Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this very important issue. I want to start by focusing on the issue first, and then I will go into some of the motivations for having this particular debate.
I for one am a very big fan of multiculturalism and the fact that Canada is a bilingual nation. With a name like Lamoureux, I can assure members that I have a very strong passion and belief in how important it is that Canada continues to promote and encourage being a bilingual nation. I thought I would give a bit of a reflection on what went wrong with my family in regard to the French language.
My ancestors have been in Canada for generations. Many years ago, they went from the province of Quebec to Manitoba and Saskatchewan. During the 1950s, the French language was not very well received in certain parts of the Prairies. In this case, my grandmother on my mom's side, with the last name of Lambert and Pasquis, discouraged my mother from learning French. In fact, she never spoke it at home; my mother was told never to speak French, only English. That was in rural Saskatchewan during the 1950s. My father, in contrast, was raised in a family in which they spoke French fluently.
Before living in Winnipeg, my family was in St-Pierre-Jolys in rural Manitoba, which is still a strong French community today, along with St. Boniface. However, because of the disconnect during the 1960s, one would say that women's rights were not as great as they are today, so my mom was the one who raised us. She never spoke French in the household. We never had the opportunity to learn French, which is unfortunate.
I would argue that French is spoken in the Prairies today to the degree that it is because of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He believed in Canada as a bilingual nation. Through that belief, we started to see programming in our school and educational systems that promoted and encouraged speaking French. I still remember, in my earlier childhood, when French was not well received, particularly on the Prairies, by a good majority of people. That has changed in such a positive and encouraging way. I would date it back to the 1970s, when we had a solid commitment from the national government, saying that it wanted French spoken across the country. We needed to recognize the uniqueness of the province of Quebec and its culture and heritage, as well as to ensure that French was also spoken outside Quebec.
Fast-forwarding to today, I can go into a number of schools in Winnipeg North and see people of Punjabi or Filipino heritage who can speak Punjabi, English and French.
It is the same thing when we hear of children who are nine or 10 years old speaking Tagalog, French and English, as well as how popular the French language is as a respected language after one or two generations. It has changed. Today, there are more people speaking French in Canada than ever, and I would suggest that the number will continue to grow. As I said, I will look to Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the policy decisions he made back then as the root of this. Policy decisions matter; they make a difference, and that is why I posed the question in regard to CBC and Radio-Canada. Radio-Canada is very unique in the sense of the French language and the promotion thereof, not to mention CBC on the national scene and the important role it has to play.
The leader of the Conservative Party, more than any other leader in the House of Commons, has a personal vendetta against CBC. Let us not kid ourselves. I have talked about the Tory, the Conservative-Reform hidden agenda, and we saw it in the question I had posed. We should not believe for a moment that the Conservatives look at Radio-Canada as something they would not make cuts to. When I posed the question previously, the member talked about whether we should be financing and so forth. He did not jump to the defence of Radio-Canada, let alone CBC.
Just yesterday, I quoted a CBC story to one of my colleagues. I quoted from a story being reported, and it happened to be CBC's story. It was a very serious quote that I gave to the member opposite. His response to it was that it was CBC, and he sat down. Conservatives do not have any respect for that national newscast. For the Canadians who might be following this debate, the Conservatives actually stopped participating in political panels in regard to CTV. I do not know if they are back at it, but I was attending both CBC and CTV political panels not that long ago, and the Conservatives were nowhere to be found. They look at these institutions with a genuine lack of respect. It is coming from the leader of the Conservative Party.
Why is that important? I will go to some quotes. A wonderful story came out in regard to what is happening within the Conservative caucus. Here is how the story started off. Is it any wonder that people should be concerned about the Conservative Party of Canada, particularly the leader, and its attitudes towards the CBC? The story is all about Conservatives and Conservative MPs who are concerned about the leader of the Conservative Party. They are being quoted; they do not want to use their names. If they use their names, they will be punished. This is from a number of sources, not just one or two, but many sources in terms of the making up of this story.