sudbury and for Nickel Belt have been doing for years. My colleagues are very much in touch with their community and are proud Franco-Ontarians. I know they do a great job in defending the interests of their fellow citizens. I also know that they maintain an ongoing dialogue with people like Stéphane Gauthier and Denis Constantineau, who are involved in trying to find solutions to strengthen the French fact in northern Ontario.

Franco-Ontarians and Sudburians are resilient. We will stand by them and help them defend their language rights and ensure the sustainability of the French fact in Sudbury, in northern Ontario and across Canada.

I look forward to questions from my colleagues.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech.

I imagine that she has known for a while that Laurentian University has been struggling. She probably knew before the university decided to seek bankruptcy protection.

When was she informed that the university was experiencing difficulties? What did she do when she got this information?

She certainly did not learn only at the beginning of February that Laurentian University was struggling.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

Laurentian University is an important institution. That said, the university primarily discussed its management of public funds with the province and not the federal government.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister and I have had many conversations. As she knows, I am the member of Parliament for the riding that has Campus Saint-Jean in it. I am deeply worried about the impacts on universities. My big concern is this. Today, she spoke about how the provinces needed to come to the table and how we needed to depend on our provincial leaders to act. I cannot depend on my provincial leader to act. I cannot depend on Jason Kenney to do the right thing for francophonie in Alberta. It feels like a cop-out when she says that I need to ensure Jason Kenney will act.

How will she protect the francophonie in my riding, if we cannot get our UCP leader to come to the table?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague for her leadership on the question of Campus Saint-Jean. We have, indeed, had a lot of conversations together regarding the survival of Campus Saint-Jean.

As a federal government, we do many things to ensure that francophones in Alberta are not only able to continue to have a post-secondary institution, but that they are able to uphold their rights. That is started by ensuring that Campus Saint-Jean has adequate funding. I am very aware of the funding that has been left on the table by the Alberta government. I want to reiterate the fact that there are $2 million on the table to help Campus Saint-Jean. That is the first thing.

The second thing is that we want to ensure we protect the court challenges program in the Official Languages Act. We very much know that francophones in Alberta right now are before the courts fighting the Alberta government. We need to stand by their side to help them, and that is through the court challenges program.

I hope my colleagues in the Conservative party hear me loud and clear on this one. We want to ensure that the court challenges program is protected under the Official Languages Act. When I am able to table a bill, I really hope they will support that. We all know the court challenges program was abolished by the Harper government in the past.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the minister.

First, does she intend to support the plan to make the University of Sudbury a francophone university?

Second, the minister said that she wants to help promote French in Quebec. Does this mean that the government will continue to fund English only through the development of official-language communities program and the enhancement of official languages program, which fall under the Official Languages Act?