Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert for his question. I appreciate his comment. He recognizes that French is in decline in Canada.
Now, we are in a country. As the Conservative Party shadow minister for official languages, I care deeply about official language minority communities. Yes, we recognize the decline of French. We need to take action. We must protect and promote both official languages.
The fact that French is the 17th most spoken language in Toronto and the eighth most spoken language in Alberta is indeed tragic. It just goes to show that the bill that was introduced, to which I proposed many amendments that were unfortunately rejected by the Liberal government and its friends in the NDP, proves I am right to be concerned about the French language and how it will be protected in the coming years. I agree with my colleague.